News

20 Jan 2005

Things get a little slow after the festive binge, but we have finally recovered enough to release Ultimate Boot CD Ver 3.2! This release fixes all the bugs found in Ver 3.1. It adds the following programs: Avast, AntiVir, MHDD32, Ontrack Data Advisor and XOSL. It updates quite a number of programs to their latest releases. The virus definition files have also been refreshed to the latest version. Please read the release notes for the gory details.

I have also decided to give BitTorrent another try by installing a PHP-based tracker (BlogTorrent). For those of you into P2P, please check it out and give me your feedback. The torrents can be found at the download section.

If you are into RSS, you might also want to add this RSS feed to your RSS reader. This is the RSS feed for the UBCD project news from SourceForge, which I will be updating in tandem with the news page on this website as well as the ubcd-announce mailing list.

18 Dec 2004

The primary website at SourceForge has been down for the past couple of days. The reason was because I was experimenting with rsync, and one of the sessions on WinXP messed up the file permissions (whereas the same program running on Win2K worked fine). Everything is back to normal now. My sincere apologies to all who were inconvenienced!

14 Dec 2004

Another bug has been reported on UBCD Ver 3.1. Please check out the Known Bugs page for more information and workaround.

7 Dec 2004

Two bugs have been reported on UBCD Ver 3.1 so far. Please check out the Known Bugs page for more information and workaround.

3 Dec 2004

Ultimate Boot CD Ver 3.1 is ready for download! This is mostly a bug fix release, but some utilities have been updated. The only addition is MSRRC, a bootdisk contributed by Erwin Veermans which is basically an enhanced version of Bart's Network Boot Disk running on FreeDOS. Erwin's contribution should be a godsend for folks who use Bart's Network Boot Disk a lot but found it removed in V3.0 (we had to remove it because some users told us that it contains Win98 boot code). Thanks Erwin!

12 Nov 2004

A few more bugs have been reported on UBCD V3.0. The disk-based docs are missing from the right-click menu of INSERT. The activation keys for QNX modem and network versions are swapped in others.scn. There are some problems with startup.bat for Partition Resizer and TestDisk.

To reduce duplicate bug reports, I have created a Known Bugs page that will list the known bugs for each release starting from V3.0, as well as recommended workarounds. All known bugs will be fixed in the next minor release.

In addition, I have revamped the download site and split the mirrors into two sections: one for UBCD Basic, and the other for UBCD Full. Thanks to Charles Appel for suggesting this.

8 Nov 2004

Oops! The first bug report for V3.0 just came in. I thought I updated F-Prot to V3.15b, but the version included in UBCD V3.0 is V3.15a. I will fix this in a subsequent release. Meanwhile, if you absolutely need V3.15b, you will need to update the UBCD yourself (just copy the latest version into \dosapps\fprot, but remember to rename f-prot.exe to fprot.exe).

Some users have also reported that Norton Antivirus reports WIPECMOS.COM as containing the Hacktool virus. However, Charles Appel has scanned WIPECMOS.COM using quite a few other virus scanners and it came out clean, so this is probably a false alarm. Please check the FAQ for more information on this topic.

3 Nov 2004

Ultimate Boot CD Ver 3.0 is finally ready for public consumption! For the first time ever, UBCD is now available in two versions: Basic and Full. The full version contains a customized version of INSERT (Inside Security Rescue Toolkit), a mini Linux distribution adapted specially by Charles Appel for the UBCD. The FreeDOS boot disk that powers many of the DOS applications on the UBCD has also undergone a major revamp, thanks to the work of Erwin Veermans, so hopefully we will get less reports of invalid opcodes. The new FreeDOS boot disk also detects and mounts USB devices automatically. Please read the version history for more information on this latest release. Thanks to everyone who contributed to the project and made this release possible!

4 Oct 2004

I have finally taken the plunge and break up the massive UBCD homepage into multiple, smaller, subpages. If you notice any typos or mistakes, please email me directly. Those of you with contacts or links on the homepage (eg. mirror owners, CD distributors etc) are encouraged to verify the information on the new pages. Thanks!

1 Aug 2004

Ultimate Boot CD Ver 2.4 is ready for download. This release adds the Disk Image Writer specially created for UBCD by Adrian Stanciu, QNX Demo Browser, PCISniffer, Disk Editor and Lucifer. The following programs have been updated: TestDisk, Arachne, Intel Processor Frequency ID Utility, Partition Saving, UniFlash, Drive Fitness Test, Parallel Port Detection and Test Utilities, Astra, SeaTools Desktop, MemTest86+, g4u, DLG Diagnostic, F-Prot and PCI. The F-Prot and McAfee virus definition files have also been updated.

1 Jun 2004

As promised, Ultimate Boot CD Ver 2.31 is ready for download. This release fixes the cdshell.ini bug discussed earlier. By the way, if you find the main site congested, please try one of the mirror sites. Cheers!

31 May 2004

A bug has been found in cdshell.ini. Line 532 needs to be changed from:

if ($lastKey == key[f6)); then diskemu /images/docmem1.img

30 May 2004

After a long break, Ultimate Boot CD Ver 2.3 is finally ready for download! Utilities added are CPUBurn, FIPS, GAG, PC INSPECTOR e-maxx and clone maxx, Arachne WWW Browser, Intel Process Frequency ID Utility, Active@ Partition Recovery, Samsung Disk Manager and various DOS stuff contributed by users. Utilities updated are MemTest86, TestDisk, RIP, F-Prot, McAfee, PowerMax, SPFDisk, DBAN, DFT, IBM/Hitachi Feature Tool, AIDA16, Seagate DiscWizard, g4u, MemTest86+, Fujitsu Diagnostic Tools, Htuil, Offline NT Password & Registry Editor and NSSI. The problems with Western Digital's DLG Diagnostic V4.x and V5.x were also fixed so that they will run on older machines. Special thanks to Adrian Stanciu for contributing the CPUBurn boot disk. Have fun!

2 May 2004

Look, I hate this, but it needs to be done. In order to get the UBCD button to work, I need to reconfigure my hosting parameters. However, doing so will result in a DNS change again, which means this site will be inaccessible for a day or so, and my email will stop working in the mean time until the DNS propagation is completed. Meanwhile, you can still access the website at http://ubcd.sf.net/. See you in a day's time...

29 Apr 2004

The UBCD site suffered probably its longest outage over the past few days since its launch. Some of you even wrote to me and asked if I have discontinued the project! Well, what happened was this. On 26 Apr, I was trying to redirect the website over to SourceForge using the control panel provided by my hosting company. Something screwed up, and the website became inaccessible. Then I tried to remove the redirection, but the website was still inaccessible. Desperate, I tried configuring the redirection using the control panel provided by the domain registrar instead. That added to the problem, because without knowing it, I accidentally screwed up the nameserver configuration, which brought the entire domain offline and killed my email! On 28 Apr, I discovered the nameserver misconfiguration, and promptly corrected that. A day later, everything started working again, and I finally got my email back. Wow. What a ride.

Now, on to better news. I finally found a sugar daddy who would host the UBCD downloads! Thanks to tff2 for the kind sponsorship. So you are seeing this website from its new home. I have also created two versions of UBCD: self-extracting EXE and ZIP, which could now be downloaded directly, in addition to the mirror locations. I have also been getting myself familiar with the facilities provided by SourceForge, so I have switched the mailing lists from Yahoo to SourceForge. Please check out the details here. This website will also be mirrored at SourceForge (sans the direct downloads), so if this site ever goes down, you can still access it at http://ubcd.sf.net/.

Note: If you have sent me email in the past few days, and I still have not replied, it is quite likely that your email did not reach me. In that case, please resend the email and I will respond to it as soon as possible.

16 Mar 2004

OK, your complaints that 7Zip works only on Windows is noted. Honestly, I didn't know until I downloaded the source code this morning and check things out myself. We are now having a discussion in the mailing list to decide which format to switch to. For you RAR fans out there, yes, RAR is on par with 7Zip, but as far as I know, the encoder is not free, only the decoder. I just hope we don't have to switch back to good ol' ZIP, which will add 8-9MB to the size of the final archive. On other fronts, I have added an eDonkey/eMule link thanks to Stefano Bianchini. I have also added a link to Adrian Stanciu's FAQ on how to add Knoppix to UBCD. as well as a link to Mike Kuketz's German-language site on how to customize UBCD. All mirror sites which are not currently hosting the latest version of the UBCD have been removed.

