Main Area and Open Discussion > Living Room

Best USB/Bootable recovery and "utility" tools

<< < (3/6) > >>

Stoic Joker:
Oh yes...and let's not forget Darik's Boot & Nuke (DBAN) disk.
-40hz (January 16, 2012, 04:50 PM)
--- End quote ---

I love that one.

I've also found the Kaspersky Rescue Disk quite handy a few times.

absoblogginlutely:
The Winternals ERD commander is still alive and well under Microsoft but you need to go through a couple more hoops to get it. It is now part of Microsofts Desktop Optimization Pack and is only available through a few methods. You need to have purchased Software Assurance AND the MDOP licence that gives you several benefits including the new ERD distro. Alternatively if you have technet or a MSDN subscription you can get the software for evaluation purposes too.
Search your Technet/MSDN downloads at technet.microsoft.com for Desktop Optimization Pack and download.

For what it's worth, the tool is very good at recovering data in the case of a missing Boot loader or virus or something else mangling the system.

Another useful tool that you might have seen and that is partly related is the ZALMAN ZM VE200 SATA hard drive caddy. Add your hard drive with all the iso's installed, and then attach the drive to your machine, select the iso you want to boot from with the jog wheel and boot away.  Note that I don't actually have one yet but I have seen it in action.  A good review with some hints and tips for using it is at http://www.rmprepusb.com/tutorials/ve200 ($43 at newegg - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817379025 ) (Note there is also a USB version at $55 but thats out of stock)

Hope this helps.

dluby:
I don't know where to start with all these suggested tools! They all sound so useful.

4wd:
Another useful tool that you might have seen and that is partly related is the ZALMAN ZM VE200 SATA hard drive caddy.-absoblogginlutely (February 15, 2012, 06:39 AM)
--- End quote ---

Well, there goes some of my birthday money  :(

Just ordered the Zalman ZM-VE300 USB3 version - I'm thinking a nice reasonably cheap SSD, (probably a HDD until I see cheap SSD).

Curse you absoblogginlutely  >:(



But thanks for mentioning it  :Thmbsup:

Steven Avery:
Hi,

For the sometimes critical issue of easy backup from defunct Windows to USB, Parted Magic is very strong (in addition to being graphical pleasant).  The file manager is PCMan (which is is not available on many rescue CDs and is now being developed as SpaceFM). Not officially dual pane, but you simply open a window (also has tabs), and there is drag-and-drop capability for copying.  Also very strong on recognizing the disks and drives and externals and describing them sensibly (not just in Linux-geek-speak).  I have a big backup going on now on an XP puter not booting. (Then, after the backup, I will try a non-destructive OS reinstall, and if that does not work, a full reinstall.)

Many of these tools have Midnight Commander, quite cryptic. There was another one in UBCD, Volkov, that was also cryptic.

SystemRescueCD seems to specialize in network backup with tools like RSync, network stuff, SFTP.  Nice to know, but I would always want to try a local USB external if possible especially if large amounts of data is involved. SystemRescue also has Midnight Commander, although you could probably add PCMan if you are geeking the install.

Once, years ago, one of these Rescue CDs had Free Commander, I remember because I used it.  Dunno how that was done.  MuCommander and Double Commander (multi-platform) might be strong like PCMan, if they are on any rescue CDs. BootMed is a rescue disk that looks, by pics, to have a decent file manager, but I did not catch any name.

For the ISO burning, I found ImgBurn to be very nice, again. InfraRecorder was more finicky, and I switched back to ImgBurn, my main old-tyme fav.

Parted Magic is also a strong contender in below Windows partition stuff, of course (its mainstay). Interesting to compare with the Terabyte products for happy partitioning.  Terabyte is not free, but you have strong support, maybe some niceties.  It is also nice to see Firefox usable in the midst of the rescue and partition stuff.

I looked at the BartPE and tried to do it, since I had the Windows XP install CDs (copied to a directory and pointed Bart to the directory.) Bart had 2 errors and some warnings and the errors stopped the CD from burning. As a test I will try it out natively on an XP puter later (the attempt was done on a Windows 7). However, I am skeptical now that it is really worth the special attempt.

Steven

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page