Autarchy of the Private Cave

Earlier, I wrote about Universal boot CD , which is targeted primarily at the hardware testing/diagnosing.

If not hardware, but “only” software is malfunctioning - try SystemRescueCD, a Linux-based recovery CD/DVD/Flash stick (it all depends on how you burn/install the downloaded file - manuals and how-to’s are available).

As always, Disclaimer: I am in no way associated with SystemRescueCD, and gain no profit from this post. Any advice I give is provided AS IS, with no guarantees of fitness to your exact case.

Today, using memtest86, system speed test, hddspeed and some other DOS utilities for diagnosing and testing PC hardware, I decided to put together my own simple bootable utility CD disk. But first, I did some searching to find if something similar exists.

It does exist - Ultimate boot CD. That CD has numerous freeware testing and diagnosing utilities which will help you - if you are up to some good old (read “small fast”) DOS utilities. And not that old, actually - modern hardware is supported.

The only modification I’ll do to the Ultimate boot CD will be adding freeware Biew bin/hex viewer/editor. Surely, more utils to come - with original size of just 115MB, there’s plenty of room to add extensions. You can even extend the CD image with non-free software, like Partition Magic.

P.S. To diagnose and fix software problems - have a look at System Rescue CD.