Free system tool, useful for overclockers too!

[sjohnson]

Hey! We all push our systems to their limits when overclocking. Or, we have problems not of our own making. You can spend the bucks for some very fine commercial programs and build yourself a bootable CD with all of them on it, or just burn a SystemRescueCD and it's done for you, without having to fork out your hard-earned cash.

They built it using and running Linux but it works on Windows, Linux and possibly your UNIX box (don't know if it does Macs or not). So, don't let the Linux descriptions scare you away, this is an all-in-one fixit tool for the serious overclocker or system admin.

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). It aims to be very easy to use: just boot from the cdrom, and you can do everything. The kernel of the system supports most important file systems (ext2/ext3, reiserfs, xfs, jfs, vfat, ntfs, iso9660), and network ones (samba and nfs).


Here are the main system tools:

GNU Parted is the best tool for editing your disk partitions under linux
QtParted is a Partition Magic clone for Linux.
Partimage is a Ghost/Drive-image clone for Linux
File systems tools (e2fsprogs, reiserfsprogs, xfsprogs, jfsutils, ntfsprogs, dosfstools): they allow you to format, resize, debug an existing partition of your hard disk
Sfdisk allows you to backup and restore your partition table

Snag it at http://www.sysresccd.org/

[Smizack]

I'll check this out. Thanks.

[sjohnson]

Clunky interface, it really needs a menu for at least the major tools.

I've tested all four of the utilities listed above, they all work (once you figure out how to launch them). If I get bored enough I'll build a menu front-end and re-master the CD.

BTW, I've browsed these forums using the graphical browser embedded with the tools and mounted an SMB volume over the 'net at work.

[smokeysworld]

Will definately check it out. Sounds like a nifty tool.

Thanks

[Dud3!]

Err, all it is is a bootable GNU/Linux deal with a few common tools included.

Knoppix (which I don't like for various reasons including the fact that they use KDE) has those tools and is very easy for a non-GNU/Linuz person to use. Besides that, it's a complete GNU/Linux OS that runs off a CD, not just for partitioning...

[sjohnson]

If you take a look at the complete offering, it's a huge set of tools, not just a few. RescueCD is also a complete Linux OS that runs off a CD.

Here's an abbreviated list of what comes on the disk - oriented toward the system administrator and not toward someone wanting to run a distro:

Linux-kernel-2.4.24-xfs The current release is based on linux-2.4.24. This is the last stable version (2.4.24). It was patched in order to add support for the XFS file system, and add the Speakup screen reader for blind people. The precompiled kernel includes a lot of drivers, in order to work for most users.

GNU-Parted-1.6.6 Parted is the best linux partition tool. It's a reliable text based partition editor for Linux.

QtParted and PartGui This is the most interesting feature of this CDRom. You can use these two graphical partition tools without XFree86 (they work with QtEmbedded). They can be considered as the best free PartitionMagic clones for Linux. They allow you to see a chart of your hard disk, create, format, delete, and modify partitions. You must start with the Frame Buffer in order for these utilities to work well. PartGui is not developed anymore, then QtParted is the best choice.

Partimage-0.6.4 Partimage is a Ghost/DriveImage clone for Linux. It allows you to save/restore any partition of your hard disk into an image file. If you have a problem with your partition (virus, hard disk crash, error), you can restore it without having to reinstall your OS.

Grub-0.94 / Lilo-22.5 These tools are the most common bootloaders used with Linux. You can restore your bootloader from this SystemRescueCd. For example, if Windows removed Grub, you can run grub from this CD, and reinstall this bootloader.

File System tools Each file system has its own tools. For example XFS provides xfsprogs. It allows the user to format an existing partition, to resize another one, ... We provide reiserfsprogs for ReiserFS, xfsprogs for XFS, jfsprogs for JFS, e2fsprogs for ext2/ext3, ntfsprogs for NTFS, dosfstools for FAT/VFAT. A beta version of Reiser4Progs is provided. This is the tool that manages ReiserFs-4 file systems.

Evms 2.2 EVMS (Enterprise Volume Management System) is a powerful logical volume manager, such as LVM. (It supports LVM). It allows to manage the space of your hard disk with a management more powerful than partitions.

