Scanning another PC or system boot drive

[sherryxp2000]

Sometimes I repair my friends PC's. It leads me to the question.

Let's say I take their Windows boot drive from thier PC, and add it to my PC as a NON-booting drive.

I scan it with ESET, will it repair that added drive PROPERLY? (even tho it's a BOOT drive for another PC)

I need an answer at this point, before you read further please.

Typically I use a free AV on such machines, such as AVAST or AVG. But I have ran into a rare case, the PC can get no further than the LOGON screen. The mouse and keyboard are then non-funtioning, but the PC is NOT locked up. The mouse and keyboard are good, as they work in the BIOS and Dell internal hardware diags. The units also work on other PC's, as I tested just to be sure. I know the machine is NOT locked up because when I press the power button, Windows states it is shutting down.

It must be a unique virus. For now I just backedup their data on my own machine, and about to reinstall the OS once thier Windows BOOT cd comes in the mail.

ANother question:

Can ESET scan network drives on another PC and repair them properly? Assuming the permission rights are given to change data on such drives.

[cupez80]

AFAIK Eset AV (and most of other AV) only remove malware file (maybe some registry key that link to that file) but won't repairing system. You must repair / restore system by yourself. so if you attach other HDD into your PC then scan it ESET will remove any malware that found in the attached drive but the system will remain unchanged/ not restored to pre-infection condition. this also applies to network share/ network drive.

[Marcos]

It could be that the malware was removed improperly and an important registry entry refering to userinit.exe was removed along with the malware. In such case, you wouldn't be able to boot to safe mode either and the only way to get it working would be either by using Bart's CD and amending the appropriate registry value manually or by reinstalling the OS from the boot cd when all programs and settings should be preserved.