Best Recovery Boot CD

Afternoon all...

Seems like the only Recovery boot CD I have run across is not well received by Major Geeks. I have seen recommendations of others before, and I looked into one of them, but got lost trying to determine how to get it set up.

I'm running XP, but, for the purposes of all who have problems, please consider any recovery boot CD option for any system as a suitable answer. Thanks...

 

I have never tried a single all-can-do boot CD as I like to have different tools for different problems. For years I have used the bootable CDs of

- Acronis for disk/partition imaging

- Partition Wizard for partitioning/formatting

- Puppy Linux for rescuing files - and just for fun!

Haven't yet suffered any problem I haven't been able to resolve with just one or a combination of these, though if you want to tackle other peoples' problems as well as your own you might need quite a bit more.

 

@ Atlbo :From your post to "backup" today, I mentioned Trueimage.
When you download it, you also are gven an option to create a boot cd.

If your computer won't boot, the cd will bring up your recovery location and you can restore system quickly.

 

There's your answer AtlBo.

 

Yes, I guess Trueimage has you covered. I did not realize it has that capability...

Makes one stop to reflect a little bit...

 

Just to toss out a few BootMed Plus http://www.bootmedplus.com/

BootMed has a free version and plenty of how to's.

WonderShare Boot Disk http://www.wondershare.com/boot-cd/

Paragon Rescue http://www.paragon-software.com/home/rk-professional/ I think you can get a freebie.
http://www.paragon-software.com/home/rk-express/

All work for XP and up.

If you have the resources Microsoft DaRT is really good, it was Winternals ERD (Emergency Recovery Disk).

 

Earthling's advice is sound. Particularly the part about having a Linux Live CD/DVD in your kit. It is good to have a way to mount a problematic disk and copy off data for folks who don't have a backup scheme in place. I generally do this before attempting any repairs, at least I have their important data saved.

Puppy is good, as is Mint or Knoppix.

The Live CD List is a good site, it categorizes various Linux distros (distributions = different flavors) by Purpose, in this case Rescue. Keep in mind that even distros not labled as Rescue can be used for this purpose if they support mounting NTFS drives. Mint is one such distro...