I’ve covered a boatload of free Live CDs (a boot disk on a CD) in the last few years, including – Boot, Recovery, Rescue, Antivirus, and so on. To work effectively with such tools generally demands a very high level of user experience with operating systems, which effectively restricts usage to geeks or, the occasional very daring newbie.
I’ve just spent a week, or so, testing BootMed, a Ubuntu Linux driven set of recovery tools which is a little different than most such tool sets – it’s much more new user friendly.
On launch, BootMed defaults to Firefox which opens on the developer’s site – “What can BootMed do”.
That’s a bit of a twist on most recovery tools/disks/applications, since the developer has recognized that not all users have the practical background, or the experience, to work with these types of tools unaided.
The tutorials (walk- throughs) on this page (What can BootMed do) – shown below – should make working with the specific applications included on the CD/DVD much easier for less experienced users than it would be otherwise. Kudos to the developer on this one.
Recovery
- Troubleshoot Windows Boot Problems
- Copy files from a computer that will not boot to a pen drive or external hard drive
- Scan for viruses with
- Make a forensic image of a damaged or corrupted hard drive with dd-rescue and recover files from the image
- Recover deleted files with:
- Recover a deleted partition with TestDisk
Misc.
More experienced users will simply venture straight to the Desktop to access the available tools.
The following screen capture illustrates the applications available.
Note: Under “Applications”, additional tools are available.
You can see from the following screen capture, BootMed allows the user to access all attached devices (and their files), from the “Computer” icon.
The following two graphics show the AV’s available. Both AVs will automatically update their definition database – provided the PC is connected to the Internet.
McAfee’s Stinger – a stand-alone utility used to detect and remove specific viruses.
ClamWin Free Antivirus – ClamWin is a free antivirus designed for Windows.
Two file recovery applications are available including PhotoRec, a powerful recovery application.
And TestDisk, which adds additional functionality – including partition recovery.
There are many more applications included in this bag of tools including – GParted partition manager, as well as WINE, which will allow you to run Windows applications from within BootMed.
The CD/DVD burning application Brasero (available under “Applications”), is shown in the following screen shot.
System requirements: Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7
Download 32 bit ISO at: Download.com
Download 64 bit ISO at: Download.com
I particularly like BootMed since it allows a fairly typical user access to complex tools while at the same time, not feeling abandoned in the scary world of operating systems. The developer has recognized this chill factor, and does a fair amount of “hand holding” – I think that’s very cool.
If you’re now a geek, or a high level user, think back to the days when you could have used some “hand holding”. If you were lucky enough to get it, I think you’ll agree that “hand holding” can make a major difference.
Don’t have a CD/DVD drive? Then – install BootMed to a USB flash drive. Easy to follow instructions are here.
Bill Mullins' Weblog - Tech Thoughts 