The problem with any system is that, if you suffer virus attack or similar cannot boot your computer, you might not be able to get in to Windows to salvage your important data. Sometimes the ‘safe mode’ will fail to operate and, even with safe mode, you might not be able to connect to another computer on your network, to move the files across to another machine. Indeed, you might end up moving across files with a virus, which isn’t the wisest idea.

With Windows Vista, you can create your own bootable recovery disc. We’re not going to show how to do this here, but it’s possible. The Vista bootable recovery disc will enable you to fix Vista-related problems, so you can get back in to your computer.

However, the Vista recovery disc is both limited and doesn’t ship with any anti-virus or other security tools, which will examine your system and remove problematic files that are preventing your system from starting in the first place.

The Ultimate Boot CD is a collection of free tools put on to a bootable recovery disc, which will enable you to boot in to an operating system outside of your regular Windows, so you can test, scan and remove problematic files.

Note you should always make sure you have the latest Ultimate Boot CD in your collection, as the included security tools will soon be out-of-date and may not be able to fix the issues on your machine. You’ll need a disc burning tool that can burn an ISO image to disc.