News   

18 Aug 2020

UBCD V5.3.9 is now available for download. The project is pretty much in hibernation now, but I continue to receive emails from some of you. So this is a maintenance release that basically lets me clear the backlog of fixes. You can download the latest version here.

19 Mar 2018

UBCD V5.3.8 is now available for download. Besides updating a few apps to the most recent version, I have also added CPUID to the collection. You can download the latest version here.

29 Mar 2017

UBCD V5.3.7 is now available for download. I have performed the usual app refresh to their latest versions. The FreeDOS kernel in FDUBCD has been updated to 2042, as well as a few system drivers, found in FreeDOS 1.2. You can download the latest version here.

23 Sep 2016

UBCD V5.3.6 is now available for download. A few apps have been updated to their latest versions. Also, the F-Prot database paths have changed and the corresponding changes have been made to the fprot.sh script. You can download the latest version here.

24 May 2015

UBCD V5.3.5 is now available for download. FDUBCD now uses a 50MB superfloppy image to give more room for expansion and customization. Besides the usual app updates, a new low-level partition editor called Partition Explorer has been added. You can download the latest version here.

2 May 2015

UBCD V5.3.4 is now available for download. Other than app updates, a number of freeware apps from Q&D Tools have been added at the author's suggestion. You can download the latest version here.

20 Nov 2014

UBCD V5.3.3 is now available for download. Besides the usual app updates, CPUstress has been updated to V2.5.4 by Explorer09. You can download the latest version here.

17 Sep 2014

UBCD V5.3.2 is now available for download. Besides the usual app updates, CPUstress has been updated to V2.5.2 by Explorer09. In addition, two keyboard checking apps have been included at the suggestion of silicon83. You can download the latest version here.

12 Aug 2014

UBCD V5.3.1 is now available for download. A number of apps have been updated to their most recent version. The full changelog is available here. You can download the latest version here.

21 Mar 2014

UBCD V5.3.0 is now available for download. A small number of apps have been updated to their most recent version. The full changelog is available here. You can download the latest version here.

4 Mar 2014

UBCD V5.2.9 is now available for download. CPUstress has been updated to V2.4.0 (with thanks to Explorer09), along with other recent updates. The full changelog is available here. You can download the latest version here.

17 Dec 2013

UBCD V5.2.8 is now available for download. CPUstress has been updated to V2.3.7 (with thanks to Explorer09), along with other recent updates. The full changelog is available here. You can download the latest version here.

29 Aug 2013

UBCD V5.2.7 is now available for download. CPUstress has been updated to V2.3.6 (with thanks to Explorer09), along with other recent updates. The full changelog is available here. You can download the latest version here.

20 Aug 2013

UBCD V5.2.6 is now available for download. Parted Magic has been updated to 2013_08_01. CPUstress has been updated to V2.3.5 (with thanks to Explorer09). The xfprot module within Parted Magic has also been updated to V2.4expl6 (again with thanks to Explorer09). The changelog is available here. You can download the latest version here.

25 Jun 2013

UBCD V5.2.5 is now available for download. Parted Magic has been updated to 2013_06_15. CPUstress has been updated to V2.3.4 (with thanks to Explorer09). The changelog is available here. You can download the latest version here.

29 May 2013

UBCD V5.2.4 is now available for download. Parted Magic has been updated to 2013_05_01. CPUstress has been updated to V2.3.3 (with thanks to Explorer09). The changelog is available here. You can download the latest version here.

30 Apr 2013

UBCD V5.2.3 is now available for download. Parted Magic has been updated to 2013_02_28. CPUstress has been updated to V2.3.1 (with thanks to Explorer09). The changelog is available here. You can download the latest version here.

10 Apr 2013

UBCD V5.2.2 is now available for download. CPUstress has been updated to V2.2, thanks to Explorer09's hard work. The changelog is available here. You can download the latest version here.

04 Mar 2013

UBCD V5.2.1 is now available for download. I have added the ClamAV and F-Prot antivirus databases, which were missing from the previous version. CPUstress has also been updated to V2.1expl6 and given its own menu entry. The changelog is available here. You can download the latest version here.

21 Feb 2013

UBCD V5.2.0 is out after a number of test releases. The major change in this release is putting FDUBCD and DOSAPPS on a 16MB superfloppy image. Hopefully this will enable FDUBCD to work on even more systems under both syslinux/memdisk and grub4dos. As usual, all included apps have been updated where possible. The full changelog is available here. You can also download the latest version here.

14 Aug 2011

I have added md5sum/sha1sum for previous versions of UBCD ISO images (up to V4.1.0) in the Version History page. Thanks to Nathan for the suggestion.

8 Aug 2011

UBCD V5.1.1 is out. It updates Parted Magic to V6.6 on the advice of IceCube, which fixes a potentially nasty ntfsresize bug. Full changelog here, and latest download here.

30 Jul 2011

UBCD V5.1 is finally out after a number of test releases. Along with the usual updates, the major change in this version is shifting the FDUBCD boot image and the associated DOS CAB files into its own ISO image, which is then launched using memdisk's CDROM emulation. This helps FDUBCD work on more systems, where previously issues may be encountered on systems with physical CDROM drives that are not supported by the DOS CDROM driver. Full changelog here. As usual, you can download the latest version here.

