Sophos Bootable Anti-Virus: download and CD creation instructions

If you have tried all other methods of removing a malware infection from your computer and you are still having problems, use the instructions below to download the Sophos Bootable Anti-Virus file and burn it to CD.

Please note:

• Sophos Bootable Anti-Virus is an emergency solution that may cause data loss in specific situations. Do not use this tool until all other options have been exhausted.

• Once the virus outbreak has been contained and eliminated from your network, please delete the downloaded program and destroy the CD. If you need to use SBAV again in the future, Sophos Technical Support will be happy to provide you with a link to a newer version of the tool.

• Sophos Bootable Anti-Virus cannot scan encrypted disks.

• Sophos Bootable Anti-Virus may not work with all processor types. If you encounter problems booting the affected PC, try the CD on a different PC. If it boots up, then the chipset is not supported: unfortunately, we cannot add additional chipset support to the tool.

What to do

Before you start, contact Sophos Technical Support and tell them that you may need to use Sophos Bootable Anti-Virus. If appropriate, they will provide you with a link to the tool.

1. At an uninfected computer with access to a CD burner, CD burning software and the Internet, navigate to the location you have been given. You will need to enter your MySophos credentials in order to download the tool. 

2. Save the downloaded  sbav_10_sfx file to your Windows desktop and then double-click it to install the SBAV CD creator application, the Licence Agreement and the Release Notes. Note that during the installation you will be prompted for the location to which you want to install it.

3. Accept the Licence Agreement, and then specify the installation location make a note of it. (The default is C:\SBAV) 

4. Open a command prompt. To do this, click Start | Run and then type cmd and press the Enter key.

5. Type cd c:\sbav10 (or replace C:\SBAV with the location you noted in step 2. SBAV assumes that you are working from the C: drive, so if the location is in another drive, you will have to change directories first). 

6. Press Enter.

7. Type sbavc.exe sbav.iso (replace sbav.iso with another name for the CD, if desired) and press Enter.

   The program will go through a series of steps:

   • It downloads the Linux distribution from Sophos and verifies its contents (approximately 100MB)
   • It downloads Sophos Anti-Virus for Linux and verifies it (approximately 50MB)
   • It downloads the latest IDE files (approximately 500kB)
   • It creates the .iso file in the folder that you specified in step 2.
     

8. Close the Command Prompt window.

9. In Windows, open the CD burning software application and burn the .iso file to disk.
   
   Note: you must select the option to 'create a disk image'; do NOT select the option 'create a bootable CD' -- the image you are burning is already a bootable disc. Also, Sophos cannot recommend CD burning software or help you use it.

When you have created the CD to use on your infected computer, please see Sophos Bootable Anti-Virus: using the Sophos Bootable Anti-Virus CD on your infected computer.

Sophos would like to thank Eric Young for his contribution to this application.