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Ultimate Boot CD (UBCD) Review

ultimate boot cd review

Marc Wilson UPDATED: April 3, 2023

The Ultimate Boot CD (UBCD) is a Bootable Rescue CD based on Debian that has a variety of Tools integrated into the software that gives you the functionality and ability to perform basic and intermediate Rescue and recovery operations on your Computer.

Official Site: UltimateBootCD.com

UBCD can be downloaded and burned onto a CD or USB flash drive and used to perform any of the tasks you'll see listed below, ranging from Resetting Windows 7 Passwords that you have forgotten, to testing your RAM and CPU via its built-in MemTest and CPUstress utilities, as seen in the below screenshot.

ubcd cpustress screenshot

The current release, as of this writing, is 5.3.5 and its always being updated with new tools and utilities to make it even more robust.

We'll quickly overview each category that UBCD has in its main screen and explain what each does as well.

ubcd main gui screenshot

As you can see in the screenshot above, which is the main screen of the UBCD when you initially boot into it, there are 7 Main categories of tools and several other menu options.

The main categories for UBCD are as follows (all info was taken from the ultimatebootcd.com official website):

  1. BIOS
  2. CPU
  3. HDD
  4. Memory
  5. Others
  6. Peripherals
  7. System

Within those top level categories, there are utilities for each of their respective duties, of which the HDD category has 9 sub-categories within it, which are as follows:

HDD:

  • Boot Management
  • Data Recovery
  • Device Info and Management
  • Diagnosis
  • Disk Cloning
  • Disk Editing
  • Disk Wiping
  • Installation
  • Partition Management

As you can see, Hard-drive Recovery, Management, Repair and anything else you want to do with a hard-drive is possible with UBCD.

It almost seems that their are more tools for Hard drive management than any other category, but at the end of the day, HDD problems are the most common in our environment, so we're not complaining.

UBCD Tool and Utility Breakdown

Here's a table of the breakdown of what which tools are in each section, you can see more information about these tools if you click on their links:

(These were pulled directly via UltimateBootCD.com - check there for any updated tools and information)

Name of Tool

/BIOS

!BIOS
BIOS
CMOSPWD
KEYDisk
PC CMOS Cleaner
Q&D Vital Data Manager
WipeCMOS

/CPU

CPUstress
CPUburn
CPU Burn-in

CPUinfo

Intel Optimized LINPACK Benchmark
Intel Processor Frequency ID (P3 and below)
Intel Processor Identification Utility (P4 and above)
Mersenne Prime Test
Mersenne Prime Test
Stress
StressCPU (requires CPU with SSE)
System Stability Tester
x86test

/HDD/Boot Management

BOOTMGR
Boot Partition
EditBINI
GAG (Graphical Boot Manager)
Gujin
MBRtool
MBRWork
PLoP Boot Manager
Smart BootManager
SPFDISK (Special FDISK)
Super Grub Disk
Super Grub2 Disk
XFDISK (Extended FDISK)
XOSL (Extended Operating System Loader)
XOSL-OW (Extended Operating System Loader)

/HDD/Data Recovery

Q&D Unit/Track/Head/Sector
Offline NT Password & Registry Editor
PCLoginNow
PCRegEdit
PhotoRec
TestDisk

/HDD/Device Info and Management

AMSET (Maxtor)
ATAINF
ATA Password Tool
Change Definition Utility (for Fujitsu M16xx/M2915 HDDs)
DiskCheck
DISKINFO
ESFeat (ExcelStor)
Feature Tool (IBM/Hitachi)
GSmartControl
SMARTUDM
UATA100 (Seagate)
UDMA Utility (for Fujitsu MPD/MPE/MPF series HDDs)
UDMA Utility (for Fujitsu MPG series HDDs)
Ultra ATA Manager (Western Digital)
WDIDLE3 (Western Digital)

/HDD/Diagnosis

ATA Diagnostic Tool (Fujitsu)
Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for DOS (Western Digital)
Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for DOS (Western Digital)
Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for DOS (Western Digital)
Drive Fitness Test (IBM/Hitachi)
ES-Tool (Samsung)
ESTest (ExcelStor)
GWSCAN (Gateway)
GWSCAN (Gateway)
HDAT2
HUTIL (Samsung)
HUTIL (Samsung)
MHDD32
MHDD32
PowerMax (Maxtor/Quantum)
PowerMax (Maxtor/Quantum)
SCSIMax (Maxtor/Quantum)
SeaTools for DOS (Seagate/Maxtor)
SeaTools for DOS (Seagate/Maxtor)
SHDIAG (Samsung)
TAFT (The ATA Forensics Tool)
ViVARD

