From: Denis McMahon on
Hi

I have a virus problem on an XP machine that is proving particularly
difficult to root out. I have identified several files in the windows
dir that are suspect and not part of any known application, and are
being installed at boot as services etc.

What I'd like to do is boot a livecd console that had ntfs support,
mount the hd partition and rm the files concerned.

I tried PCLoginNow_Full_2.0.iso which I figured must be able to mount
the XP / Vista NTFS partitions if it can reset passwords, but it goes
into a reboot loop.

I also tried ploplinux-v3.7.14.iso which let me mount the disk with
"mount -t ntfs /dev/hda /mnt" from its console, and with which I could
append to existing files (eg 'echo "# another dumb comment" >>
/mnt/WINDOWS/system32/drivers/etc/hosts') but it wouldn't let me create
or delete files using cp or rm or even 'echo blah > file' to a new file.

I recall that there was another VISTA / XP utility I used before once
that was linux based and which worked, but I can't remember what it was
called.

Surely somewhere there's a livecd iso that can run a console and mount
an ntfs volume so that I can delete files on it? Or failing that, some
pointers on assembling one?

I assume a kernel compiled with ntfs support, some codepage support for
different keyboard / character set mappings, and the ability to mount
ide, scsi and sata drives and provide minimal functionality to ls, rm,
cd, rmdir, cat and maybe a few other core linux commands can be squeezed
into somewhat less than 650 Mb.

Denis
From: Robert Harris on
Denis McMahon wrote:
> Hi
>
> I have a virus problem on an XP machine that is proving particularly
> difficult to root out. I have identified several files in the windows
> dir that are suspect and not part of any known application, and are
> being installed at boot as services etc.
>
> What I'd like to do is boot a livecd console that had ntfs support,
> mount the hd partition and rm the files concerned.

Try "Trinity Rescue Kit". It worked well for me.

Robert
>
> [snip]
From: chris on
Denis McMahon wrote:
> Hi
>
> I have a virus problem on an XP machine that is proving particularly
> difficult to root out. I have identified several files in the windows
> dir that are suspect and not part of any known application, and are
> being installed at boot as services etc.
>
> What I'd like to do is boot a livecd console that had ntfs support,
> mount the hd partition and rm the files concerned.

Two suggestions:
1. Mepis liveCD has the ntfs-3g kernel drivers builtin and should work
OOTB. It's a full linux distro as well.
http://www.mepis.org/mirrors
2. system rescue cd is much more bare bones, but also has the required
drivers.
http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page
From: Tony Houghton on
On Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:40:06 +0000
Denis McMahon <denis.m.f.mcmahon(a)googlemail.com> wrote:

> What I'd like to do is boot a livecd console that had ntfs support,
> mount the hd partition and rm the files concerned.
>
> I tried PCLoginNow_Full_2.0.iso which I figured must be able to mount
> the XP / Vista NTFS partitions if it can reset passwords, but it goes
> into a reboot loop.
>
> I also tried ploplinux-v3.7.14.iso which let me mount the disk with
> "mount -t ntfs /dev/hda /mnt" from its console, and with which I could
> append to existing files (eg 'echo "# another dumb comment" >>
> /mnt/WINDOWS/system32/drivers/etc/hosts') but it wouldn't let me create
> or delete files using cp or rm or even 'echo blah > file' to a new file.

You need to mount it as ntfs-3g, not ntfs. In case plop doesn't support
ntfs-3g, I'm pretty sure all the common ones like Ubuntu, Knoppix and
System Rescue do.

--
TH * http://www.realh.co.uk

From: Conor on
Denis McMahon wrote:

> Surely somewhere there's a livecd iso that can run a console and mount
> an ntfs volume so that I can delete files on it? Or failing that, some
> pointers on assembling one?
>
Ubuntu can. Basically any distro that has ntfs-3g in the packages and
does a LiveCD can.


--
Conor

"Some of you may be anxious about finding a new job, or a new place to
live. I know how you feel." President Bush, 2008