15 Mar 2004

OK, I have decided to release an interim version (V2.21) to tackle one huge problem: many users were complaining that 7z.exe does not work! I discovered that the bundled 7z.exe does not work properly when the GUI version of 7Zip is not installed. Of course, since I have the GUI version of 7Zip installed on my development machine, I didn't notice. In this release, I have decided to create a self-extracting archive of the ISO image instead. This release also fixes the errors spotted by SebastienG earlier, as well as EditBINI, which stopped working in V2.2. The final archive file is also a couple of megabytes smaller due to a suggestion from Adrian Stanciu.

12 Mar 2004

SebastienG spotted a couple of mistakes in cdshell.ini. First, the dates for the virus definition files are wrong. Second, I added a line for bitdef.img during testing, but forgot to remove it after. None of these errors affect the functionality of the new version. But you can grab the corrected cdshell.ini if you wish to.

11 Mar 2004

OK, UBCD V2.2 is finally out. I know I have been promising this for some time now, so pardon me for behaving like Microsoft. :-) It's a small miracle I could get this release out at all, so all thanks to Scott D. Wares for updating the documentation, and SebastienG for being so active in tracking and informing me about software changes. You are the best, guys! I would also like to dedicate this release to my wife and new-born daughter: fatherhood is unbelievable! The major changes in this release are: I have finally switch from BootScriptor and CDShell. I have also decided to make exclusive use of function keys to launch the images in order to workaround the keyboard layout problem. The following programs were added: memtest86+, DBAN, FreeDOS boot disk, MaxBlast 3, DiscWizard 2003, SeaTools Desktop V2, Data Lifeguard, MBRtool, ATA Password Tool, MBRWork, PCI, DocMem RAM Diagnostic V2. Numerous other programs as well as virus signatures were updated. Enjoy!

27 Feb 2004

OK, things are sloowwllyy starting to get saner around here, so I will be trying to pick up on the emails. Please be patient! The first thing I had to fix was BitTorrent. It has been down for the past week because the public tracker I was using stopped working. I asked around for another tracker to use, and even searched a little on Google, but couldn't find any. So one late night, in between feeds, I installed EasyTracker on my home machine, and got BitTorrent working again. Since everything is served from my dinky cable connection with 128kbps uplink, I am curious to know how good or bad the download speed is. I already got a nasty email from a downloader saying he only managed to get a 5kbps download. But now that there are more than 10 seeders, I'd expect the download speed to improve. Drop me a mail and let me know how it is doing for you. Thanks!

23 Feb 2004

Just thought I should let everybody know that I didn't have time for the past couple of days and probably won't have time for the next few days to answer your emails. The reason is because a little newborn has arrived in my family and I have totally underestimated the challenge of this "project". It has literally turned my world upside down. Once things has settled down and everything makes sense again, I promise I will reply to all your emails. My apologies!

19 Jan 2004

Thanks to everyone for pointing out that a new version of MemTest86 is out! However, due to work schedule, I targetting Ver 2.2 for late Jan or early Feb. If you can't wait, consider creating a customized CD and adding the latest version to the CD.

15 Jan 2004

Thanks to Bob Holmes for pointing out that BootScriptor can still be found at http://www.cs.uic.edu/~mter/bscript/bscript.html.

14 Jan 2004

As BootScriptor appears to be offline, I have amended the customization instructions so that you can use the files directly from the UBCD instead of having to download BootScriptor. Please let me know if you have any problems with the revised instructions.

5 Jan 2004

Happy New Year to all! Just released Ultimate Boot CD Ver 2.1 with new stuff such as System Speed Test 32, Bart's Network Boot Disk, Bart's CDROM Boot Disk, McAfee Antivirus Scanner, DocMem RAM Diagnostic, PC-Config, File Maven, Trinux and SMARTUDM. Also updated AIDA16, DFT and documentation (Thanks to Scott D. Wares for his work on this!). Have fun!

23 Nov 2003

OK, no more waiting. I have decided to release Ultimate Boot CD Ver 2.0 with a new two-level menu format to accommodate more utilities on the CD and allow for better categorization. Added Smart BootManager, Active@ KillDisk Free Edition, Maxtor's AMSET utility, Samsung's HUTIL utility, EditBINI. Seagate's UATA100 utility, Free FDISK, DOS Navigator and NSSI. Updated AIDA16, SavePart, Freesco, RIP, DFT. Switched diagnostic tool for Western Digital HDD to DLG Diagnostic V5.03. Hope you like this release!

