SystemRescueCd is a Linux system rescue disk available as a bootable CD-ROM or USB stick for administrating or repairing your system and data after a crash. It aims to provide an easy way to carry out admin tasks on your computer, such as creating and editing the hard disk partitions. It comes with a lot of Linux system utilities such as GParted, fsarchiver, filesystem tools and basic tools (editors, midnight commander, network tools). It can be used for both Linux and windows computers, and on desktops as well as servers. This rescue system requires no installation as it can be booted from a CD/DVD drive or USB stick, but it can be installed on the hard disk if you wish. The kernel supports all important file systems (ext3/ext4, xfs, btrfs, reiserfs, jfs, vfat, ntfs), as well as network filesystems such as Samba and NFS.

System Tools Included

• GNU Parted: creates, resizes, moves, copies partitions, and filesystems (and more).

• GParted: GUI implementation using the GNU Parted library.

• FSArchiver: flexible archiver that can be used as both system and data recovery software.

• Partimage: popular opensource disk image software which works at the disk block level.

• ddrescue: Attempts to make a copy of a partition or floppy/Hard Disk/CD/DVD that has hardware errors, optionally filling corresponding bad spots in input with user defined pattern in the copy.

• File systems tools (for Linux and Windows filesystems): format, resize, and debug an existing partition of a hard disk.

• Ntfs3g: enables read/write access to MS Windows NTFS partitions.

• sfdisk: saves and restores partition tables.

• Test-disk: tool to check and undelete partition, supports reiserfs, ntfs, fat32, ext3/ext4 and many others.

• Memtest: to test the memory of your computer (first thing to test when you have a crash or unexpected problems).

• Rsync: very-efficient and reliable program that can be used for remote backups.

• Network tools (Samba, NFS, ping, nslookup, …): to backup your data across the network.

Important Linux software which comes with this system rescue disk.

Linux Kernel

Linux Kernel 4.4: The current version is based on the Long-Term-Supported linux-4.4 kernel. The provided kernel includes a lot of drivers, in order to work for most users.

Recovery Tools

Here is a short description of some of the recovery tools.

sfdisk: a partition table tool. Save/restore partition table to/from a file. Use it before and after changing partitions or like right now to save partition definitions.

FSArchiver: It is a flexible system tool that allows you to save the contents of a file-system to a compressed archive file. The file-system can be restored on a partition which has a different size and it can be restored on a different file-system. It provides multi-threading compression and supports xz compression (very high compression level) as well as lzo, gzip and bzip2. Everything is checksummed in the archive in order to protect the data. It supports all standard linux filesystems including ext4 so you should use it if you are interested in Linux backups.

Partimage: It is a disk imaging software. It can be used for backups and hard drive recovery since it works at the block level. Used blocks of a partition are saved to a compressed image file. It can be used to restore your system or data after a hard drive crash or after accidental deletion of data.

TestDisk: Popular disk recovery software. Recovers lost partitions and repairs unbootable systems by repairing boot sectors. It can also be used to recover deleted files from FAT, NTFS and ext2 filesystems. File system recovery is supported for reiserfs, ntfs, fat32, ext2/3 and many others.

PhotoRec: Another data recovery software focused on lost files including video, photos, documents and archives.

lftp: an extended ftp client to send them off to another system.

System Tools

GParted: Graphical partition editor displays, checks, resizes, copies, moves, creates, formats, deletes, and modifies partitions.

GNU-Parted: Text based partitioning tool.

GRUB and lilo Multi Bootloaders Install or restore bootloader. If Microsoft Windows removed a multi bootloader, run it from this CD, and reinstall it.

File System Specific Tools

Each file system has its own tools. For example xfsprogs supports XFS. It allows the user to format an existing partition, to resize another one, … We provide reiserfsprogs for ReiserFS, Reiser4progs, xfsprogs for XFS, e2fsprogs for ext4, ntfsprogs for NTFS, dosfstools for FAT/VFAT. ntfs-3g allows mounting NTFS partitions with full Read and Write support.

Archiving Tools

Tar/gzip/bzip2/xz are provided for Unix users. zip/unzip, rar/unrar/unace for Microsoft Windows users. It allows users to backup/restore their data from this bootable disc. Dar (Disk Archiver) It’s like tar but it’s a lot more powerful. 7z (=7zip) which is used on Unix and on Microsoft Windows is also provided.

Text Editors

During a system rescue, you may need to edit system files. nano (a lightweight editor), vim (VI Improved), qemacs (emacs clone) and joe are included. Geany is a graphical text editor for X windows is also available.

Midnight Commander: Text file manager shows directories and files in a graphical display. It is very easy to use, and allows browse, copy, rename, delete, move, search and edit files.

CD/DVD Burning Tools

cdrecord is a package that comes with mkisofs. It is the linux standard CD burning command from console. Mkisofs allows you to create an ISO image file to use with cdrecord. Cdw is a text based front end to make cdrecord and mkisofs easier to use. Udftools are provided for packet writing. Now, you can also use dvd+rwtools.

Network Utilities

Network Tools are required to configure the network access or transfer data. lftp, ssh (client and server), lynx (console web browser). LUFS (Linux Userland File System), NFS, and Samba allow you to mount remote file systems Network admin tools include nslookup (DNS-tool), nmap (network exploration), netcat (network piping tool).

Security Tools

Chkrootkit searches for a rootkit installed on your system (rootkit is a package installed by a hacker that allows them to hack it).

Web Browsers

There are text web browsers such as elinks and a graphical web browser is also provided so you can get documentation.

Programming Languages

Ruby: object-oriented programming language.
Python: object-oriented programming language.
Perl: Many administration scripts are written in perl.

Secure Deletion

Several wiping tools (such as shred and wipe) ensure that files are really erased from the hard disk.

Boot Images

The CD comes with several floppy disk images. These can be used as if they were real boot floppy disks.

• FreeDos allows running DOS programs without proprietary MS-DOS
• MemTest+ tests the physical memory, and tells if it is damaged or not
• Gag (Graphical Boot Manager) an easy to use Boot manager (such as LILO)
• Ranish Partition Manager is a bootable partition editor.

Advanced Uses

SystemRescueCd is available for blind people. Now, the linux speakup screen reader is working well, and the speakup keymap is installed. This feature was tested by Gregory Nowak.

It is possible to make customized versions of the system. For example, you can add your own scripts, make an automatic restoration of the system. It is also possible to burn a customized DVD, with SystemRescueCd and 4GB for your data (backup for example).

You can use SystemRescueCd to backup data from an unbootable Windows computer, if you want to backup the data stored on a Windows computer that cannot boot anymore.

It is very easy to install SystemRescueCd on a USB stick. That is very useful in case you cannot boot from the CD drive. You just have to copy several files to the stick and run syslinux. The install process can be done from Linux or Windows.

The following screenshots show you how it looks when you boot SystemRescueCd and when you use the graphical environment with the XFCE desktop and applications: