AVG makes free recovery boot disk offer

Security firm AVG is offering users a free utility to rescue damaged systems.

The company, best known for its free AVG security suite, said that it would be releasing a new boot disc tool which can be copied on to either a blank CD or USB flash drive and used as an emergency boot disc should the system become damaged.

Previously, the boot disk utility had only been available as part of the company's small business utility suite.

When loaded, the tool will be able to perform a 'clean boot' of the system, mounting all hard disk drives and then scanning them for malware infections and damaged data and establish a safe network connection for the machine.

Additionally, the tool will offer advanced features for administrators and more advanced users, such as a registry editor, a file browser, tools to recover deleted files and network diagnostics tools.

The company said that the Linux-based tool will support Windows systems and will be available for download from the company's web site.