Burn a Pc-rescue kit to a CD

What you need: System Rescue Toolkit; Any Windows version (XP to 10) 0) Time required: 50 minutes

Ifyour PC is behaving erratically and you’re not sure why, free tool All in One – System Rescue Toolkit (SRT) should be all you need to put things right. It’s a collection of over 50 useful tools that will help you detect and fix almost any PC problem. You can use it to access all your PC’S main functions (Control Panel, Registry, Command Prompt, Disk Defragmenter) and run secure third-party tools (from Kaspersky, Eset, Mcafee and Avast). We’ll show you how to burn the toolkit to a CD, then fix your PC when disaster strikes.

STEP1

There are different ways to install SRT (see www.snipca.com/ 21982), but we found the best way is to click the Google Drive link (or go to www.snipca.com/21983), log into your Gmail account, click the blue Download button 1 , then click ‘Download anyway’. Click ‘Show all’ 2 to see the downloaded file in your Downloads folder. We’ll now show you how to burn this to a CD.

STEP2

Insert a blank CD into your PC. When Windows’ Autoplay pop-up window appears, click ‘Burn files to disc - using Windows Explorer’. Name your disc 1 , select ‘With a CD/DVD player’ 2 , then click Next 3 . You’ll now see a blank File Explorer window with instructions to drag files to it to add them to your CD. Go to your Downloads folder, then drag and drop the downloaded file into this File Explorer window.

STEP3

Double-click the added ISO file 1 in File Explorer, ensure your DVD drive is selected in the ‘Disc burner’ dropdown menu 2 , tick ‘Verify disc after burning’ 3 , then click Burn 4 . The disc will eject from your PC when the process has finished, click Close. Use a marker pen to label your CD (‘System Rescue Toolkit’ or similar) and keep it safe until you need it.

STEP4

When you notice a problem with your PC, insert the disc, wait for the Windows Autoplay pop-up window to open, click RUN AIO-SRT, then click Yes twice. When the program launches, your desktop will turn black and you’ll see useful information about your PC on the right 1 , including the size of your drives, available storage space, your PC’S system version, your IP address and your user name. The SRT window opens on the left. It has several tabs 2 with a number of options in each 3 . We’ll now look at some of its most useful features.

STEP5

If your PC is constantly crashing, click Task Manager to open Windows’ Task Manager, where you’ll see all the programs currently running on your PC. If you suspect a program is responsible, select it, then click End Task. If you don’t see any suspicious activities, click Resource Monitor 2 . Here, you’ll see all running processes (including background ones). Click the Memory tab 3 , then the Commit column header 4 to see which processes are consuming most your PC’S resources. Right-click any process you’re unsure of, then click End Process 5 .

STEP6

If you suspect you’ve been infected by malware or are experiencing a hardware problem, click System Analyzer. This opens Webroot Secure Anywhere tool. Click ‘Agree and Start’ to start scanning your PC for problems. After the scan, you’ll see a summary of scan results under three sections – Hardware, Software and Threats 1 . Click Save Results 2 to capture this as a screenshot.

STEP7

Next, click the Hardware tab 1 for options to fix faulty components. System Information 2 lists detailed info about your PC (useful if you need to relay this to a technician). To update a driver, click Device Manager 3 , right-click the outdated driver, then click Update Device Driver. Memory Diagnostics 4 lets you restart your PC and check for memory problems. You can also defragment your PC’S drives 5 to tidy up your files and create more space.

STEP 8

Now click the OS Repair tab 1 . Here, you can roll your PC back to an earlier state (when it was working properly) using System Restore 2 . You can also download and install Windows updates 3 to see if that fixes your PC’S problem. If you need to make changes to your PC’S registry, you can access it from here 4 . Similarly, you can clean up your hard drives 5 .

STEP9The Software tab 1 lets you find and recover any product keys for your operating system and any programs you’ve installed (such as Microsoft Office) 2 . You can also quickly uninstall problematic programs 3 ( via your Control Panel). ‘Sleep & Wake Info’ 4 tells you how many times your PC went into sleep mode since you last booted it up. The Networking tab 5 has options that let you check your internet speeds and turn Windows Firewall on and off.

STEP10

The Security and AV Removal tabs 1 contain a range of reputable security and malware-removal programs (including Kaspersky Removal Tool, Avast Removal Tool, Eset Sysinspector, Microsoft Safety Scanner and Webroot Removal Tool). The ‘autofix Utility’ tab 2 lets you run several programs one after the other. Select the ones you want 3 , then click Start autofix 4 . You’ll need to respond when prompted by each tool, then move on to the next tool. Close the program to eject the disc. ●