Archiving tools Of course, tar/gzip/bzip2 are provided for Unix users. This CDRom also contains zip/unzip, rar/unrar/unace for Windows users. It allows users to backup/restore their data from this bootable disc. We also added Dar (Disk Archiver). It's a tar clone, and it's a lot more powerful.

Sfdisk-3.07 sfdisk is a partition table tool. You can save and restore your partition table from/into a file. Even logical partitions are supported. For example, "sfdisk -d /dev/hda > hda-backup" will make a backup, and "cat hda-backup > sfdisk" will restore your partition table. It's very useful if you make an error with parted. Don't keep the backup on the hard disk ! Of course, you need to copy the backup to another computer, or to any removable media.

Editors During a system rescue, you may need to edit system files. We provide both nano (a lightweight editor) and vim-6.2 (VI Improved). Newbies can use QTinyEditor. This is a very basic graphical text editor, designed with a Qt interface.

Midnight Commander MidnightCommander (mc) is a NortonCommander clone for Linux. It is very easy to use, and allows you to browse all the files on your hard disk. You can copy, rename, delete, move, search, and edit files.

CD/DVD burning tools You can use the cdrecord packages, that comes with mkisofs. It the linux standard CD burning command from console. Mkisofs allows to create an ISO image file to use with cdrecord. Cdw is a text ncurses based front end to make cdrecord and mkisofs easier to use. Udftools are provided for packet writing. Now, you can also use dvd+rwtools. This package make DVD burning possible.

Network File Tools We also provide basic network tools, in order to allow you to exchange data with other computers. You can use Samba ("mount -t smbfs //ip/share /mnt/path"), NFS, ssh (client and server), PPP (connect to the internet), lynx (console web browser). LUFS (Linux Userland File System) allows to mount FTP, SSH, file systems.

Network admin tools Many standard network administration tools are provided: DNS-tools (such as nslookup), nmap (network exploration), netcat (network piping tool).

Security tools Chkrootkit search for a rootkit installed on your system. A rootkit is a package installed by a hacker that allows to hack it.

Anti-virus Clam-AntiVirus is a free sofware Anti-Virus. You can update the definitions from the CDRom, and scan your system for a virus.

Web browsers Two lightweight web browsers are provided: lynx and links. They are useful if you need to have a look at a detailed documentation during your usage of the system. In FrameBuffer mode, the links web browser can be used as a graphical browser that show images, and that has a nice GUI. You have to give options to the command line of the program in order to have the graphical mode enabled.

CaptiveNtfs 1.1 CaptiveNtfs is a project that allows mounting NTFS partitions under Linux with full Read and Write support. Read the manual for informations about how to use it.

Perl 5.8 Perl is a powerful and free language. Many administration scripts, and many programs are written in perl. The system is able to run perl scripts.

Secure Deletion Several wiping tools (such as shred and wipe) ensure that files are really erased from your hard disk, and nobody can read data.

Misc Tools md5deep allows you to calculate the MD5 sum in subdirectories, wipe is a security tool which ensures that data in a file is really destroyed and unrecoverable.

System boot disks The CDRom comes with many virtual floppy disks. These floppy images can be used as a real boot floppy disk. They provide many important services. Here is a list of the provided disks:

FreeDos allows running DOS programs without MS-DOS
MemTest+ test the physical memory, and tells if it is damaged or not
Gag (Graphical Boot Manager) an easy to use Boot manager (such as LILO)
Ranish Partition Manager a free partition editor
Aida a powerful hardware diagnostic tool (as sandra)

[sjohnson]

I found a use for System Rescue (may apply to other CD distros as well):

Consider two systems, both running Win2k. Each has only one disk, both boot and run fine.

I want to take the disk from one PC and install it in the other without reformatting. I want to do this to migrate data from one disk to the other.

Since both are bootable and have partitions marked "Active" I have a problem since only one partition can be Active. If you go ahead and boot Windows will munge the two Active partitions into one in an unpredictable manner, one which irrevocably joins the two disks such that they can no longer boot independently of each other.

I've never been able to use Disk Management within Windows to change the Active partition to the one I want without this munging occurring.

Using System Rescue, I install the second disk, boot from the System Rescue CD and use the partition editor to choose the partition I want to be active and remove the active flag from the other.

My old version of Partition Magic couldn't do this and Windows 2000 Pro certainly couldn't.