The First Aid Kit for your data and your Windows installation!
Protect yourself from data loss and Windows problems. When simply nothing works any more or troublesome viruses and Trojans are making your life miserable! Be prepared for emergencies – with the SecuPerts First Aid Kit!
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Reviews for SecuPerts First Aid Kit
USB stick = USB thumb drive = USB device = USB drive (all reference the same thing).
I see that a lot of people are having trouble with this, and initially, I wasn’t interested in bothering with it. But then, I realized for those that did need/want to take advantage of the offering, I should take a look to see if I have the same problems.
Part of the problem with this offering is that there isn’t very much guidance, … if what is provided can be called that. Aside from that, the program claims that it does have some benefits. I decided to see if I could get this working so that I could explain some things and hopefully help some users.
Even though the English-speaking user may choose English, I did encounter a couple of screens that are in German. One has a word that looks like it is the same as “update” in English, so click No.
First off, this is not a program for non-techies, but it isn’t the worst either. And how will you ever get to be a techie if you don’t venture into some foreign ground every so often?
By default, most PCs boot to a hard drive. Some PCs have multiple drives, and each one may have an operating system installed on it. During the initial bootup, by pressing a function key, a popup menu will allow the user to boot to a different drive. If your computer does not have that option, you should know how to set your computer’s BIOS to boot from a specific drive. If you can master that, then this program may be of benefit to you.
HISTORY
Before we get too far into the program itself, I need to ensure that the user understands some things. Part of this goes back a decade or two into the history of Windows and how Linux has been useful to Windows users that are experiencing an issue with their installation.
Early on in the Linux evolution, to get others to try Linux out, Live CDs were created (later DVD disks). These Live DVDs could be booted to instead of the user’s default Windows OS drive (again, using whatever method their PC has to intercept the default booting process). The user could use Linux running right off of the CD or DVD (DVD because Linux itself was growing and DVDs became cheap). Another feature of these “Live DVDs” was that the user could also choose to install Linux by either replacing a Windows installation or as a secondary OS to boot onto the same hard drive (depending on whether the hard drive had enough space) or an additional drive with sufficient space. This is known as a dual-boot system. A menu is displayed at bootup that allowed the user to choose Windows or Linux. A default time allowed the boot process to continue if no selection was made in time. Now, when a Windows user had a problem, they could boot into Linux to browse the WIndows partition files, and even edit them, all from the same computer.
Around that same time, several techie folks started collecting a wide range of utilities that might be helpful for fixing Windows problems. These collections were in a way competing with each other to have more tools available. Therefore, the CD maximum size was soon too small, so DVDs were used. Today that trend still continues but the collections are so large now that they need more space than a DVD, thus we now use USB thumb drives. This SecuPerts First Aid Kit is one of those collections.
CONTENTS
One user asked why is the download so large. It is because there are a lot of programs in this collection, including a Linux operating system with many programs.
When the user boots to the USB drive we will create, they will see a few handy tools, such as a backup program, recover files, export all drives. clone a drive, erase a drive, and a virus scan. At the top is an icon that will take the user into a Linux distro. That Linux has lots of common Linux programs, including an office suite, games, video and tools and players, and many other of the common programs that Linux has available for free.
INSTALLING THE SOFTWARE
You start out by downloading the standard Shareareonsale.com hub file. When that Hub file is extracted, now you have a Zip file. You should extract the contents of the Zip file into its own folder. Notice that the content of that folder does not include a setup.exe file. One user asked, “What .exe file should be run to install this software?” The answer is that this is not for installing a program onto your PC. It is for creating a bootable device, such as a DVD or USB drive.
In the extracted folder, there is an ISO file. The goal is to get that ISO file onto the USB drive, but wait, you cannot “copy” the file like we normally do. An ISO file contains an exact layout of what would be written to a DVD. (or other devices, such as a USB drive). Again, you cannot copy an ISO file to a USB drive and it work as a bootable device. Instead, it needs to be “burned” to the USB. There are several free programs that can burn an ISO image to a USB drive, but they are useless here. You must use the provided method to burn your USB drive. The reason is that step is when you enter your license key. the other programs would not know about that.
In the extracted folder are two .exe files. By their name, one is to burn to a DVD and the other to burn to a USB drive. Forget about the DVD choice because you aren’t likely to have a DVD that can hold 1.6 Gigs of data, plus there is a big advantage of using a USB drive. This program is how you get the ISO file “burned” to your USB drive.
