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Don't take this the wrong way (unless you want to cause well whatever) but you've been drinking the kool-aid.

Sometimes they have stickers with Windows keys on them but if they don't there's a way around this. Boot into windows and download some crappy tool that tells you what your Windows key is .... Go to My Computer and right click for properties and find where it tells you what version this is. Example: Windows 7 64 bit Professional. Write all that information down or e-mail it to yourself.

Why should I need a third party tool to get my OS to tell me my licensing information?

If something goes wrong and you need to RMA, you're in luck. You just torrent the ISO for that particular windows and burn it (or use Netbootin in the case of no optical drive) and reinstall it with your key and ship it back.

Or just use a linux SystemRescueCD to make a compressed backup image.

Although this sounds like a lot of work, it actually can be quite useful when a relative or friend needs a copy of Windows. You make them a disc and transfer that heavily subsidized key to them. Sure, it might be illegal in the eyes of someone but it's worked for me and I keep it down to one use per key that I was extorted into buying.

And that's the money shot. You have a license to that software. You can do as you please with it. The law has been pretty clear on the re-resale of software licenses. You're clear. You bought it. You may or may not have used it. And now you can sell it or give it away (once).

Personally, this sort of second sale doesn't feel morally wrong to me but if it does to you, you can always just hold on to your info and consider it an "asset" in your software library.

As I mentioned, someone put something in your kool-aid. Now that being said, I know I violate MS's licensing terms. And it used to be to their benefit. However, it's now been years since I installed windows for someone. I encourage my friends and family to use Linux or (if they really want commercial polish or some other BS, OSX).

http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page (For linux, but you can do some NTFS recovery as well. Not for anyone who hates command line)

http://www.hirensbootcd.org/download/ Windows oriented but has some Linux stuff in it too.

http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page

My backup and restore software is free, what are you talking about?

Now all I need is a replacement for Ghost/TrueImage.

fsarchiver has worked pretty well for me. It's one of the packages included with SystemRescueCD.

http://susestudio.com/ for the updating/installsoins http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page for repairing .... the rest idk but i bet its somewhere

If you know what you're doing, you don't need a recovery CD or even the stupid HDD partition that they create to contain it. System Rescue CD can do things like take an image of the HDD, restore an image, fix messed-up partitions, recover the administrative passwords, allow you to edit boot.ini options on Windows, fix broken filesystems, etc.

I prefer to use fsarchiver or partimage to take an image of the hard drive. I pxe boot the system rescue cd or use a physical cd and make room for the image on the users hard drive. I shrink their partition and format the reclaimed space as ext3, so windows cannot see it and it is impervious to virus infection. Then I can walk the user through restoring that partition or have them pxe boot and do it myself via ssh.

My image is taken right before the PC is deployed, so it should have all the program on it and be configured for that user. This method doesn't provide a real backup if the disk fails, but it speeds up recovery from virus or user damage to the OS and I don't have to keep track of images on a central repository, the image is always with the PC.

Don't bother with a live CD like one of the other posters recommended. Try the System Rescue CD. It's a lot faster to download and has all the tools you'll need to get your dissertation off your computer.

I just got my Toshiba NB205-N210. On the whole, I love it. But I borked up the Toshiba utilities installation(s) when I tried to uninstall some of them. That triggered a quest to re-install Windows XP. Whoa Daddy!! Took all night.

Problems:

1. No WinXP disk included.

2. No optical drive.

3. No SATA driver on a WinXP disk (not even on SP3) assuming you have one handy (BSOD when starting the installer).

4. I had a WinXP/SP2 disk from somewhere in my past. Wasn't compatible with the CD key on the back on the Toshiba.

5. Some weird reliance the installer has on whatever may already be on the c: drive was producing a corrupted file error that would prevent the XP installation from proceeding.

5a. Another weird error from the XP installer that wouldn't let me remove the existing c:\ partition. It said it was using temporary files on the C drive.

Solutions:

1a. I had a WinXP/SP2 disk already.

1b. nLite.

1c. **IMPORTANT** Save the C:\WINDOWS\I386 directory from the factory installed XP before you blast it!

1d. Created a hybrid installation between the WinXP/SP2 disk and the I386 directory from the netbook. Worked!

2. There are a few utilities out there that will create a bootable flash drive WinXP installer from a source disk.

3. BIOS setup, AHCI->Compatibility

4. See 1d

5. http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page. Used it (also transferred to a bootable flash drive) to blast the factory created partitions.

