How do I scan my windows partition for viruses from Ubuntu?

Solution 1:

There is lots of bootable anti virus disks you can use, I would recommend AVG Free. AVG has over 110 million user. It provides antivirus protection for Linux/FreeBSD for free.

AVG Free is a version of the AVG antivirus which is free for private and non-commercial use. There is no graphical interface available for the current Linux versions of AVG.¹

To download click here.

Once you install, reboot the PC to initialize AVG. Alternatively you could run

sudo /etc/init.d/avgd start  

To start using AVG, just press Ctrl+Alt+T on your keyboard to open Terminal. When it opens, run the command below

sudo avgupdate

More on help.ubuntu.com

However I would suggest that you run an up to date anti-virus scanner from within your windows partition. Or you can use Bitdefender. Boot CD available here

For the top 5 Anti virus for Ubuntu. See here

^{1Source:Ubuntu Documentations}

Solution 2:

It is possible to scan your windows partition. I recommend you do it off a live CD (32 bit).

Download and install Avast! Linux Home Edition.

Launch Avast and update its Database.

Now mount your Windows Partition.

Click on Selected folders and browse to your partition.

Click start scan.

Solution 3:

Install ClamTk - that is a graphical frontend for ClamAV, the command line antivirus mentioned here.

Solution 4:

You said you didn't find a setting within clamAV to scan other partitions. What about:

sudo clamscan -r --move=/tmp/virus /mnt/windows-partition

to show only infected files add the -iswitch Perhaps you should do a sudo freshclam before scanning to update your virus definitions.