Does anyone know of a disk manager which I could install to a USB/CD etc and boot a pc from it ?
Preferebly free.
I have a pc where the disks appear to have got screwed.
TIA

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scbs29 <scbs29@fred.talktalk.net> wrote:

> Does anyone know of a disk manager which I could install to a USB/CD
> etc and boot a pc from it ? Preferebly free.

With the USB optical drive plugged in, can you select it in the BIOS as
the boot device?

You won't get into the boot menu or get the F5 choice to go into BIOS if
you have Fast Startup enabled.

On 3/8/2023 1:17 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
> scbs29 <scbs29@fred.talktalk.net> wrote:
>
>> Does anyone know of a disk manager which I could install to a USB/CD
>> etc and boot a pc from it ? Preferebly free.
>
> With the USB optical drive plugged in, can you select it in the BIOS as
> the boot device?
>
> You won't get into the boot menu or get the F5 choice to go into BIOS if
> you have Fast Startup enabled.
>

Mayayana has one, but I think he uses it with Windows XP.

I too had a boot manager at one time, BootIt or something.
It was a boot manager that came with some other software,
and it worked quite well. (You only respect some of these
efforts, when you see so many failed efforts over the years!)
I had FreeBSD, Win98, and something else and a menu
would appear and I would select one. Adding an OS, seemed
pretty easy, and the thing did not get flustered when
I offered it FreeBSD :-)

Generally, fancy GUI based boot managers are not free.

Stuff with "text and misery" tends to be free.

Now, at one time, I had a GRUB on a floppy, which could
boot an OS on the hard drive. But that's not really a boot
manager, and I don't remember how that was made either.

Installing yet another OS on the hard drive, might make
the other OSes "available", but, that's a stretch. (You would
use a Linux, just so you could have a GRUB menu.) That also
just might make things worse, because the problem description
doesn't give us details as to what malady has befallen the
disk. If a partition can't be mounted, no amount of boot
tool-age will fix it.

While the disk is slaved to a technician machine, I would

https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Download

as it has an option to display the files and folders on
any partition it can successfully developer a pointer to.
For example, on a GPT disk, you can look inside
the ESP and see if the Microsoft and Ubuntu folders
are present, on a multiboot.

It's a learning experience to use that, and I don't know
if a manual is available. You interrupt the Quick Search
by pressing return to make it "Stop" and then use the letter P
to display the folder contents.

[Picture]

https://i.postimg.cc/QCBkdCdD/testdisk-list-files.gif

Macrium Reflect Free rescue CD has a "Boot Repair" menu item,
which I've used quite a few times. But it assumes the ESP
partition is intact and populated. It does not pull rabbits
out of a hat, and mostly things have to be in a working state.

Windows itself has a three stage boot repair, and I was reading
an account on one of the enthusiast sites, where someone was
switching off the power to the PC on purpose, to trigger that.
While it "can" work, that is not a preferred method, especially
if you're switching the power off on an SSD o.O . At least a
hard drive, emergency retract is pretty trustworthy. It hardly
ever misses the ramp. Hardly ever.

Paul

scbs29 wrote on 3/8/2023 9:47 AM:
> Does anyone know of a disk manager which I could install to a USB/CD etc and boot a pc from it ?
> Preferebly free.
> I have a pc where the disks appear to have got screwed.
> TIA
>
Booting the pc implies booting an operating system.

Booting a utility program via USB/CD with the ability of managing disks
is not necessarily booting the pc.

It sounds like you desire the latter, usb boot a utility that has the
options for actions on a disk(s).

When it comes to free tools, the options to perform actions are a disk
are typically quite limited.

Paul mentioned BootIt(earlier known as BootIT NG). Currently a Terabyte
Unlimited product.
- not free, does have different versions BootIT Bare Metal and BootIT
UEFI and a suite BootIT Collection.

Easus makes a product called Partiton Master.
- only the fee based version provides the ability to create a Windows
PE boot media for managing disks independent from the o/s(Windows).
- it does have a free version but creating boot media is not an option
in the free version.

Gparted has a free version whether or not it meets your need is unknown.
- all we know(this group) is 'disks appear to have got screwed'

=> Thus it's not easily possible to determine if any free or fee based
version will aid your quest without more information on what you wish to do

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....w¡ñ§±¤ñ

On 3/8/2023 7:42 PM, ...w¡ñ§±¤ñ wrote:

> Gparted has a free version whether or not it meets your need is unknown.
>  - all we know(this group) is 'disks appear to have got screwed'

I've seen a claim a Cygwin version of GParted is available,
and that means a Windows user could have one of their
very own. Given the state Cygwin is in now, it's going to
be a lengthy process (or, impossible) to get a decent setup.
I like the old setup of a .exe and two .dll files, for
a Cygwinned application. The newer method is a whole folder
full of crap (an unnecessary "improvement" that serves no one).

Paul

Paul wrote on 3/9/2023 1:49 AM:
> On 3/8/2023 7:42 PM, ...w¡ñ§±¤ñ  wrote:
>
>> Gparted has a free version whether or not it meets your need is unknown.
>>   - all we know(this group) is 'disks appear to have got screwed'
>
> I've seen a claim a Cygwin version of GParted is available,
> and that means a Windows user could have one of their
> very own. Given the state Cygwin is in now, it's going to
> be a lengthy process (or, impossible) to get a decent setup.
> I like the old setup of a .exe and two .dll files, for
> a Cygwinned application. The newer method is a whole folder
> full of crap (an unnecessary "improvement" that serves no one).
>
>    Paul
>
The current trend in utility application software is to entice the user
with bundled application pricing giving the impression of value which
inevitably speaks to the same - extra components that no one uses or needs.

In the case of the op, it would be helpful if a better info was provided
beyond 'screwed disks'. Disk repair/recovery in any form can be
challenging often ending up as a replace disk or wipe existing to bare
metal and start over with a usb o/s boot media or iso.

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....w¡ñ§±¤ñ