Need some pre-purchase feedback

[ump51]

Hi All,

Background
I've been messing around with computers since the 80's and have become the family   "go-to" person for builds, repairs, software corruption, and viral outbreaks.  (I'm just 2 years from retirement, have 2 adult sons in the Army, and have a grandchild on the way) In our families homes we have a total of 13 computers that I attend to as needed. Heck, we have 6 right in this house. 

I already have purchased multi-license, multi-year, of Avast 4 Pro and I'm happy with it.

Of the many computers I attend to, I'm dealing with XP, XP Pro, Vista Home, Vista Home Premium, Vista Ultimate 32 bit, Vista Ultimate 64 bit.

So, will the BART CD help me attend to the wide variance of OS's, and is it worth the investment as a diagnostic, repair, and recovery tool?

I'd appreciate any input.

Thanks

Brent Wahl

[scythe944]

I haven't used it personally, but from what I've heard, it's a great tool!

[Lisandro]

BART CD is for emergencies and for maintenance activities, for instance, clean infected computers.
Are you experiencing that trouble?

[scythe944]

is it worth the investment as a diagnostic, repair, and recovery tool?

To my knowledge, that's what it's for... (for viruses anyway) I think it should work well.

[ump51]

BART CD is for emergencies and for maintenance activities, for instance, clean infected computers.
Are you experiencing that trouble?

Yes, and often enough (particularly with my oldest sons computer) to consider this purchase.

My oldest sons computer is also used by his wife who is finishing her degree in Criminal Justice. We have found several of the infections she's had in the past to be shared schoool files.

But I think this disk would be helpful in recovering from family members screwing up driver updates (like with DL'ing a 64 bit driver for a 32 bit OS, or an XP driver for Vista, etc)

I do wish it had a basic partition manager though.

That aside, ....I think I'll take the plunge.

But one last question....does it work on both 32 and 64 bit versions of XP and Vista?

Thanks everyone

The Old Ump

 

[Lisandro]

I do wish it had a basic partition manager though.

Acronis Disk Image and the paid version of Easeus Partition Master have CD for partition manager.
Easeus free version can handle quite some partition operations too.

[scythe944]

I do wish it had a basic partition manager though.

Even better....

http://partedmagic.com/

I've only used it a few times, but it's great. FREE too...

[Lisandro]

I think it has its own Linux environment... only works at the CD... but does it has a Windows version?

[scythe944]

Well, it's a live linux CD.  I have used it on Windows Partitions, and find that it works well.  There is no "Windows" version of the CD though.  It's purely linux.

Just burn the CD from ISO file, pop it into your "Windows" machine, reboot and boot from CD.

Adjust your windows partitions anyway that you'd like, then remove the CD and reboot, and you're back into windows.

[Lisandro]

Well... at least with Easeus I can backup the partitions without having to boot with a CD. You need a CD (pro version) to restore the system partition though.

[scythe944]

Hey man, I like 'em both!

Well, I like any good tools that are free...

[Lisandro]

Well, I like any good tools that are free...

Yeah... you have a partner on this search for free