TSGL: Rescue data

[Alan Mitchell]

Today's PC World tips contained the following information that lets you
easily create a portable CD/DVD burner on a thumb drive. Basically you
download the ZIP file and unzip it to a folder on your thumb drive and you
have the option to burn ISO, data and audio disks. But of course it assumes
that some version of Windows IS running, so it probably wouldn't have solved
the problem of the dead system, but it's valuable nonetheless.

Alan

May 16th, 2008  
  
* Today's Picks:  
  

DeepBurner Free Portable
Version: 1.9.0.74
File Size: 3003k
License Type: Free
Operating Systems: Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows Me, Windows 98  

DeepBurner Free Portable is one of the programs I never do an IT support gig
without. If I need to burn off some data to CD/DVD before working on an
infected or otherwise sketchy Windows system, all I do is insert the thumb
drive I installed it to,  click its icon, and I'm ready to burn. If you're
not familiar with "portable" apps, they're portable because they don't rely
on the Windows registry for storing settings. Instead they either forgo
settings altogether, booting with the default settings each time, or (more
likely) save the settings to whatever the directory the program is run from.
Reliance on the registry for storing settings and registration info, which
started with Windows 95 for maintenance and version control reasons, is why
you must reinstall applications whenever you reinstall Windows. 
DeepBurner Free Portable burns data discs, as well as ISO images and has
worked well for me over several months. It's a program every tech 
should have in their emergency kit.   
--Jon L. Jacobi  

Go to the download page now:  
http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,70945-order,1-page,1/description.h
tml?tk=nl_ddxdwn  
   

-----Original Message-----
From: list-bounces at tsgserver.com [mailto:list-bounces at tsgserver.com] On
Behalf Of Don Penlington
Sent: Friday, May 09, 2008 3:49 PM
To: Tech Support Guy Mailing List
Subject: Re: TSGL: Rescue data

Ian wrote:
>Have you thought of just taking the drive out and putting it in another 
>working machine as a slave? That or have you tried
>ubuntu>>


Yes, but I was looking for an easier solution. One I could do on the spot.

Alan's idea of running Ubuntu from a thumb drive might work I suppose.

But I have my doubts because

(a) will an old bios recognise a USB thumb drive as a boot drive? (probably
not) and

(b) the instructions for creating it look so complicated it's hardly worth
the bother---and is highly likely to go wrong in any event. I usually find
the more complex the procedure, the less likely it will work (or the
tutorial will likely miss some vital point or be ambiguous in some small but
vital detail). In any event. it looks like it has to be created on the
computer on which you intend to use it---and that requires access to XP,
which defeats the purpose. Moreover, I'd have to learn Ubuntu, which I have
no intention of doing.

Thanks Alan, but I think I'll leave that one to those of you at the cutting
edge.

It might work though if Ubuntu comes on a bootable CD. (But I'd still have
to learn it).

Don Penlington


 From the Beach at Surfers Paradise in sunny Queensland.
Computer tutorials, local scenery,  and other things at my website:
http://users.tpg.com.au/deepend/index1.html


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