At 4:45am, I was successful. Is this really what is required to re-install fresh XP on a netbook? Re-loading their factory installed image defeats my purpose and besides, I broke their tool that does it. I'm not about to ask Toshiba support for XP install media. I pre-assume that to be worse than what I endured.

In the four computers (two midrange laptops, two cheap desktops) I tried, booting from USB worked. I always carry System Rescue CD on a flash drive on my keychain. The only issue I had is that on one of the old desktops, reading the kernel was very slow, like reading from a floppy... but after loading the kernel, it reads other files pretty quickly.

I know, these were just a few systems, so YMMV. But making the flash drive bootable wasn't difficult at all and I didn't had to mess with BIOS settings on any of the systems. Maybe I'm just lucky.

I was looking into taking a snapshot of a fresh+patched windows install because I was tired of reformatting and then spending hours reinstalling+patching.

I checked out http://www.partimage.org/ which seems to be the tool targeting what you're trying to do.

For me, it didn't work out because the only apparent way to burn an image to disc is to have DVD+RW media and I didn't have the patience to wait until I could get to the store to buy the rewritables.

I think you missed this one http://www.sysresccd.org

For now its already very cool :
- You can use the embed linux for a quick peek on a coupl of internet page or for a quick phone call, all within 5 sec from turning on the computer, without needing to wait that a full fledged OS boots.
- AS you mentionned, use this as a pre-install environment and/or rescue environment, to quickly get vital information from the web, when there's no functionnal full OS (yet).

But, I think, we could extend this second usage you evoked :
- ...and something similar to Systen Rescue CD - enough tools for helping fixing/rescuing/partitionning a system. With things like a functionnal anti-virus (either opensource clamav. Or some other antivirus software with which ASUS has a deal), Gparted (there are only a couple of filesystem that can be resize live when mounted in Linux. It's absolutely impossible to partition a hraddisk currently being used in Windows), imaging software (also use full for quick OS installation), tools to access data like Samba's CIFS client and NTFS-3G, and a tool to reset lost Windows passwords. With this,

The Flash device containing the system would need to be a tad bigger, but whith this the embed Linux is going to be the admin's best friend to salvage broken OS installations - without needing a bootcd.

This is where I would like to head. I have just installed 7.04 on my laptop. It is very good apart from the wireless support. I am going to need to frig the wireless drivers for the broadcom 4306 using ndiswrapper. Then I installed it on my main home pc dual boot with windows and i lost 500gb of data in a freak powercut whilst resizing the partition. I have now got over that trauma. What guts me though is that I still cant get it to dual boot/run at all. Obviously I understand partitioning well enough to put it on my laptop but for some reason it wont work on my main pc. I used rescue cd http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page/ to partition the hard disc to 250gb for windows and 500gb of free space. Then created ext3 70gb for ubuntu and 3gbish for swap and the rest free for a new data disc. Nothing - no grub nothing but it all looked like it worked. In summary - its lovely especially with Beryl for flashiness and I want better programming and shell access but it has a few niggles - I couldnt give this to someone who was reasonable with windows. From a user interface POV my 11yr old daughter didnt care what operating system she was in - she found the games in either - so it is easy to switch between gnome and windows - for 11yr olds :)

This is already on System Rescue CD 0.3.6, please see http://www.sysresccd.org/Detailed-packages-list

what's wrong with popping in a livecd like sysreccd http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page/
and to use dd to take an image of the disk or ghost (but iirc ghost uses dd) ?
i have been able to successfully recover 99% of a crashed, broken, badly partitioned hard drive that way numerous of times
offcorse i do not claim i have the expertise as ontrack but seeing as i've done this for quite
a few friends and since well not everybody can pay what they ask for their service, i can understand
why they get drives that have been subjected to a DIY recovery at first

But why do we need all these expensive consumer disk recovery tools, that often do not work correctly
i must agree on the issue that this article is mainly advertising but that is to be suspected
i mean the dude works in that company, he's kinda obligated to praise the so called 'superiority' of their own proprietary tools.

granted i don't have a clean room but the area in that so-called clean room doesn't seem so clean
and well the platters hanging on the top right on the other picture doesn't strike me as a good idea neither
that obviously wasn't a clean room and i would at least encourage the use of a static bag anyway.

http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page - smaller, faster, more "fix-it" related.

That said, DSL does indeed kick ass.

Like most, I carry Knoppix, and I've had good luck with the System Rescue CD.

