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What are some USB boot disks you have found most useful? I'm thinking of software that you keep on a bootable USB thumb drive that is your own personal Swiss army knife of neat software you use when computer needs some work that can't be done from in the OS it self. Mostly things like drive partitioning and imaging.

In the past I've just kept a live linux CD/DVD around so I've been considering just putting my favorite Linux distro on USB key but I was wondering if there is anything else interesting out there designed for USB thumb drives.

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I'm picked this answer because it has a long list of ideas but I want to point out that all the answers so far rock. Thanks guys! – AmaDaden Dec 10 '10 at 19:38

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As well as the prevuois-mentoned Hirens and Ultimate boot CD, I have a number of USB sticks with various installs on.

  • A Ubuntu 9.10 Live USB
  • A Windows 7 Installer Package
  • A Windows Server 2008 R2 Installer Package
  • CloneZilla 1.2.2
  • AVG Live Boot CD (which was a major pain to get working)

I've used uNetBootin for crating most of the live CDs, while the 7 and 2008 were created using the Windows Live CD/USB Download Tool.

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up vote 13 down vote

Hiren's boot CD The bootable bible... It contains several tools and a Linux and Mini Windows XP bootable.

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+1 Uber geek boot disk. – Moab Dec 8 '10 at 22:51
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It's full of pirated software. – paradroid Dec 9 '10 at 8:46
@paradroid Really? It's so widely used and publicised I didn't think they would include that kinda stuff on it :/ – emtunc Dec 9 '10 at 12:49
@emtunc: It may be widely used, but not legitimately. Some of the software on it costs many hundreds of dollars. – paradroid Dec 9 '10 at 13:02
@paradroid That's why it used to be released underground, recent releases however, only contain legitimate (freeware or licenced) software. Things like Norton Ghost (Expensive!) are no longer included and are replaced by open source/free alternatives. (As you can see here: hiren.info/pages/bootcd, notice all the "freeware" icons.) – BloodPhilia Dec 9 '10 at 13:23
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up vote 1 down vote

If you like NirSoft software and tools, see this

http://launcher.nirsoft.net/

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I downloaded the Nirsoft package (v1.10.22) and got 2 trojan and 4 hack tool alerts! – Mottie Mar 17 '11 at 20:31
False positives, there are some "hack" tools in there, they contain nothing bad for your PC. If there are password crackers or other tools most AV software will flag them as hack tools or trojans, stupid imho. NirSoft has an excellent reputation. – Moab Mar 18 '11 at 0:37
up vote 1 down vote

Parted Magic

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