25 Aug 2010

UBCD V5.0.3 is out. It ties up a few loose ends remaining in V5.0.2. Full changelog here. If you already have UBCD V5.0.2, you can download a small patch file (2MB) instead of the full ISO image. This is probably going to be the last release for the V5.0.x series. Work will begin soon on V5.1 (alpha).

9 Jun 2010

UBCD V5.0.2 is out. It fixes a few issues found in V5.0.1. Full changelog here. If you already have UBCD V5.0.1, you can download a small patch file (2MB) instead of the full ISO image.

24 May 2010

UBCD V5.0.1 is out. It fixes a critical bug with ubcd2iso.cmd. Full changelog here. If you already have UBCD V5.0, you can download a small patch file (2.5MB) instead of the full ISO image.

14 May 2010

After numerous false starts and even more betas, UBCD V5.0 is finally out. This release involves a major reorganization to the directory structure to achieve better isolation of UBCD-related files, as well as the addition/updates/removal of many apps in UBCD. It also includes Parted Magic for more reliable access to NTFS filesystems and USB storage devices.

This new release would not be possible without the contribution of as702, who single-handedly remade the UBCD FreeDOS boot disk, and IceCube, who spearheaded grub4dos integration, antivirus database updates scripts, additional Parted Magic modules and contributed in many other areas. My thanks also go out to neoy, who made a sparkling new logo, icon and button for the project. So go ahead and download the new version!

20 Apr 2010

The second release candidate for UBCD V5.0 is out. This is probably the last RC before the mainline release so I would appreciate it if you could download it, give it a try and give me your feedback.

17 Sep 2008

For those of you who have been waiting, I apologise that the next release of UBCD is taking so long. There was supposed to be V4.2, but that got scrapped. Then V5.0 went through a couple of generations, but with the support of new developers (eg. as702 and IceCube), I think it was worth all the trouble. Anyway, the mainline release is not available yet, but for those of you living on the cutting age, you can download the beta version of UBCD V5.0 using BitTorrent and help us test it out.

10 May 2007

The first patch file has just been released. It fixes two problems: 1) error in DFT's disk image filename 2) errors in the DOS boot disk menu.

8 May 2007

UBCD V4.1.0 is now available for download. Besides the usual updates of existing apps and virus signatures, the main DOS boot disk has been changed to FreeDOS (previously it was LZ-DOS) for greater compatibility. For the full details of this release, please refer to Version History.

8 Apr 2007

I have finally bitten the bullet and upgraded the web forum to the latest version of phpBB, dropping the m2f module in the process. The m2f module makes pretty deep modifications to phpBB's core, which makes it more difficult to update phpBB regularly. By dropping m2f, I hope I can keep phpBB more up-to-date.

What does all this mean to you? It means you will no longer be able to subscribe or interact with the web forum via email. Very few people do that any way, so if you are currently not using the web forum's email function, you can ignore this message. However, if you are currently subscribed to the web forum via email, I would suggest that you switch to tracking the web forum via RSS feeds.

Finally, to all those affected, I would like to sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused. I have been considering and reconsidering this issue for a very long time, and I hope it's all for the best.

4 Apr 2007

The third patch file has been released. Some unnecessary files are removed under \dosapps\mcafee in order to increase the amount of free RAM disk space so that ubcdvir can run successfully for McAfee Antivirus.

29 Mar 2007

The second patch file has been released. It increases the default RAM disk size on DOSUBCD.IGZ so that updating F-Prot's virus definition files through ubcdvir can complete successfully without running out of disk space.

17 Mar 2007

I will be releasing binary patches to fix bugs in the original UBCD ISO image. This allows me to issue updates faster because the patch files are typically quite small, so I can afford to host them myself instead of propagating the changes to the mirrors, which takes a lot of coordination and time.

The first patch file has just been released. It updates memdisk to a more current version that is reported to work better at booting Ghost.

13 Mar 2007

For better or for worse, I am making UBCD V4.0 available for download today after a short beta test. This release is based on syslinux/isolinux instead of CDShell. I am abandoning the latter due to its lack of further development, while syslinux/isolinux is still undergoing active development, so there is a better chance that syslinux/isolinux will work with newer machines. There is also experimental support for running UBCD from a USB memory stick via a modified version of the UBCD2USB script, which has lurked around in the forum for quite a while now. For the full details of this release, please refer to Version History.

28 Sep 2006

I am considering making the new boot disk based on LZ-DOS (Russian MS-DOS 7.10 compatible kernel with LFN-support) default for the next release of UBCD, instead of the current one based on FreeDOS. If you would like to help with the testing, please refer to the details here. Thanks!

1 Mar 2006

Another bug report for V3.4. The launch commands for NWDSK and MSRRC are mixed up. A patch file is available to fix it, but you must be able to create a customized UBCD ISO image. Thanks to kustner for reporting the bug.

