by ·Comments Off on YUMI: A USB Multiboot Creator
YUMI: USB Multiboot Creator

YUMI: USB Multiboot Creator (source:  pendrivelinux.com)

I don’t know what YUMI stands for, but one thing for sure this tool is the greatest tool created for us mere computer mortals.  Note that YUMI is a from Pendrivelinux.com, and it is FREE.

With YUMI you can take a simple USB flash drive and turn it into your portable boot-able operating system of your choice.

Personally, I find this tool perfect for recovering a  forgotten local administrative password on a computer, or for recovering data from a boot drive where the operating system is no longer boot-able.

To use it, you need a Windows XP/Vista/7 computer to download and run the YUMI utility.  You then need to build a multiboot USB flash drive using it by specifying the drive letter where the flash drive is.

In building the multiboot USB flash drive, you will need at least one ISO image of whatever it is you want to boot to.  Say for example you have a Trinity Rescue Kit ISO image, and you want to use that to help you recover data from a non-boot-able computer (maybe because OS is corrupted).  When you run YUMI, you will need to specify an ISO image, like below:

Selecting a Distrbution ISO Image in YUMI

Selecting a distribution ISO Image in YUMI

If you don’t yet have the ISO image, you can check the option “Opted to Download the iso.”  After the ISO image is downloaded, you can go to the CREATE phase.  Also, before creating, make sure you have the correct USB device selected.

That is pretty much it.

 

by ·Comments Off on Protect Your Data from Data Wiping Worm

In the last few days there has been reports of a worm designed to wipe out your data.  CNET reports that this worm has already targetted US and South Korean web sites.  The worm travels through emails which has an attachment.  The email is basically a trojan with a payload designed to erase files on your computer–including the master boot record.  When installed on your computer, the malicious load with will basically render your computer inoperable on the next boot.

Don’t wait until this happens to you.  Take action; backup your precious files (documents, pictures, videos).  You have several options.

If you don’t have too many files to back up (i.e. less than 2GB), a free account at mozy.com would do the job.  They provide 2GB of free online backup storage space; however, for unlimited space it is only $4.95 per month!  However, if you are cheap like me, you can try to convince others to to sign up for their free 2GB as well, and you’ll get an additional 250MB of storage space for every referral!

There are other online backup solutions like elephantdrive.com and carbonite.com; however, these don’t provide an initial free online storage space.

The other approach is to simply buy a flash drive or an external high capacity USB drive.  There are many out there.  I’ve seen flash drive with capacities as high as 32GB, but I’m sure there are higher capacity units out there now.  You can buy external USB drives now with over 1TB of storage space for less than $200.  As a matter of fact, I recently purchased one at Best Buy.  Over two weeks ago, I completed a full backup of my drives containing years of accumulated documents and pictures.

I know that if by some chance my drive crashes or I am infected by one of this worm, I’ll have my backup to fall back on.

So don’t wait too long before backing up your data.  Get that peace of mind that you have something to fall back to should the worst happen to your hard drive.



Mozy Remote Backup. Free.Automatic.Secure.

by ·Comments Off on Secure your Flash Drives!

One of the worst things that can happen to you is to lose a flash drive.  The one thing that can is even worst than that is if teh flash drive has confidential information.

Enter TrueCrypt!

TrueCrypt is an encryption product that will allow you to create a secure file which you can access like a drive (e.g. drive G:, M:, or whatever you choose it to be).  In order to mount it like a drive you need to supply a passphrase–which you setup when you build a TrueCrypt file volume.

If you save the TrueCrypt file on a USB flash drive and access it like a drive, you can store your confidential files there.

If you ever lose this flash drive, no one can access the confidential data you have in the TrueCrypt file because they are encrypted.  That solves your problem.  The only thing you need to make sure you do now is make backups of your data so you can recover them should you lose your flash drive; and you won’t have to worry about others seeing your confidential files!