Now, you need an empty USB stick or one that you are sure you no longer will need. It has to be large enough to hold the 1.6 Gigs of data, but can be larger. Due to USB sticks being really inexpensive now, feel free to use a 4 Gig, 8 Gig, 16 Gig, or even a 32 Gig USB drive. I used a 32 Gig, not because it needed to be that large, but because it was the smallest I had available. If you have a super-duper fast USB stick that you paid a mint for, this is not the time to use that USB stick, because you are not going to be using this very often. I have several other new USB sticks that are very fast, but fast is not all that important for this need.
When you have a USB stick you want to use, take a look at your PC. Do you have any other USB drives plugged in? What about external USB drives? If so, unplug them (eject them properly). Also, make sure you remove any SD cards and MMC cards from their readers. This is a precaution to ensure you do not accidentally write over data by mistake. Take note of the drive letters for all of your drives. The fewer the better to prevent accidents. This will help you recognize the drive letter to a new USB drive when it is added.
When you are ready for the next step, plug in your USB drive. Take note of what drive letter Window assigns it because you are going to need it in the next step.
Now, you can run the “First Aid Kit – install on USB.exe” program. This is the “Win32 Disk Imager” program. When it starts, it displays two fields at the top. The wide one will have the name of the ISO file. The Device will have a drive letter it thinks you want to use. Please make sure the drive letter displayed is the same as the new USB drive letter assigned by Windows. If it does not have the drive letter of the USB drive, you can use the drop-down menu to choose a specific drive letter. If you have to do this, that also means you didn’t eject some drive letter as suggested. I always unplug any unnecessary drives before executing something that will wipe out an entire disk. I recently installed a Linux distro after unplugging all drives except the one I wanted Linux on. I paid attention to the drive letter being “installed to” as extra assurance. When it was complete, my newly Windows 11 disk had changed into a Linux disk. I had Windows 11 on an M.2 SSD stick. In my case, it wasn’t a big deal, but it shows that things can be easily missed. So if you are using an M.2 disk, either remove it or be sure you have selected the USB drive.
The next thing to do is click on the “Write” button at the bottom of the “First Aid Kit – install on USB.exe” program to start burning the ISO image file to the USB drive. It will take a while. The first part will not appear to be doing anything, but just give it enough time. When it finishes, you will be prompted to reboot the computer to use the new USB drive. Right behind (or near) that window is the extracting window. You can reboot or Cancel. The extracting window will close as well as the “First Aid Kit – install on USB.exe” program.
Now, is when you need to know how to select a different disk to boot to. As mentioned, if you do not have a function key to get a popup window with boot drive choices, you will need to go into your BIOS settings to select the USB drive. That will require a reboot, so you will need to know what key to press to get into your BIOS settings. After your new primary boot choice has been saved, you can continue the boot process.
This time, Windows will not start … because you are booting into the First Aid Kit, which is based on a simple Linux distro. The first screen you will see is the one that has the backup program, recover files, export all drives. clone a drive, erase a drive, and a virus scan. Collectively, they do not look like a huge collection of tools, “but wait, there’s more.” At the top right of that screen are several icons. One looks like a display. Click it, and you are switched to the Linux OS. There are many programs to check out here.
To get back to the first window, one of the Linux start menu choices is to “return to administrator” display.
If the First Aid Kit does not have what you are looking for, take a look at some of the alternatives, such as Hiren’s Boot CD, and several others. Most are totally free. There is no license to purchase for using Linux, and no one can sell a license for Linux, but people can put Linux on a DVD/USB drive (or some media) and charge for the media. In this manner, they are basically selling CDs/DVDs/USBs with lots of programs already installed on them. Usually, you can find these same collections available for free downloading as ISO files, ready for burning to a USB stick. Use a program such as Rufus to burn the ISO file to create your own bootable rescue disk.
I hope this helped.
Read Replies |
Strangely i’ve never heard of this and i have multiple rescue disks on numerous usb sticks and dvd/cd’s.
There’s quite a few available plus you can very easily build up your own set of tools either with linux or winpe.
Thanks to your info i know what to do with it now ,cheers !
Nice Job of explaining this. I will save it and on the occasions I have to explain this to someone, this will save me a lot of time and effort and is also better than I would have explained it. Thanks much, and Happy New Year!
redownload got to part usb.exe and says reboot or cancel. but my usb still not show any data on it. all free. somehow not got to USB drive I have 16gb on it any idea ? not give me a choice on the drive to install to. but only this new USB plugged in. thanks for the help if have any ideas.
Very helpful! Thk U! Cancelled boot & as u said program closed. My PC no longer shows the disk – does this signify that the USB has been ejected? Tks again!
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