Mobile telephone as bootstrap device

A method of diagnosing a computer using a mobile telephone, said method comprising:

• establishing communication between said mobile telephone and said computer;
• transferring an operating system image stored in persistent storage of said mobile telephone to said computer,
• said operating system image including executable antivirus software;
• receiving at an interface application of said mobile telephone results from execution of said antivirus software on said computer, said results indicative of the presence of malware and said computer;
• uploading over an Internet connection said results from said mobile telephone to a remotely located antivirus service;
• after said uploading, receiving at said interface application of said mobile telephone instructions for removing said malware from said computer, said instructions originating from said antivirus service and not from said mobile telephone;
• and
• sending said instructions from said interface application to said computer, whereby said antivirus software implements said instructions on said computer to remove said malware.

A system for removing malware from a computer, said system comprising:

• a computer that is unable to bootstrap itself from its internal drive, said computer including a malicious file;
• a mobile telephone having a partition in its persistent storage that includes an operating system image, said operating system image able to bootstrap said computer and including executable antivirus software, said mobile telephone also having the ability to create an Internet connection;
• a cable connecting said mobile telephone with said computer;
• and
• an antivirus service located remotely from said mobile telephone and accessible over an Internet connection, said antivirus service arranged to receive results from said antivirus software executing upon said computer and further arranged to produce a response indicating removal of said malicious file.