Emergency CD

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In the field of computer security , the term emergency CD refers to a bootable medium that is used to repair or restore a defective system.

This is necessary if the operating system of the computer is so badly damaged that it no longer on the hard drive can be started. Even if a system is infected with malware such as rootkits , an emergency CD can be helpful in troubleshooting or backing up data. As a rule, a virus scan or data backup can be carried out from an emergency CD .

functionality

Rescue CDs usually consist of a bootable system and programs that operate on that system. This system is often a live distribution of Linux , as is the case with the SystemRescueCd . It is also possible to run a live version of Windows , as in the case of BartPE , or a BSD system.

Rescue CDs also contain tools to repair damaged system files, reinstall a system, or scan for malware. Diagnostic tools are also often included, which are intended to identify a hardware error as the cause of the damage to the system. Most emergency CDs are non-commercial projects. Many therefore allow and support it to be expanded according to their own ideas, for example with programs.

reference

Live CDs can serve as emergency CDs . Also, some manufacturers of antivirus are emergency CDs offered. In both cases you can usually download image files of the respective emergency CD from the Internet free of charge.

Emergency CDs to ward off malware

Emergency CDs for defense against malware are a special case . Here, the CD often only contains a text-based Linux and a virus scanner. The Linux system is started directly from the medium, so that the actual operating system of the computer is bypassed. Many rescue CDs can use an existing Internet connection to update their virus database.

A virus scan can be carried out after booting from an often simple menu. The advantage of this method is that the virus scanner has access to possibly infected system files and can render them harmless, for example by renaming or deleting the affected files.

Such emergency CDs are available for download free of charge by the manufacturers Avira , BitDefender , F-Secure , Kaspersky and Norman .

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