Bootable Disk

While Microsoft Windows 8 setup assistant utility provides and excellent way to download and create operating-system bootable installation media (CD/DVD/USB/ISO), it does not provide any means to use an existing .ISO file for creation of these bootable media options.

To create an bootable CD, DVD or USB setup disk from an previously downloaded and saved Windows 8 ISO file follow the steps demonstrated below.

Free licensed copies of AOMEI Partition Assistant Pro Edition 4.0 were given away last new year. To celebrate the release of their new upgraded version "AOMEI Partition Assistant 5.0", we have been provided with free licenses of "AOMEI Partition Assistant Pro Edition 5.0" to giveaway to our readers.

AOMEI Partition Assistant 5.0 comes with many new features like support for Solid State Hard Drive (SSD) with easy, wizard styled OS migration functionality from HDD to SSD, Partition Alignment for optimized performance and lifespan of the disk and Partition Recovery Wizard to recover lost or deleted partitions. The utility also offers critical features like ability to create WinPE based bootable CD's for disk management via direct boot, fixing of corrupt Windows Master Boot Record (MBR), conversion of GPT disk to MBR disk without data losing, management of Linux partitions and changing of partition type ID and serial number.

SeaTools is a well known utility from popular HDD manufacturer Seagate, SeaTools free hard drive diagnostic software comes in two flavors one for DOS and other for Windows OS.

While both hard-disk diagnostic tools are excellent, they are different as SeaTools for DOS is more powerful because it is able to access the disks more directly and natively to diagnose the problem correctly. SeaTools for DOS is provided as a standard bootable .ISO CD disk image but since all modern computers support the easier bootable USB medium, here is how to get "SeaTools For DOS Bootable from a USB drive".

Seagate HDD Diagnostic Utility - SeaTools For DOS

Malware infections can sometimes block anti-malware utilities or even make the computer unbootable, Microsoft has now came up with a free "Standalone System Sweeper" utility enabling users to get rid of those nasty infections allowing them to perform offline scans to remove viruses, trojans and rootkits effectively.

Microsoft Standalone System Sweeper allows users to download latest definitions and make a bootable CD, DVD, or USB stick which when booted from loads the Windows Preinstall Environment (Windows PE) to run the scan and clean infections.

Preparing bootable USB drives has always been a not so easy task requiring a combination of tricks, hacks and tools, thanks to freeware utility WinToFlash this won't be the case any longer as it allows users to create bootable USB disk drives having Windows XP, Windows 2003, Windows Vista, Windows 2008, Windows 7 installation or any other BartPE compatible environment from CD/DVD to USB in a fast and automated way.

Apart from preparing bootable Windows installation and BartPE USB disk drivers WinToFlash also supports making of bootable MS-DOS disks.

Creating and using a bootable USB rescue disk is a much faster, easier and smarter approach than a bootable cd/dvd, earlier we had shared a trick which allowed users to create a bootable USB disk with Kaspersky Rescue ISO, now Kaspersky has listened to the need and released an official bootable USB disk maker for Kaspersky Rescue Disk.

A "Bootable Anti-virus Rescue Disk" is a lifesaver when the computer is unable to boot normally or is unstable to such levels that disinfection is not possible because of virus activity, One of the best free bootable antivirus rescue disk "Kaspersky Rescue Disk" has now been made more powerful than ever - featuring not only the renowned powerful Kaspersky malware detection and disinfection engine with ability to update definitions but also a fully featured file-system explorer and a web-browser .

Links to download the latest version of Kaspersky Rescue Disk with a video demonstration of features and usage instructions is available below.