17 Nov 2003

More fruitless attempts this weekend trying to get the latest version of Seagate, Maxtor and Western Digital's utilities to work. But I think I did find something. These utilities are all based on OnTrack's Disk Manager product. I suspect it does not like the INT13H/15H hooks installed by memdisk/diskemu. I discovered this when I was trying to add NSSI to UBCD, and when it runs, it keeps saying that a memory-resident virus has been found. I did some research and found that on startup, the utility will check that all the BIOS interrupt vectors point to ROM addresses. If any vector points to conventional memory, the alert will appear. Fortunately, there is a switch to disable the check in NSSI. More evidence: I copied everything to a spare harddisk with DOS installed. If I boot from one of the DOS disks in UBCD and tries to run any of the utilities on the HDD, it does not work, but if I boot from the HDD directly, it works. So I tried look for ways to unload memdisk and diskemu once everything has been copied to RAM disk, but did not succeed. The unload mechanism for memdisk has not been implemented yet, and the demumgr.exe utility in the old diskemu package does not work. Any ideas?

3 Nov 2003

I just spent the entire weekend trying to figure out how to run the latest versions of Seagate, Maxtor and Western Digital's utilities from the UBCD without success. Apparently, they all appear to use the same underlying system, which doesn't work with either memdisk or diskemu. This sucks! If any of you has clues on how to get them to work, please drop me an email. The links are here: Maxtor's MaxBlast 3, Seagate's DiscWizard Starter Edition, SeaTools Desktop version 2.00.09, and Western Digital's Data Lifeguard. Go on, give the last one a shot (WD's). It is only one disk, so there is no need for any tinkering to get everything into one disk image, and boy it doesn't work! This is driving me nuts!

22 Oct 2003

Added BitTorrent download support. Thanks to Micke for the tip on a public tracker at www.digital-update.com.

21 Oct 2003

I am trying to add BitTorrent download for UBCD, but I need a "tracker". If you have a stable tracker to offer, please let me know. Thanks!

19 Oct 2003

Ver 1.7 has just been released! Fixed a bug in the auto harddisk chaining logic. Added FAQ and documentation plus autorun information contributed by Scott D. Wares. Added BasicLinux, Gujin and Freesco, recommended by Scott D. Wares as well. Updated F-Prot virus definition files. There are tons more suggestions submitted by users, but these will have to do for this release. As before, it will take a while for the mirrors to be updated. Have fun!

18 Oct 2003

By the way, some users have reported problems getting the UBCD to work with AZERTY keyboards (sorry, but I have never seen one of those!). If any of you knows how to get BootScriptor to work with AZERTY keyboards, please let me know. Thanks!

9 Oct 2003

Added CDR label for SureThing CD Labeler, contributed by Kenny Ellenburg. Check it out!

20 Sep 2003

Ver 1.6 has just been released! I wish I had more time to work on Ultimate Boot CD this weekend, but that's all I have for this release. I have added some missing key mappings, thanks to a reminder from Guillaume. I have also added a full F-Prot boot disk contributed by P J Wooledge (previously the macro virus definitions could not fit in). Finally, I have added a very nice tool called SPFDISK, which is a fantastic substitute (and more!) for FDISK.

8 Sep 2003

Ver 1.5 has just been released! I have switched to Boot Scriptor for authoring the CD, so now the menu is in full color! Added Tom's Boot Disk, g4u, HDClone (Free Edition), Active NTFS Reader for DOS and TestDisk. Windows Memory Diagnostic now works due to the use of DiskEmu. The customization section has been updated to reflect the use of Boot Scriptor instead of BCD. As before, it will take a while for the mirrors to reflect the new version, so please be patient.

3 Sep 2003

Added generic JPEG CDR label contributed by Alex Sierra. Added CDR label for Neato's MediaFACE II contributed by Jim Allen. Added a bug fix to the customization section (thanks to Olaf Morgenstern for spotting this bug)!

24 Aug 2003

Ver 1.4 has just been released! Added Windows Memory Diagnostic and XFDISK. Updated F-Prot to work with FAT32 and NTFS (read-only). Updated Drive Fitness Test to Ver 3.50.

