If you suspect that your PC has been infected with malware, a rootkit, virus, trojan, worm or something other nasty program, then you can try scrubbing it clean with your conventional desktop or online antivirus program, but they are not likely to be 100% efficient. Moreover, clever malware has always been able to easily hide from such programs that must run once the operating system has booted up.

The only way around thise double-edged problem is to boot from a so-called live CD or a USB stick or similar device. But, you don’t want to boot into your own operating system, especially if it’s MSWindows.

A rescue disk (prepared in advance of infection or borrowed from a friend/colleague) will usually let you boot your machine temporarily into Linux, connect to the internet, download updates to the antivirus program and data files and then scan your Windows machine from outside the Windows system.

I have the AVG Rescue CD for this purpose, but there are others you can create. They contain a standalone set of tools that can be started from CD or USB flash disk. It can be used to recover computers that are not able to boot or are infected in a way that will not allow normal operation.

The regular use of such a disk in conjunction with an antivirus program (Microsoft Security Essentials or Panda in the Cloud) and Firewall (hardware/router based and Windows firewall enabled), together with regular scans with MalwareBytes and Secunia to keep all your programs updated, will keep you nice and safe. It’s either that or taking the plung and buying an Apple Mac.

You can download a free ebook – 50 Cool Uses for live CDs here.