There's another few discs I like to keep with me, not so much against system failure but against "OS rot": a copy of Norton Ghost, and a ghost image of my XP partition, made just after install of the system and my favorite apps. A split copy of the image will fit on 2 4.5GB DVDs. Sometimes I don't bother and just put the image on a 2.5" USB-HD enclosure I carry.

If you adopt a good filesystem architecture, keeping your personal files on a separate partition, you can blast the ghost back into the boot partition whenever Windows starts puking on device drivers or doing whatever crufty XP behavior drives you nuts.

Ghost isn't free, and this takes DVDs to work, but it allows me to bounce my XP every month or so, making it work pretty smoothly. Also, I'm guessing M$ doesn't really condone this sort of Windows usage - software activation makes the technique a little hinky.

Anyone know of a cheap-as-free alternative to Ghost for this solution? The key functionality would be image splitting to disc sizes, bootability of the app itself, and boot drivers for CD/DVD drives and HD enclosures.

Knoppix is nice, but it's a bit big for me. Personally, I prefer the System Rescue CD

It's got the important bits without the extra. Also can load to RAM, which is very nice for working with backups on systems that only have one optical drive. I'm not sure, but I believe it only requires 128mb or RAM or so.

Here's what I have in my CD case, in approximate order of how regularly use them...

Memtest86--because the RAM in the cheap PCs I come across sucks. Some of the other tool CDs have this one as well, I like to get the latest one regularly here. Good for stress testing, and even handy for figuring out things like whether the RAM is running correctly in dual-channel mode.

SystemRescueCD--I particularly like the partition editor and imaging utilities. Been weaning myself off Partition Magic/Drive Image even for Windows work with these two.

Ubuntu live CD and DVD. The CD works in more systems, the DVD version is a completely usable system with a lot of stuff in it. What most impresses me about the Ubuntu live disc is that I can download packages over the network and install them, even thing that run as services, from the live environment. I actually got PostgreSQL installed and some database tests completed, all without a single Postgres file on the media.

Knoppix--Some days, your first choice in Linux live CDs just doesn't work on a random machine; that's why I still carry around this one as a backup.

Bart PE--A bit of a pain to build the first time, but very handy for fixing Windows machines.

Offline NT Password & Registry Editor--this one has been less useful lately, as I've been running into NTFS partitions it really doesn't want to write to. My fallback position is to use this to generate a new SAM file, then copy it over with a BartPE disc.

RedHat Enterprise 3 and 4 CDs. While not technically live CDs, you can do a lot with booting into this environment, and I deal with enough people running RedHat versions that they're worth carrying around. I still keep one of the older versions around so I have something running the 2.4 kernel to tests against; occasionally I'll run into some old hardware that 2.6 pukes on, while 2.4 still works great.

Does your PXE process automatically partition/format the disk with the OS?

I used PXE boot on Linux a few years ago with great success, but when I was considering doing an appliance-type solution, I created a customized system rescue CD which included a .tar.gz of each filesystem.

This would have allowed me to script the partitioning process, as well as the extraction of the filesystems to end up with a bootable CD which would create an appliance hands-free. (At least that is what I was on target to complete when the project was cancelled by management.) Our original goal was to be able to distribute the media to a remote location and have unskilled people create applicances from commodity hardware.

Theoretically the same thing could be done with a PXE and a boot menu. Is that what you've done?

Regards,
Anomaly

I use SystemRescueCd, freely available at http://www.sysresccd.org/ licensed under GPL 2. This is a linux boot CD with various utilities, including Partimage and some partition editors. Partimage is a Ghost/Drive-image clone for Linux. I boot with SystemRescueCd, and use Partimage to copy the partition to a file on a different drive.

http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page -
it's a live CD for recovery/backup purposes - should work on any PC with a CD rom - supports network filesystems also.
I havn't used it, but if you check google, there are quite a few projects built around a live CD concept with HD backup tools .

I love Ghost too... it's a lifesaver. However it can get expensive if you need many copies. You should also consider using the (obviously free) linux partimage which can do the same things. In fact, it can make images of a greater variety of filesystem types (at least compared to the last version of Ghost I used). Even if you're running Windows boxes, you can still boot off of a Linux LiveCD, and use partimage to backup/restore partitions (in fact, there is a Linux LiveCD specifically optimized for rescuing your PC: System Rescue CD, which includes partimage).

You should be using file system aware backup software.

I use partimage off a CD for Windows or Linux partitions.

Zeroing or randomizing unused drive space is for privacy only.

This is what I do, except I use the partimage program on the System Rescue CD. If you're at all proficient with Unixish systems you can skip Ghost and use partimage or g4u instead.

