Fred Langa at Information Week has thrown up his The Perfect Rescue Tool guide, which explains how to make a custom, bootable CD containing the right tools to fix just about any system trouble.
Imagine this: You hit the power switch on your Windows or Linux PC, and the system starts to boot, but stalls. The power's on, the hard drive is spinning, but nothing's happening. You restart the PC, but the same thing occurs - what next? You might try booting from your original operating system setup CD. If the CD drive is operating properly, and if you know what you're doing, you might be able to boot to a non-graphical command-line or "Recovery Console" version of your operating system. But at best, this won't be a simple thing, and won't automatically provide you with the tools you need to diagnose or repair whatever went wrong with your system. At worst, you won't be able to do much of anything useful at all. What's more, for most normal users, inserting the setup CD will only bring up the original installation routine, which offers to completely reinstall your operating system. Not only will this overwrite your existing setup (including your preferences), it may do nothing at all to correct whatever was preventing your system from booting in the first place.
The Perfect Rescue Tool
Imagine this: You hit the power switch on your Windows or Linux PC, and the system starts to boot, but stalls. The power's on, the hard drive is spinning, but nothing's happening. You restart the PC, but the same thing occurs - what next? You might try booting from your original operating system setup CD. If the CD drive is operating properly, and if you know what you're doing, you might be able to boot to a non-graphical command-line or "Recovery Console" version of your operating system. But at best, this won't be a simple thing, and won't automatically provide you with the tools you need to diagnose or repair whatever went wrong with your system. At worst, you won't be able to do much of anything useful at all. What's more, for most normal users, inserting the setup CD will only bring up the original installation routine, which offers to completely reinstall your operating system. Not only will this overwrite your existing setup (including your preferences), it may do nothing at all to correct whatever was preventing your system from booting in the first place.
The Perfect Rescue Tool
