Quick Question - Data Recovery on infected system

[DaveLembke]

Just checking here on this... friend of mine had a severely infected system. I booted off of Linux Mint 15 DVD in Live OS environment which allows me to connect and mount a 32GB USB flash drive and the virus to be inactive. Currently copying over 18GB of data from his user profile to the 32GB USB stick.

I know that Linux is immune to the virus that is on the system to transfer the data to the USB flash drive.

Question I have is ... is there a Linux based antivirus tool out there that can scan the thumb drive for Windows based virus's or am I forced to go the method I have gone in the past with using a spare computer with latest AV running with realtime protection and then have that discover the potential virus's on the flash drive when flash drive is plugged in, and then have that remove the problems that might be on this USB stick in potentially infected files?

[Geek-9pm]

Yes, some of the 'Rescue Disks' for Windows are actually Linux OS with a Windows AV installed.
http://free.avg.com/us-en/226162

Introduction
The AVG Rescue CD is a standalone set of tools that can be started from CD or USB flash disk. It can be used to recover computers that are not able to boot or are infected in a way that will not allow normal operation. The whole CD or USB flash drive is a live CD with Linux operating system and AVG preinstalled on it.
This document will guide you through basic operations of AVG Rescue CD and its features. You can also get additional information in the Knowledge base section of the AVG web pages.

There are also such things made by Avira and others.
http://www.avira.com/en/download/product/avira-rescue-system
Hope that helps.