If your computer refuses to boot, it's often hard to locate the source of the problem and repair it. Windows, like other operating systems, provide limited functionality if you can't boot into the operating system as normal. While you can attempt to start the computer using installation media, there are few options for actually diagnosing your computer or carrying out key repairs, diagnoses steps, and other low-level disk functions. Instead, you might even feel compelled to reinstall the operating system. However, this is a lengthy process, especially when you have to manually install all your applications, drivers, and other content. Also, formatting your drive and reinstalling the operating system involves permanently deleting everything on the drive. Even then, there's no telling whether the problem will occur again.

Active@ Boot Disk provides a powerful suite of tools designed to help you diagnose issues and access your files even if your computer refuses to boot from its regular operating system. This is especially helpful if the BIOS reports that there's no operating system installed. Active@ Boot Disk is a fully self-contained operating system that runs from removable media, such as a USB pen drive or an optical disk. It provides a basic set of everyday computing tools, such as a calculator, notepad, and partition manager. It also offers network access, support for every type of storage device and file system you're ever likely to encounter, and support for a multi- or dual-boot environment. However, the real power lies in its unique data backup and restore software, which allows you to recover deleted data or lost partitions. Alternatively, if you're selling or donating your PC, you can use the industry-standard disk sanitization tools to securely wipe the entire drive.

Other boot disk utilities include a Windows task manager, a file manager, a web browser, a registry editor, and many other useful apps and tools. It offers a completely independent environment, so you can even use it if you have no other operating systems installed on your computer. If data recovery is your goal, this ability is especially valuable, since it eliminates the risk of permanently overwriting the deleted data. Instead, it doesn't make any modifications to your system hard drive, so if you're trying to recover data from that drive, you'll want to avoid booting up from it anyway. The same applies if you want to securely erase the drive, which of course you can only do if you're not using it. Finally, Active@ Boot Disk also offers a complete system imaging tool for making a byte-by-byte copy of everything on the drive. Not only is this an exhaustive backup option - it's also good for moving your operating system and applications over to a new computer or storage device.

New in version 16, released on May 22, includes a new lightweight Linux-based boot disk console, a better bootable disk creator, and the latest versions of Active@ KillDisk 12, Active@ File Recovery 20, and Active@ Partition Recovery 20. Visit https://www.boot-disk.com/index.html to try out the software today.