/HDD/Disk Cloning

Clonezilla
CopyWipe
EaseUs Disk Copy
g4u
HDClone (Free Edition)
partimage
Partition Saving
PC INSPECTOR clone-maxx
Q&D Unit Clone

/HDD/Disk Editing

Disk Editor
DISKMAN4
DiskSpy Free Edition (Personal use only)
PTS DiskEditor

/HDD/Disk Wiping

Active@ KillDisk Free Edition
CopyWipe
Darik's Boot and Nuke
Fujitsu Erase Utility
HDDErase
HDDErase
HDShredder (Free Edition)
MAXLLF (Maxtor)
PC Disk Eraser
PC INSPECTOR e-maxx
SUTIL (Samsung)

/HDD/Installation

Data Lifeguard Tools (Western Digital)
DiscWizard 2003 (Seagate)
DiscWizard (Seagate/Maxtor)
Disk Manager (IBM)
Disk Manager (Samsung)
MaxBlast (Maxtor)

/HDD/Partition Management

Cute Partition Manager
Dsrfix
FIPS
Free FDISK
GParted
Partinfo
Partition Explorer
Partition Resizer
Partition Saving
PTDD Super Fdisk
Ranish Partition Manager
SPFDISK (Special FDISK)
XFDISK (Extended FDISK)

/Memory

AleGr MEMTEST
DIMM_ID
Memtest86
Memtest86+
TestMemIV
Windows Memory Diagnostic

/Others

boot.kernel.org (BKO)
ClamScan Antivirus
FileLink
F-PROT Antivirus
Kon-Boot
netboot.me
Parted Magic
UBCD FreeDOS (Based on NwDsk V3.40)

/Peripherals

ATAPI CDROM Identification
CHZ Monitor-Test
Parallel Port Information System
Video Memory Stress Test
Enhanced Keyboard Checker
AT-Keyboard Tester

/System

AIDA16
ASTRA (Demo version)
Hardware Detection Tool
HWiNFO
NSSI
PC-Config
PCI
PCISniffer
System Speed Test 32

As you can see, the list of tools and utilities is fairly exhaustive and inclusive of tools needed in an emergency situation.

As any IT Professional or Technician knows, having a Boot disk with you on a USB flash/thumb drive can prove to very useful when it a bad situation.

Whether your troubleshooting a local secure file server or a windows desktop – having a Rescue disk on hand is always a good idea.

We run all sorts of network management tools in-house, along with syslog servers, tftp and sftp servers as well and if we've been in a situation where data-loss was imminent, we've use UBCD to recover files quickly and easily.

Many times we've had to pull out the UBCD to troubleshoot hard drive failures and such at a remote location away from our offices and its saved us several times.

For those looking for a Windows version of UBCD, you can check out UBCD4Win.org, as they've developed a cool spin-off of UBCD on Bart's PE pre-install environment.

UBCD Review FAQs

What are the features of Ultimate Boot CD?

The features of Ultimate Boot CD include disk cloning, disk partitioning, data recovery, system testing and benchmarking, BIOS and CMOS tools, network configuration, and virus scanning and removal.

What is disk cloning in Ultimate Boot CD?

Disk cloning is the process of copying the entire contents of a hard drive to another drive or image file. UBCD includes tools such as Clonezilla and Partimage that can be used for disk cloning.

What is disk partitioning in Ultimate Boot CD?

Disk partitioning is the process of dividing a hard drive into separate logical sections or partitions. UBCD includes tools such as GParted and Partition Logic that can be used for disk partitioning.

What is data recovery in Ultimate Boot CD?

Data recovery is the process of recovering data from damaged or corrupted storage media. UBCD includes tools such as PhotoRec and TestDisk that can be used for data recovery.

What is system testing and benchmarking in Ultimate Boot CD?

System testing and benchmarking is the process of evaluating the performance and stability of a system. UBCD includes tools such as MemTest86 and Stresslinux that can be used for system testing and benchmarking.

What are BIOS and CMOS tools in Ultimate Boot CD?

BIOS and CMOS tools are used for configuring and testing system BIOS and CMOS settings. UBCD includes tools such as PC CMOS Cleaner and Ultimate BIOS-Boot-Edition that can be used for BIOS and CMOS management.

What is network configuration in Ultimate Boot CD?

Network configuration is the process of configuring network settings and connections. UBCD includes tools such as Netcat and Nmap that can be used for network configuration and testing.

Editors Rating

Overall
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