By Lou Dolinar
Updated Feb. 14, 2006

In our never-ending search to protect Windows XP from legions of hackers, spammers, spyware authors and Microsoft critical updates, I found a nifty new tool last week.

Called Bart PE, it has one simple function, and a lot of subsidiary uses: It allows you to start up your Windows PC from a CD, and run various recovery programs, in particular, anti-spy ware gem Ad-Aware. Thus can you sometimes rescue a hard drive with software problems, or at the very least remove critical files from it

The program, which is free, extracts a minimal working copy of Widows from the legally installed version on your computer. The resulting copy runs on any PC, or at least any PC I’ve tried, without any of Microsoft’s restrictions on licensing. Not that this is useful as bootleg software, however, there’s no graphical user interface, and you have to bend over backwards to install the various programs that are needed to make it truly useful.

Still, even though the program’s designed for system administrators, rather than normal people, its worth a shot to try to get it going--particularly if you’re one of those folks who didn’t get a fully copy of Windows with your PC.

To start, go to the web site of author Bart Lagerweij, of Kootwijkerbroek, Holland. http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/, and download a copy of the program. There’s no fee, though the author likes donations. Install and run the program until you get to the main setup screen:



This is where we get to the complicated part. In order to run with BART PE, a program needs a specially configured plugin, which is something like a driver, and not all the programs you might want to use have these drivers. Some of the programs on the installation list above are already included. But a fair number of these programs have to be downloaded separately from Bart PE, from the websites of their authors. You can get information and download links by highlighting the relevant program, then click on the Plugin Help button.

Here are the components you need to download separately:

Total Commander--a basic file manager

Ad-Aware--anti-spyware scanner.

McAfee Avert Stinger--McAfee’s public domain scanner for the latest 40 or so virii du jour,

Off By One Web Browser

There were a couple of programs I couldn’t get to run, including a more complete version of the McAffee anti-virus program, and the more sophisticated Mozilla Web browser.

Now what’s so great about having all this stuff on CD?

Assume that your computer’s hard drive works, but a software problem with Windows keeps it from starting up. Bart gives you a self contained Windows systems on CD that can interact with the failed hard drive. The Total Commander program, for example, lets you quickly browse your hard drive, so it becomes fairly trivial to copy work files you need immediately. Otherwise, at best you’d be stuck hacking your way through a command line interface with your official Windows rescue disk. In addition, you can run Wordpad to view and edit many of those files.

But wait, there’s more, as they say. Bart includes network support. So you can, albeit somewhat painfully, back up those files to other PCs on your home network. Wow.

Since it has network support, Bart solves another huge problem when you’re sitting there with a crashed PC and no other computer: How do you get at the Microsoft Knowledge Base to figure out how to fix it? Easy. If you download and install the mini-web browser that’s compatible with Bart, you can use the Web to look for troubleshooting advice. In fact, since you’re on the web, you can even download drivers you may need to get up and running again. Or check your email in a pinch, assuming there’s a web-based interface to it.

Finally, its almost always easier to fix a hard drive that hasn’t booted Windows. If spyware or a virus have disabled your hard drive, you’ll can still run Ad-aware and McAffee’s anti-virus program, which may restore it to bootable health. You can also check the drive itself for errors.

You’ll have to spend a half day or so to set this all up, and you have to do it now, before your next computer crash. But it beats spending a couple of days recovering with more conventional tools, or being forced to reformat your hard drive and start over.

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Note that Bart PE is a supplement, not a substitute, for the Microsoft’s own methods for recovering from a software-related hard drive failure. There are a fair number of scenarios where internal problems with Windows, rather than external rogue software, prevents an otherwise functional hard drive from starting up. Microsoft lays this all out pretty well in article 308041 at http://support.microsoft.com.

The basic troubleshooting idea, with details available in the Microsoft Knowledge base: you start off in Safe Mode (hold down F8 as you start), which loads a minimal set of drivers and lets you try to unsnarl things manually, or at least get your files off the PC. Next step, System Restore, which lets you “roll back” the installation to an earlier, less problematic version. If those don’t work, there’s the Recovery Console, a DOS like utility that lets you perform rudimentary repairs on Windows systems files. Worst case, you can perform an in-place upgrade, aka repair installation, aka reinstallation, of Windows. This replaces Windows systems files, but leaves your data files intact.