System Rescue

SystemRescueCd is a Linux system rescue disk available as a bootable CD-ROM or USB stick for administrating or repairing your system and data after a crash. It 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 comes with a lot of linux software such as system tools (parted, partimage, fstools, ...) and basic tools (editors, midnight commander, network tools). It requires no installation since you just have to boot on the CD-ROM. It can be used to perform admin tasks on both linux servers, linux desktops or windows boxes. The kernel supports most of the important file systems (ext2/ext3/ext4, reiserfs, reiser4, btrfs, xfs, jfs, vfat, ntfs, iso9660), as well as network filesystems (samba and nfs).

System tools included

• GNU Parted creates, resizes, moves, copies partitions, and filesystems (and more).
• GParted GUI implementation using the GNU Parted library.
• Partimage popular opensource disk image software which works at the disk block level
• FSArchiver flexible archiver that can be used as both system and data recovery software
• File systems tools (for Linux and Windows filesystems): format, resize, and debug an existing partition of a hard disk
• Ntfs3g: enables read/write access to MS Windows NTFS partitions.
• sfdisk saves / restores partition table (and more).
• Test-disk tool to check and undelete partition, supports reiserfs, ntfs, fat32, ext2/3 and many others
• Memtest+ to test the memory of your computer (first thing to test when you have a crash or unexpected problems)
• Network tools (Samba, NFS, ping, nslookup, ...) to backup your data across the network

Browse the short system tools page for more details about the most important software included.

Browse the detailed package list for a full list of the packages.

Advanced uses

SystemRescueCd is available for blind people. Now, the linux speakup screen reader is working well, and the speakup keymap is installed. This feature was tested by Gregory Nowak. Please note that you need SystemRescueCd-1.1.0 or later. Notes specific to using speakup in SystemRescueCD are available on the speakup info page.

It is possible to make customized versions of the CD. For example, you can add your own scripts, to make an automatic restoration of the system. It's also possible to burn a customized DVD, with SystemRescueCd and 4.2 GB for your data (backup for example). Read the manual for more details. There is a new manual chapter that explains How you can burn a DVD+RW from SystemRescueCd

You can use SystemRescueCd to backup data from an unbootable Windows computer, if you want to backup the data stored on a Windows computer that cannot boot any more.

It is very easy to install SystemRescueCd on an USB stick. That's very useful in case you can't boot from the CD drive. You just have to copy several files to the stick and run syslinux. The install process can be done from Linux or Windows. Follow instructions from the Manual for more details.

Click here to go to their official website.