Seriously, it does.

That said, my regular "tech bench" consists of a known-good CDROM, a *big* hard drive, a copy of BootIt NG which I use to make images of the "client"'s hard drives on said big hard drive before I go changing anything (yes, I could do it with Linux, but BootItNG is a lot easier in that respect, particularly if the host system doesn't support bootable CDs), a known-good PCI NIC and an Internet connection to use it with, a known-good modem, and a phone jack.

On the software side, I keep a copy of System Rescue CD (http://www.sysresccd.org/), which has MemTest+, Aida, FreeDOS, and a whole bunch of other bootdisks in its boot menu, as well as a bunch of really useful Linux tools such as gparted, QtParted, ClamAV, PartImage, etc..

Oh, and all the stuff that should be obvious: wrist straps, grounding strips (make sure they actually connect to a ground and aren't just a long strip of metal), etc..

Many of you already know this, but one of the great things about linux LiveCDs is the ability to work on an otherwise screwed-up computer, and salvage it (or the data on it, etc.). A LiveCD is absolutely great for fixing a Windows or linux PC that has gotten messed up. For instance, you can create backup images of disks using partimage and restore them with a LiveCD (in particular, the SystemRescueDisk is good for that).

A Knoppix LiveDVD is more geared towards booting a PC and being productive (with OpenOffice, Blender 3D, etc.)... however it's a great thing to have lying around because you can diagnose and repair a system, do a full virus scan (as pointed out in TFA), while having internet access, being able to open relevant wordprocessor documents, etc. etc. A LiveDVD like this could also help in extracting files from a corrupt filesystem (you can open and work with the files immediately, if that becomes necessary).

To anyone in the /. crowd that has not played with LiveCDs yet (or linux at all) you should seriously consider burning a copy and seeing what all the fuss is about.

I don't use the light version of winstall le since it seems to much of a hassle wrt different configurations.

I use SUS for software updates, and apart from the fact that you need to use a lot of time checking what the updates do before approving it works fine. Most notably some updates still require a superuser to log on for it to install and work properly.

On app's the most important app is the notes client and MS Office, with notes we use smart upgrade, which actually allows users to upgrade the client when needed - MS Office needs updates and this is done manually. Since most of our pc's are the same (ie they are bought in batches) I use an usbdisk and sysresccd for imaging the machines, this is done each half year, and general app updating is done manually.

If we had the money we would probably be using a CA solution.

With the scripting, yes I mean http://kixtart.org/

o Graphical partition editor

I have had a 100% success with the PM clone, qtparted, includeded in Linux iso found here: http://www.sysresccd.org/.

It uses the the the ntfsresize functions from ntfsprogs.

The fact that this is GPL shouldn't pose a problem. The ntfsprogs port in FreeBSD ports has soem issues, but most seemed to releate to locking devices and may have been overcome by recent MFC.

Why don't you try System Rescue CD ?
http://www.sysresccd.org/

It is gentoo-based, fits very nicely on a mini-cd (I carry one around all the time) and you can "roll your own". Good documentation, great features. And no X.

Quote from their website:
SystemRescueCd is a linux system on a bootable cdrom for repairing your system and your data after a crash. It also aims to provide an easy way to carry out admin tasks on your computer, such as creating and editing the partitions of the hard disk. It contains a lot of system utilities (parted, partimage, fstools, ...) and basic ones (editors, midnight commander, network tools).

Making a gentoo-based LiveCD once were hard handwork since you couldnt just use a knoppix CD as a base and modify it to your needs. However it has been done: SystemRescueCd.
gentoo catalyst should make this stuff much easier in the future.

The following is Gentoo based: http://www.sysresccd.org/

While I am a big fan of Knoppix, my prefered tool for system rescue is System Rescue CD: http://www.sysresccd.org/ A great collection of tools and the ISO burns to a mini-cd!

Knoppix just takes way too long to boot and doesn't have some of the features that System Rescue does. Plus he's got a PPC version. I've use the PPC version to repair a OS X box (yes, they do crash too) and the Intel version to constantly recover user and Administrator passwords in XP. It's so easy with this disk!

LiveCDs are an easy way to "try out" an operating system without commiting to anything. You can pop one of these in the drive, play with a bit, and still have your regular operating system intact when you're done. The one I use the most, though, is the System Rescue CD. I used that with all of the Windows machines I unofficially support, and now whenever one of them goes bad I can stick that CD in and restore the drive image from the network in about 45 minutes. No more spending days getting everything reinstalled and tweaked just right.

