Will it help to scan a HDD virus infected image on a faster computer?

areynot

Honorable
Oct 27, 2013
1
0
10,510
I keep getting these old laptops full of virus where a full system scan with a rescue cd takes at least 4 hours, I was thinking if there is a way to create a image of the hard drive and load it on a faster pc with a better processor and faster HDD to scan/clean the system and then load that clear image back on the original PC. Is this valid/possible? Im just looking for ways to speed up the virus removal process that seems to take forever.
 

USAFRet

Illustrious
Moderator
I'm not sure that would actually be any faster. Many more steps involved.

1. Make image
2. Clone image to the other hard drive
3. Mount in the fast PC
4. Scan & clean
5, Make another image of the now clean drive data
6. Clone back to the laptop.

vs
1. Scan & clean, while you go do something else
 

ex_bubblehead

Distinguished
Moderator
The proper way to scan/clean an infected disk is to install it in an enclosure (or use an adapter) and connect it via USB externally. This way none of the files on the suspect disk are 'live', it's just data. It's virtually impossible to get a disk completely clean if you are running it live as rootkits and the like can actively hide from scans. They can't do that if the drive is scanned as a data only drive. Of course all bets are off if working with an encrypted drive.