[TUTORIAL] Creating NeoSmart recovery discs on the go

[JustinW]

Our recovery discs provide an excellent way to recover a non-booting system if you don’t happen to have Windows boot media, but what if you’re one of those unfortunate cases that don’t have access to another private computer to obtain and use to burn the recovery discs you may need? In this tutorial I’ll go over the process of obtaining our recovery discs and burning them to disc in an environment where you may not have the administrative rights to install applications such as uTorrent, ImgBurn, or 7-zip needed to download and create the recovery disc.

1. You well need the following:

a. ImgBurn (http://imgburn.com) (Older Portable version here)
b. 7-zip Portable (http://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/7-zip_portable)
c. uTorrent Portable (http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/utorrent_portable)
d. The correct torrent file for your operating system. See here and here to download.
e. A blank CD-R. No CD-RWs!

2. Next, extract 7-zip and uTorrent by starting their installers. The portable app installers shouldn’t require administrative rights on the computer.

3. Now to make ImgBurn portable:

a. Start up 7-zip and browse to where ImgBurn’s installer is. Single click it so it is selected before hitting the “Extract” button in 7-zip’s toolbar. Follow on screen instructions to extract ImgBurn’s files to where you would like to store them.
b. In ImgBurn’s directory, create a new file called “ImgBurn.ini”. You don’t need to add anything to it. Make sure there is no .txt extension at the end of it. You can do this using Notepad or by right-clicking and using Explorer’s new text document and rename file features.

4. At this point you are ready to download the correct ISO for your operating system. Start up uTorrent and go to File -> Add Torrent. You than navigate to the *.torrent file you downloaded from our website earlier and have uTorrent download it.

5. The final step in creating the recovery disc is actually burning it to disc. ImgBurn well take the *.ISO file you have downloaded and do this for you with the “Write image file to disc” mode. For screenshots and detailed click by click instructions see our article on ImgBurn here.

For instructions for using our recovery discs see here. Please also remember that our recovery discs contain absolutely NO installation files what so ever. The only functional part of the disc is the “Repair my computer” link that takes you into the Windows environment needed to recover a non-booting Windows system.

Should you have any questions don’t hesitate to start a new thread in the appropriate forum. Thank you.

[Coolname007]

Neat tutorial.
But I don't understand why you need to create a blank ImgBurn.ini file.

[JustinW]

I don't understand why you need to create a blank ImgBurn.ini file.

This:

3. Now to make ImgBurn portable:

[Coolname007]

Ok...
So how does it make it portable?

[Computer Guru]

The presence of the ini file makes it load/store the settings locally instead of on the system.

[Coolname007]

Ahh...ok. Thanks, I didn't know that.

[JustinW]

Exactly. Seeing as its not your computer you wouldn't want to leave any traces behind if you can help it.

[Mak 2.0]

Great guide but 1 question. Wouldnt using something like InfraRecorder which already is portable do the same thing without all the hassle? Thanks for the info on Imgburn but i have used this before and it does a good job.

[JustinW]

I used ImgBurn in the instructions since thats what we often recommend. I've had some problems with InfraRecorder as well as CDBurnerXP too in the past incorrectly burning and wasting discs. I haven't had any problems with ImgBurn. ImgBurn (~2mb) is also smaller than InfraRecorder (~11mb) and doesn't rely on cdrtools. I think ImgBurn does a much better job and it definetly has a wider range of options, but InfraRecorders fine too if you like it.

[Mak 2.0]

Okay. Thanks for the info. It was just a simple question. As that is offered by Portableapps.com i figured it might be easier to use.

[JustinW]

You've got a point. Having that wouldn't require that you go get 7-zip, though doing a search reveals you can obtain ImgBurn in portable form without the hassles from places like Softpedia. If you could fix the post though so its included...

[Mak 2.0]

Well the sad part is that the version on Softpedia hasnt caught up yet. It is only 2.4.4 on Softpedia when they are on version 2.5 now. If you wish to rar it up and upload it to mediafire or something i can add it.

There is also information on their site how ot make it portable as well.

http://forum.imgburn.com/index.php?showtopic=9696
http://forum.imgburn.com/index.php?showtopic=9991

Those might be of use as well.

[Computer Guru]

Doesn't Windows 7 finally come with an ISO burner?

[Terry60]

Yes it does (but I haven't tried it yet)

[JustinW]

About time