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sysadmin > boot > cd-resident

document updated 15 years ago, on Jun 25, 2008

Legend

not available via any legal method (ie. torrent)

ostensibly payware (ie. torrent)

requires a custom ISO be built before it can be used

(ie. find a finished ISO to torrent)

Once your boot manager can chainload (eg. boot from a CD or USB, allow you to choose from one of several .iso/floppy .imgs available, and then boot into one ASAP), then magic happens. All of a sudden, you can fit all/most of your boot CDs and boot floppies onto a single DVD. Or a USB drive.

Boot CD's worth keeping with me at all times

Linux liveCDs
- Knoppix — general-purpose Linux
- BackTrack — penetration testing (really stellar, contains a huge range of security-related tools)
- Trinity Rescue Kit — linux-based, but focused on repair of Windows systems
- SystemRescueCD
Windows liveCDs
- popular BartPE ISOs:
  - RoadStarter
  - megaISO
  - miniPE [650mb]
  - TinyXP
  - more
- Ultimate Boot CD for Windows
- BartPE / WinBuilder / PEBuilder
- ~~ReactOS liveCD~~ (still alpha-quality)
swiss-army-knife... LOTS of different normally-standalone tools, packaged together under a massive boot menu
- Hiren's boot CD [latest v9.5] (updates discontinued, but still INCREDIBLY useful)
- Ultimate Boot CD — watered-down legal version of Hiren's, but at least it's kept up-to-date
other LiveCDs
other LiveUSBs

Popular individual components of mult-boot CDs

PartitionMagic
Norton Ghost
ERD Commander [latest v2007], formerly from Winternals, now part of Microsoft's Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset (DART)

Front-end programs that make it easier to put together a collection

Specific lower-level programs

Smart Boot Manager — scans available drives, and finds bootable partitions on its own; doesn't require any initial configuration
GRUB
- GRUB4DOS
SYSLINUX / ISOLINUX / MEMDISK / ...
overview of bootloaders, on Wikipedia

Smaller utils

HowTos