Freeware PC Toolkit

[MattNW]

Here's something I came across recently. It's a bootable CD with it's own OS for those times when your Windows installation is so messed up that you cannot even boot Windows.

It takes some technical skills to compile the CD but when that's done all you have to do is to insert the CD into the CD drive and let the computer boot from that. It starts a slimmed down version of XP Pro with a host of fixit utilities and even a couple virus scanners.

I haven't checked out everything that this does yet but it's certainly possible that this utility could save you a reinstall of everthing and/or recover some valuable payware aircraft or scenery that you forgot to back up.

http://ubcd4win.com/index.htm

[the_autopilot]

I reccomend Knoopix for this kind of a thing.

Knoppix is a linuex distribution that runs entirely from memory and allows you to write/search the HD and backup stuff to the CD. It of course has other featues like internet browsing and office products (similar to MS office). Its a very good temp solution.

Its a simple .ISO to download and burns easily to a CD, but linuex is for more advanced users, if you still have problems using windows, linuex is not for you.

[MattNW]

I reccomend Knoopix for this kind of a thing.

Knoppix is a linuex distribution that runs entirely from memory and allows you to write/search the HD and backup stuff to the CD. It of course has other featues like internet browsing and office products (similar to MS office). Its a very good temp solution.

Its a simple .ISO to download and burns easily to a CD, but linuex is for more advanced users, if you still have problems using windows, linuex is not for you.

Looks interesting. One of the main sites for info on it is down for updating at the moment so I'll have to wait. I found the above looking for a good AV scanner that I could run from a CD. I do on site PC repair and have been running into a lot of non booting PCs. Always nice to have another tool on hand.

[Ivan]

You can install F-Prot Linux when you have the thing booted with the knoppix CD... won't remove files on NTFS though

For other stuff...
I usually keep a few floppies with memtest (memory testing program) and other utilities like powermax(as most of the machines we use at home have maxtor drives) and DRHardware at hand.
I have some modified knoppix installs from a certain PC mag that can be used for various cleaning duties... at least one of these is said to have a better NTFS driver that allows for file repair