The portable software program offers a selection of tools that can be included in the bootable disk image or copied to an USB device. The utilities are grouped into the four tabs antivirus, utility, Linux Live and Windows PE.

It is possible to select multiple programs of a group. The antivirus tab for instance offers to include the AVG Rescue Cd, Avira AntiVir Rescue System, Dr. Web Live Cd and the Kaspersky Kav Rescue CD among other choices. A click on a program downloads it to the local system, another click adds it to the disk image so that the rescue disk can be accessed whenever the system is booted from that CD, DVD or USB stick. A few rescue disks and programs need to be downloaded manually. A click on the program button launches a web page with the download option instead.

Sardu displays the total size of the current selection in the interface, there is however no indication of the size of individual tools. This would have been handy to make the selection process easier if there is a size limit for the rescue disk image.

The utilities group offers popular applications including Clonezilla, Gparted, Partition Wizard or the Ultimate Boot CD.

Linux Live CDs can be downloaded and integrated in the third group. Popular choices include Ubuntu, Damn Small Linux, Puppy Linux or BackTrack.

The fourth and final category lists options to include Windows PE on the rescue disk. Available are Windows PE 1.x, Windows PE > 2 and Windows Recovery Disks.

It is possible to download most of the disk images directly and place them in the ISO folder of the application. That can be helpful for users who want to download multiple rescue and system disks at once. Sardu can only download one file at a time, and downloading them externally can help speed downloads up. All images are linked on the Sardu project website.

Once the downloads and selections have been made it is time to create the iso image if the rescue disk should be burned on CD or DVD, or to copy the rescue disks to a connected USB device.

It is pretty easy to create a rescue disk with Sardu 2. The only problem that I have encountered during review is that some of the messages are in Italian, even if English is selected as the language. This has not been a big problem though as it was always clear what the notification meant.

Sardu is available for download at the developer website. (via)

The operating system will only boot from CD which means that its data cannot be altered by malware or other forms of malicious software. It furthermore ignores local hard drives completely so that no data can be read or written to those storage devices.

A modified system kernel ensures that no network hardware can be activated which means that there is no possibility for connections to the Internet, local area network or other types of external connections. The only way to work with data is by using extended True-Crypt volumes which can be used to save system configurations and user data. (read working with extended True-Crypt volumes for additional information)

The Ubuntu Privacy Remix Live CD can be downloaded directly from the project’s homepage. The disk ISO image has a size of 688 Megabytes and has to be burned to CD after the download. A GnuPG signatur is available for verification.

An alternative to burning Live CDs would be MobaLiveCD which is an application for Windows operating systems that emulates the process using Qemu. This essentially means that Windows users can run Linux live CDs in Windows without having to burn them to CD first and boot the computer from the CD afterwards.

This means it offers a quick way of testing a Live CD without having to boot the computer. It actually takes only two clicks to start a Linux live CD in Windows with Moba Live CD. This obviously requires a Live CD in ISO format on the computer. A good repository for Linux Live CDs is the LiveCD List.

The live CD is loaded in a window and the user can interact with that Linux distribution normally.

Emulation has the downside that running the Linux live CD in Windows cannot be used to determine hardware compatibility. Another problem is that emulation is always slower than booting from the live CD directly. Speed is probably the main concern for most users especially for those with older hardware. If a user keeps those two aspects in mind he should be able to get the full experience from Moba Live CD.

If you only use windows your choice number one would be to install a new copy and reinstall all your software probably. This is lots of work and might take some hours, hours that you might be able spare if you would have a linux live cd. A live cd is nothing more than a complete linux operating system on one cd or dvd disc. It won´t use your hard drives, which makes it ideal for lots of occasions. You have an important email that you want to send but windows won´t start or crashes immediatly ? You want to surf anonymously without leaving traces on your hard drives ?

I will give a brief overview of one liux live cd that i analysed , a complete list of more than 50 is available at FrozenTech’s LiveCD List

Kanotix:

The Kanotix cd comes with a lof of useful features, it supports IDE, SATA and Raid hard disks, supports Fat32 and NFTS, is able to perform system (hd, ram, file) and security tests, is able to partition drives and can reset windows passwords. It also comes with an office suit, email, browsing and the like.

Comes of course with a virus scanner, intrusion detection system, is able to restore data and can create images of hard disks.

And the best thing, you can simply download and burn it, and then try it out to see if you feel comfortable using it. You can even make backups before something happens to your windows system, pretty handy and recommended.