Windows boot CD creation

If you Windows computer is a bit stuck then you can examine the HDD by booting to Linux using Knoppix or some other linux distro boot CD, but if you want to be able to do a bit more to Windows 2000, XP, or whatever then it is a bit of a pain.

The Windows 2000 and XP install CDs are usually bootable to a point where you can do a system repair and basically run a version of chkdisk. The Win 2000 CD just works, whereas the XP CD wants the admin password for the windows install (you can hack this using a Linux boot CD downloadble from lots of websites).

If this is not enough then.... you have to pay money for commercial software OR there is this very nice place where you can download software to be able to create your own boot CD with lots of tools on it:

Bart's Preinstalled Environment (BartPE) bootable live windows CD/DVD

I ran the PEbuilder against a Windows XP SP1 CD and it worked very well.

In true Blue Peter fashion here is one I prepared earlier: iso image of a Windows boot CD built from Windows XP SP1 - right click and "save as". Although you will only be able to download this within the CUDN. There are no extra tools in this build as I just wanted something for getting at a knackered notebook HDD and running a decent version of chkdsk on it. I think you will need a Windows license to be able to use this boot iso so please make sure you have one - not too difficult given the license agreement we have for M$ software.