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Where to start your journey when your goal is multi-boot USB
Not so often anymore, but still sometimes I find myself in situation when I have to analyze and possibly repair broken Windows system. When that happens, it is good to have few tools at hand. Because you never know what went wrong in advance, it is good to be prepared for all occasions. I usually need only one USB drive – my 32GB multi-boot USB drive (you can also go with less).
On my USB, there are quite few tools; some of them might come in handy even to you some day. Just to kick-start your journey I will give you few pointers:
You need bootable USB and something to boot. I prefer:
Windows 7 USB/DVD tool
– Free
– Good for Windows-only multi-boot
– Wizard driven “ISO to USB/DVD” converter
– Can create bootable USB from any WIM based image, like:
– Windows Vista & Windows Server 2008
– Windows 7 & Windows Server 2008 R2
– Windows Defender Offline
– Microsoft Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset
– Windows PE – you can get it in Windows AIK
– Windows RE – Create a Windows RE Recovery Media
Windows Defender Offline
– Free
– Dedicated to finding and removing malicious and potentially unwanted programs
– Based on Windows PE
– Wizard driven USB/DVD creator
Microsoft Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset
– Free for Microsoft SA customers, available to Volume Licensing customers, Microsoft Development Network subscribers, and Microsoft TechNet subscribers
– Packed with tools like Locksmith, Crash Analyzer, File Restore, Disk Wipe and Standalone System Sweeper
– Based on Windows PE
– Wizard driven USB/DVD creator
Universal USB Installer
– Free
– Great for true multi-boot
– Can combine multiple Windows based and non-Windows based images onto one media
– Supports Windows XP and newer
– Supports 90+ Linux distributions (don’t forget to check out KON-BOOT*)
– Wizard driven USB/DVD creator
When creating bootable USB all the applications require USB format (wipe and FAT32 created).
If you also like to have updated Sysinternals tools with you, don’t forget to check out SysInternalsUpdater.
*Great tool for true bypassing of local Windows Logon passwords.
SBSC – 2011.04 – Freeware tools for administration
Today I was presenting at SBSC. Attached to this post is my presentation. In it you can hopefully find some useful resources that will help you do the things you do a little faster.
Also worth checking:
– Mon.itor.us
There’s a first time for everything
For all the rainbow people out there – check out this page http://rainbowinfo.net/. If you want to spend your summer somewhere away from Babylon, this is one of the best ways to do it. This year it will be in Ukraine between 22th of July and 20th of August (oh, almoust forgot to mention – I’ll be there).
Going down the IT rabbit hole 