You might check into the system rescue CD. It is more common for CD drives to be able to boot than USB devices, anyway, but if you want to use your USB key, you may be able to use the same booting method they use to load the images of the different utilities you want.

Secondly, why not just resize your partition? SysRescCD is your friend.

Try Partimage, I use it and it works great. It's on Knoppix, but the System Rescue CD has a better release cycle.

dd if=/dev/hda2 of=fedora-boot.bin bs=512 count=1

C:\fedora-boot.bin="Fedora Core 2"

dd if=/dev/hda2 of=fedora-boot.bin bs=512 count=1

C:\fedora-boot.bin="Fedora Core 2"

Thanks for the recommendation. I did some research into the open source stuff. The problem with many of them (well I shouldn't say problem--it's just a usage difference that won't do what I need) is that they are generally programs that need to be installed on a Linux system. I want this to use on a Windows machine that does not have Linux on it at all. That is the case with g4u. dd has the same issue, but even that is not a very good solution since it is also copying unused areas of the hard drive instead of the files. I think partimage will do what I want, and I found a way to run it without having Linux installed. This is a good bootable rescue CD that has GNU Parted, QtParted, Partimage, Sfdisk, and some other things on it. That should let me back up that Windows partition without having Linux there.

Thanks! Here's my list. The stuff I carry is usually for cases where I can't access the network or hardware. If the machine sees the network, I've got it made.

I mentioned these two, but here are details.

chntpw, reset NT/2k/XP passwords with the full bootable floppy version.

Bart's network boot disk built into a 2.88 meg image allows a huge load of network drivers, and with a copy of ghost I don't ever have to mess with building boot floppies for ghost again. I also included basic DOS utilities for manipulating the HDD and testing.

Bootable CDs with floppy images can be useful, and Bart provides a handy utility for building them. Put a disk image of chntpw on a bootable CD with other goodies per instructions at Bart's site.

I also carry Knoppix or perhaps a nice Bootable Business Card with lots of network drivers. With read-only NTFS access and networking, I've stripped data off of drives I couldn't even access for a fresh NT/2k install. Pour it across the network, and you're a hero. Also good for a slow clone with dd, or an emergency Remote Desktop Client. If you pick a livecd with a nice recent version of kparted, you can resize live NTFS partitions (I used SystemRescueCD). I've needed to do this more often than I'd have expected. Knoppix's NTFS tools were less useful at the time.



I'm looking forward to using the Captive NTFS drivers, but that seems less neccessary with one more set of tools from Bart's site, the bootable XP/2000 pre-execution environment in BartPE. These allow full access to NTFS, as well as providing an environment you can run Adaware and other Windows tools from. One of these made my day last week. It's dog slow to boot, but running Adaware or other utils (chkdsk, AV, undelete), from NOT the boot drive is great.

You are probably right, since that is exactly what I use those programs for (I never personally used the third). Scanning windows partitions for viruses from a good old System Rescue CD. But it doesn't eliminate the possibility that viruses could be made for linux (yes, even if most programs don't auto-execute). If the same people who open arbitrary attachments and follow whatever instructions are in the email from complete strangers even when there are complicated steps involved and the particular virus they are opening manually doesn't auto-execute in windows, migrate them to linux and what will they continue to do?

...the last distro of Knoppix as a rescue disk...
I always found Knoppix a bit overloaded for Systemrescue ... So I use this

I user partimage from the Linux Rescue CD, you can get it here. Works like a charm and it's free.

As a professional, I can't imagine supporting anyone without a copy of SystemRescueCd on hand for just these kinds of problems. A single linux bootable CD image with GNU software such as GNUParted, QTParted, and Partimage, all of which are excellent and FREE replacements for PQMagic or Ghost.

I want to create a custom data recovery, virus scanning and hopefully spyware detection CD using SystemRescueCd and Sophos AV for Linux. The only thing missing in this equation is anti-spyware software that runs on Linux but scans Win2k/XP partitions. My alternative to this solution is using a DOS boot disk then use something like Winternals NTFSDOS Pro and finally run Sophos AV for DOS - which would still not give me an anti-spyware tool unless the host OS is used. The Linux CD would make use of the Captive project to access the NTFS partitions with R/W capabilities. Obviously I would prefer using the Linux solution, I guess I could scan for viruses first and then boot into Windows to run Ad-Aware but I'm curious if there's an opensource or commercial project that deals with this on Linux.