Super Grub & System Rescue - The H Open: News and Features

Opening Windows - Super Grub & System Rescue

Super Grub Disk is exactly what is says on the packet, a live CD for rescuing, editing and restoring your boot partition, or for booting into lost partitions. Its most used, and for that reason, most useful application, is one that makes a regular appearance on Linux user forums, where a re-installation of Windows has resulted in the user being unable to boot into a Linux partition, but it can be used to remedy a wide range of boot problems.

System Rescue screenshot

SystemRescueCD boasts a similar range of facilities to Parted Magic, and more besides. The latest release features Xfce and the Linux 2.6.29 kernel, and such utilities as Partimage which saves/restores partitions to an image file, and FSArchiver which can be used to save and restore a file system to a compressed archive.

Such tools can be as useful to a Windows admin as they are to a Linux user. Everyone should have a copy of SystemRescueCD or Parted Magic to hand as a last resort for saving data from Linux or Windows partitions when everything else is lost. It goes without saying that neither requires an installed Linux partition to be useful in retrieving Windows data files.

The perfect tools

There are many distributions of small Linux. Some are useful as nomadic tools, to move your work from box to box. Others are useful to have around, to revive old or damaged partitions, to rescue lost data and restore broken systems. All are perfect tools for those who are interested in learning more about how their computer works, and all are free to download, which is especially welcome now many Windows tools have installation and use restrictions.