Some tests on the other hand – like the read stability test – will keep the existing data structure unharmed. Several different test modes are available including a full erase test. The test length can be selected as well ranging from one full cycle to a manual cycle selection, a burn it mode or until the first error has been found.

The application comes with several command line parameters that can be used to control the application from the command line or batch files. The parameters could be important if the removable drive is not properly identified by the software program. The /all switch will display all drives that are currently connected to the computer system making it easy to pick the removable devices that would not have been found otherwise.

Users should be aware though that the all parameter makes it possible to pick a hard drive for testing as well which can lead to data loss.

Check Flash is an excellent program to test the speeds of USB flashdrives. The program can be directly downloaded from the developers homepage and should run on most Windows operating systems.

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What exactly is a Live CD? A Live CD is a CD (or flash drive) that contains a complete and bootable operating system that is run directly from the CD and not the hard drive. There are many types of Live CDs that serve different purposes. There are live distributions for repairing Windows or Linux systems (such as SystemRescueCD). There are live cds for nearly every Linux distribution that allow you to test and/or install the distribution (Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSuSE, Mandriva, ELive). You can even do stress testing and benchmarking with Live CDs like Inquisitor. Or what about a complete, embedded firewall distribution m0n0wall.

Why Use a Live CD?

The main purpose of a Live CD is to test drive Linux. A Live CD runs directly from the CD and the PCs RAM and does not even need a hard disk to run. Because of this, you can rest assure that a Live CD is not going to alter your hard disk unless you actually choose to install the Live CD onto your drive.

There are many reasons why a Live CD would be preferred. For instance, hardware diagnostics. I have employed Puppy Linux on numerous occassions in order to get information on a piece of hardware or test to see if a piece of hardware is working. I have also used that same Live distribution to run older machines where only certain functions are necessary. Live CDs are also great choices for cafes where you want to start with a clean slate every day. Another great use for a Live CD is when a machine has no mutable storage (a hard drive) and you want to run the computer as a pseudo “dumb terminal” or “thin client”. This would allow users to execute certain tasks so long as they didn’t need to save any work.

But what if you want to save information? For that you can use the flash drive-based Live distributions. With a large enough flash drive the user can also save data as well as run the operating system. If you’re looking for a pre-installed solution Mandriva has the Mandriva Flash Drive which has 6 gigs of free space for data.

One of the best reasons for using a Live distribution, in my opinion, is testing to see if that distribution works well with the hardware you have. I have one particular laptop that, when it comes time to upgrade operating systems, I wind up burning numerous distributions onto CD and running each one of them until one of them can work with the finicky hardware on that machine.

Drawbacks

One of the biggest drawbacks of using a Live CD is the speed. Remember, you are running this from RAM so the amount of RAM the machine has (as well as the speed of the CD drive) will determine how fast your Live CD distribution will run. So a machine with low RAM will run poorly. This isn’t such an issue if you are planning on installing immediately. But using the Live CD on a low-RAM machine will be painfully slow.

The other drawback was already mentioned, unless you are using a flash drive-based Live distribution, you can not save data. If you are only testing the distribution out to see if you like it, that’s not a problem.

Final Thoughts

Live CDs are here to stay. They have many uses and few drawbacks. If you are hesitant to use a Live CD because you don’t want to lose data, you shouldn’t worry about that (unless you accidentally click the installation button and accidentally click through all of the steps to install the operating system.)

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Individual files can be copied to a device as well but it does not seem possible to copy single files from an USB device. The flash drive can be cleared before restoring files on it but it is not necessary.

The utility provides access to change the properties of the connected USB devices such as the volume label which can be connected to the USB image that has been restored on the USB device.

The software is compatible to Windows XP and requires the Microsoft .net Framework 1.1. Once installed runtime components can be included to provide autorun functionality.

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