23 Aug 2003

The hyperlink to the Nero CD label has been fixed. Please try downloading again. I have also added another Easy Creator Creator CD label contributed by Ted Kekatos. Thanks!

19 Aug 2003

Added a Nero CD label contributed by Toby MacNamara. Check it out! Also created an account with SwiftCD, so now you can get the physical CD through them as well.

10 Aug 2003

Ver 1.3 has just been released! Added Diagnostic Tool Ver 6.10 for Fujitsu HDD, SHDIAG Ver 1.25 for Samsung HDD, Feature Tool Ver 1.90 for IBM/Hitachi HDD. Updated AIDA16 to Ver 2.08. The main menu has been reorganized to partition the tools into logical sections. Once again, it will take a while for the mirrors to reflect the new version, so please be patient.

8 Aug 2003

I have revamped the section on customizing the Ultimate Boot CD. The step-by-step instructions should now be clearer for most people to follow. In addition, it is no longer necessary to download an additional file cdrommi.zip. The files on the Ultimate Boot CD itself should suffice.

5 Aug 2003

I have added a CDR label template for Roxio EZ CD Creator, contributed by a user who prefers to remain anonymous. Check it out!

5 Aug 2003

Donation is up again (total: $84)! I was thinking about how I could bring in some pocket money on the side. Will any of you be interested in making customized boot CDs? You can upload floppy disk images to me (commercial or otherwise), I will add them to the Ultimate Boot CD and send you a private link to download the ISO image. Of course, you can still create your own customized boot CD using BCD and the template provided in cdrommi.zip, but you may not want to get your hands dirty, so I am providing an alternative. I am thinking of charging $10 + ($5 x number of floppy disk images). Is that too expensive? If you are interested, please send me an email to discuss.

4 Aug 2003

Donation is marginally up (total: $59). Well, thanks to everyone who donated! Ver 1.2 has just been released, with the upgrade of PowerMax to Ver 4.06, and the addition of Partition Resizer. It will take a while for the mirrors to reflect the new version, so please be patient.

31 July 2003

Thanks for the donations! Total donation now stands at $54. I have also added quite a number of mirror sites, so hopefully they stand firm under the download frenzy. Thanks to Bruno Tiago Rodrigues, Jonathon Merz, Sandip Patel, MyBootDisks.com and Tim Vanlint for providing the mirrors!

30 July 2003

I have received a number of requests to "buy" the physical CD, but I don't want to ruin my regular day job burning CDs at home and licking envelopes. :-) Someone suggested SwiftCD as a fulfillment service. Does anyone know anything about them and whether there are any hidden pitfalls? I just want a reliable, minimum-fuss service that will deliver to those folks who want a physical CD at the lowest-cost possible. At the same time, I don't want to deal with things like minimum orders, inventory etc. Any advice will be welcomed.

30 July 2003

Don't make me beg! I have clocked up quite a princely sum in bandwidth since this site appeared on Lockergnome. So I am appealing to you folks who download the Ultimate Boot CD and find it useful to make a small donation using PayPal (total donation so far: $30). I am not trying to profiteer from this! Once I recover my cost (target donation: $300), I will make it known to the whole world through this web site, and you folks can go back to your old ways. :-)

30 July 2003

Marcus' mirror should be up. Please email me if you find any other problems with the mirrors.

29 July 2003

OK, it appears that there is some problems with ubcd.zip on the first mirror site. I am trying to sort that out with Marcus. Meanwhile, I have added another mirror site for downloads.

29 July 2003

Thanks to Marcus Widén, we have our first mirror site! From the emails I have been receiving, there should be more mirror sites coming soon. Thanks for all the support so far!

28 July 2003

I am in the process of getting some mirror sites for the ISO images, so hopefully download will be restored soon. Please check back again later, or sign up with the mailing list to receive notification when download is available again.

27 July 2003

I got the shock of my life when Lockergnome featured the Ultimate Boot CD on 23 July 2003, and suddenly the download traffic spiked like crazy! Within a couple of days, I was clocking up hundreds of dollars in bandwidth, which I can no longer afford as a hobby project. I am serious! My hosting company charges me $12 per extra GB, and last I checked, I owe them over $300! Hence, I have decided to disable the download until I can figure out what to do. If any of you are willing to mirror the files for me, I will be extremely grateful. Otherwise, the download stays closed until I become as rich as Bill Gates. :-) Sorry about that folks.