How to scan Windows machine using Linux?

This time I am up with something unusual but very useful. Last week my Windows XP machine got infected from virus. The virus made the machine nearly unusable. I attempted to use various anti virus but with no effect. The machine became so slow it seemed that even a simple anti virus installation would take ages. I was quite annoyed way the things turn out for me.

I tried to think in non conventional manner and thought to take help from my good old friend, Linux. Yes, Linux can scan windows machine and it does it quite well. I will share the whole process that I followed to achieve it.

The first thing I did was, to take the back up of my data using the third party Windows data recovery software. It creates the image of the data for future use. Then removed the hard drive from the Windows machine. Yes, you guessed it right next thing was to attach it to the Linux machine. Then after connecting the hard drive to the Linux machine an icon appeared on the desktop. After that to ensure the drive is properly mounted double clicked on it. Once done with this, searched out for the location where the drive was mounted. In most of the cases it appears in /media so happened in this case. Started the scanning tools mounted on the drive.

This scan got caught of the viruses on my machine. If in case the scanner does not locate the infected files you might need to run a different scanner. Once done with this I unmounted the external hard drive before removing the hardware. After taking it off from the Linux machine, re-installed it to the windows machine and let it boot.

You would have never thought that your Linux machine will ever need a anti virus but, for such a situation when you are trying to scan your windows using Linux you need one.