15 Feb 2006

First bug report for V3.4. Please refer to Bugs and Workarounds for more information. If this affects you, a patch file is available to fix it, but you must be able to create a customized UBCD ISO image. Thanks to Erwin Veermans for reporting the bug.

14 Feb 2006

After a long gap, Ultimate Boot CD Ver 3.4 is finally ready for download! There is the usual update of apps to their latest versions. Erwin Veermans has added a new feature on the FreeDOS bootdisk that allows you to update the virus database for F-Prot, McAfee and AVG over the network. A new expert mode has also been added (by pressing the [Ins] key at the menus) that allows you to choose which boot disk (FreeDOS, OpenDOS or MSDOS) to use when running certain apps if you encounter compatibility issues. For full details, please refer to Version History.

Since this is Valentine's Day, I would like to dedicate this release to my wife, who wants me to spend less time on my hobbies and more time with her. I am sorry honey, but absence makes the heart grows fonder. Happy Valentines!

10 Jan 2006

Stephen Stagg has kindly set up a BitTorrent tracker for UBCD. As such, I have added the BitTorrent seeds back to the download page.

3 Dec 2005

The mailing list function of the web forums stopped working around two weeks back due to some server misconfiguration. I have fixed it this morning, so the few of you who are subscribed will start receiving forum postings again. Sorry about that. I will go through the forum postings I have missed and reply as necessary.

15 Oct 2005

I am back at working on the next release of UBCD, in case you are wondering. I had to move to another apartment last week, and that did mess up my daily routine somewhat, but worse, my new place does not have always-on connectivity. So I have to remove the torrent downloads since I am no longer able to run the tracker. As always, I can't seem to find a reliable public tracker to use, so the torrent downloads stays down unless you have better ideas.

16 Sep 2005

I must apologise for not being too responsive with emails and forum postings over the past two weeks. The reason is because I was assigned to a "special" project at work which was supposed to take only one week, but now looks like it is going to take a month instead. This project has been sapping up all my energy and time, leaving me with little else to attend to other matters. But once this is over and done with, I promise I will be back to more important things, like releasing another version of UBCD!

25 May 2005

I have written a new tutorial on how to add the Partition Magic 8 rescue disks to the UBCD. Your comments and feedback are welcomed. Meanwhile, a reminder that the tutorial section is still wide open for more contributions. Anything from adding applications to the UBCD, or how to use particular apps on the UBCD for system recovery etc. will be great!

6 May 2005

I have updated the version of mkisofs on the Customizing UBCD page to Ver 2.01. This version does not have any dependency on cygwin.dll, so I have updated the customization instructions to reflect it. Thanks to Techarium for the suggestion.

29 Apr 2005

I am pleased to announce the release of Ultimate Boot CD Ver 3.3! This release is based on the new CDShell V2.1.6 and BCDW V2.0a1. It adds AVG Free Edition, CHZ Monitor-Test, Necromancer's DOS Navigator, GRUB, Eraser, FileLink, QwikTest and D-Browse. It updates various other applications to their latest releases, and refreshes the virus definition files. Please refer to the release history for details. At the moment, only the BitTorrent and PlanetMirror sources are up, but more mirrors should become available shortly.

1 Apr 2005

I have created a new tutorial section to consolidate all the contributed tutorials. Meanwhile, if you have some spare time, why not write up a new tutorial for the benefit of all? Anything regarding burning, using or adding stuff to the UBCD is fair game.

18 Mar 2005

My webhost is not too happy with people running PHP-based trackers (they consume too much CPU and bandwidth) and has sent a cease-and-desist warning email. So I am transiting the tracker over to my home machine. The torrent files have been updated to point to the new tracker location, but I will leave the PHP tracker running for a few more days before taking it offline. Meanwhile, if you hit any problems with the new tracker, please let me know.

11 Mar 2005

The web-based forums are now officially open for business, and will be used in the future for obtaining support, reporting bugs and suggesting software to be added to the UBCD. They will replace the existing ubcd-support and ubcd-suggestions mailing lists (but not ubcd-announce, which will continue to operate as is).

7 Mar 2005

I am back! Please be patient and give me some time to clear the emails in my inbox. Thanks!

25 Feb 2005

I will be going for a well-needed vacation for the whole of next week. Should you send me any email during this period, please expect some significant delay in my reply because I may be on the road, or I may not have Internet access at where I am staying at that time. In addition, I will not be able to update the website while I am gone, so all update requests will have to wait until I am back. Thanks for your kind understanding!

21 Jan 2005

OK, the three primary mirrors are up. Let the download frenzy begin!

21 Jan 2005

Thanks to all who emailed me to tell me my tracker wasn't working! Not sure what happened, but my BlogTorrent configuration settings got corrupted somewhere along the way (it was OK last night) and I couldn't even login to the tracker. So I reinstalled BlogTorrent from scratch, and things appear to be moving along now. Please try again and let me know.

The mirrors are still being updated and should be up very soon.

20 Jan 2005

Things got 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 versions. Please refer to 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 BitTorrent, please check it out and give me your feedback. The torrent files 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 in addition to 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.