Hiren’s BootCD is easily rankings itsself among the best boot cds and system maintainance tools. I have configured it to run both from my USB stick or directly from hard disk. Here is how to boot Hiren’s BootCD from the hard disk using text for dos (text4dos).
- The first step is getting text4dos and release the GRLDR, text.exe and MENU.lst to the root directory of C:
- Open the ISO file of Hiren’s BootCD using Daemon Tools or Winimage and extract the directory HBCD to the root directory of C:
- Edit MENU.lst and put the following code into it:
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timeout 30 default 0 title Start Hiren's BootCD find --set-root /HBCD/boot.gz map --mem /HBCD/boot.gz (fd0) map --hook chainloader (fd0)+1 rootnoverify (fd0) map --floppies=1 boot
- Edit the boot.ini file under C: and put the following line into it. This will make Windows load text4dos, and then text4dos will load Hiren’s boot file to boot it.
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C:\GRLDR="Hiren"
- You can also boot the mini WinXP in the HBCD directory by adding the following code into the MENU.lst file.
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title Mini Windows Xp find --set-root /HBCD/XPLOADER.BIN chainloader /HBCD/XPLOADER.BIN
After the modificiations, reboot the system to use your Hiren’s BootCD from the hard disk. Becaues the boot.gz under HBCD does does not come with ntfs drivers, this method only works when C: is in FAT32 format.
Not personally fond of warez stuff.
But definitely worth of a look.
I would say this is the best BootCD out there. Now it comes with a license warning and you have to acknowledge it before proceeding to use the proprietary tools. Definitely worth trying and it comes handy when I boot it from my USB stick.