27 Feb 2004: OK, things are sloowwllyy starting to get saner around here, so I will be trying to pick up on the emails. Please be patient! The first thing I had to fix was BitTorrent. It has been down for the past week because the public tracker I was using stopped working. I asked around for another tracker to use, and even searched a little on Google, but couldn't find any. So one late night, in between feeds, I installed EasyTracker on my home machine, and got BitTorrent working again. Since everything is served from my dinky cable connection with 128kbps uplink, I am curious to know how good or bad the download speed is. I already got a nasty email from a downloader saying he only managed to get a 5kbps download. But now that there are more than 10 seeders, I'd expect the download speed to improve. Drop me a mail and let me know how it is doing for you. Thanks!

23 Feb 2004: Just thought I should let everybody know that I didn't have time for the past couple of days and probably won't have time for the next few days to answer your emails. The reason is because a little newborn has arrived in my family and I have totally underestimated the challenge of this "project". It has literally turned my world upside down. Once things has settled down and everything makes sense again, I promise I will reply to all your emails. My apologies!

19 Jan 2004: Thanks to everyone for pointing out that a new version of MemTest86 is out! However, due to work schedule, I targetting Ver 2.2 for late Jan or early Feb. If you can't wait, consider creating a customized CD and adding the latest version to the CD.

15 Jan 2004: Thanks to Bob Holmes for pointing out that BootScriptor can still be found at http://www.cs.uic.edu/~mter/bscript/bscript.html.

14 Jan 2004: As BootScriptor appears to be offline, I have amended the customization instructions so that you can use the files directly from the UBCD instead of having to download BootScriptor. Please let me know if you have any problems with the revised instructions.

5 Jan 2004: Happy New Year to all! Just released Ultimate Boot CD Ver 2.1 with new stuff such as System Speed Test 32, Bart's Network Boot Disk, Bart's CDROM Boot Disk, McAfee Antivirus Scanner, DocMem RAM Diagnostic, PC-Config, File Maven, Trinux and SMARTUDM. Also updated AIDA16, DFT and documentation (Thanks to Scott D. Wares for his work on this!). Have fun!

23 Nov 2003: OK, no more waiting. I have decided to release Ultimate Boot CD Ver 2.0 with a new two-level menu format to accomodate more utilities on the CD and allow for better categorization. Added Smart BootManager, Active@ KillDisk Free Edition, Maxtor's AMSET utility, Samsung's HUTIL utility, EditBINI. Seagate's UATA100 utility, Free FDISK, DOS Navigator and NSSI. Updated AIDA16, SavePart, Freesco, RIP, DFT. Switched diagnostic tool for Western Digital HDD to DLG Diagnostic V5.03. Hope you like this release!

17 Nov 2003: More fruitless attempts this weekend trying to get the latest version of Seagate, Maxtor and Western Digital's utilities to work. But I think I did find something. These utilities are all based on OnTrack's Disk Manager product. I suspect it does not like the INT13H/15H hooks installed by memdisk/diskemu. I discovered this when I was trying to add NSSI to UBCD, and when it runs, it keeps saying that a memory-resident virus has been found. I did some research and found that on startup, the utility will check that all the BIOS interrupt vectors point to ROM addresses. If any vector points to conventional memory, the alert will appear. Fortunately, there is a switch to disable the check in NSSI. More evidence: I copied everything to a spare harddisk with DOS installed. If I boot from one of the DOS disks in UBCD and tries to run any of the utilities on the HDD, it does not work, but if I boot from the HDD directly, it works. So I tried look for ways to unload memdisk and diskemu once everything has been copied to RAM disk, but did not succeed. The unload mechanism for memdisk has not been implemented yet, and the demumgr.exe utility in the old diskemu package does not work. Any ideas?

03 Nov 2003: I just spent the entire weekend trying to figure out how to run the latest versions of Seagate, Maxtor and Western Digital's utilities from the UBCD without success. Apparently, they all appear to use the same underlying system, which doesn't work with either memdisk or diskemu. This sucks! If any of you has clues on how to get them to work, please drop me an email. The links are here: Maxtor's MaxBlast 3, Seagate's DiscWizard Starter Edition, SeaTools Desktop version 2.00.09, and Western Digital's Data Lifeguard. Go on, give the last one a shot (WD's). It is only one disk, so there is no need for any tinkering to get everything into one disk image, and boy it doesn't work! This is driving me nuts!

22 Oct 2003: Added BitTorrent download support. Thanks to Micke for the tip on a public tracker at www.digital-update.com.

21 Oct 2003: I am trying to add BitTorrent download for UBCD, but I need a "tracker". If you have a stable tracker to offer, please let me know. Thanks!

19 Oct 2003: Ver 1.7 has just been released! Fixed a bug in the auto harddisk chaining logic. Added FAQ and documentation plus autorun information contributed by Scott D. Wares. Added BasicLinux, Gujin and Freesco, recommended by Scott D. Wares as well. Updated F-Prot virus definition files. There are tons more suggestions submitted by users, but these will have to do for this release. As before, it will take a while for the mirrors to be updated. Have fun!

18 Oct 2003: By the way, some users have reported problems getting the UBCD to work with AZERTY keyboards (sorry, but I have never seen one of those!). If any of you knows how to get BootScriptor to work with AZERTY keyboards, please let me know. Thanks!

9 Oct 2003: Added CDR label for SureThing CD Labeler, contributed by Kenny Ellenburg. Check it out!

20 Sep 2003: Ver 1.6 has just been released! I wish I had more time to work on Ultimate Boot CD this weekend, but that's all I have for this release. I have added some missing key mappings, thanks to a reminder from Guillaume. I have also added a full F-Prot boot disk contributed by P J Wooledge (previously the macro virus definitions could not fit in). Finally, I have added a very nice tool called SPFDISK, which is a fantastic substitute (and more!) for FDISK.

8 Sep 2003: Ver 1.5 has just been released! I have switched to Boot Scriptor for authoring the CD, so now the menu is in full color! Added Tom's Boot Disk, g4u, HDClone (Free Edition), Active NTFS Reader for DOS and TestDisk. Windows Memory Diagnostic now works due to the use of DiskEmu. The customization section has been updated to reflect the use of Boot Scriptor instead of BCD. As before, it will take a while for the mirrors to reflect the new version, so please be patient.

3 Sep 2003: Added generic JPEG CDR label contributed by Alex Sierra. Added CDR label for Neato's MediaFACE II contributed by Jim Allen. Added a bug fix to the customization section (thanks to Olaf Morgenstern for spotting this bug)!

24 Aug 2003: Ver 1.4 has just been released! Added Windows Memory Diagnostic and XFDISK. Updated F-Prot to work with FAT32 and NTFS (read-only). Updated Drive Fitness Test to Ver 3.50.

23 Aug 2003: The hyperlink to the Nero CD label has been fixed. Please try downloading again. I have also added another Easy Creator Creator CD label contributed by Ted Kekatos. Thanks!

19 Aug 2003: Added a Nero CD label contributed by Toby MacNamara. Check it out! Also created an account with SwiftCD, so now you can get the physical CD through them as well.

10 Aug 2003: Ver 1.3 has just been released! Added Diagnostic Tool Ver 6.10 for Fujitsu HDD, SHDIAG Ver 1.25 for Samsung HDD, Feature Tool Ver 1.90 for IBM/Hitachi HDD. Updated AIDA16 to Ver 2.08. The main menu has been reorganized to partition the tools into logical sections. Once again, it will take a while for the mirrors to reflect the new version, so please be patient.

8 Aug 2003: I have revamped the section on customizing the Ultimate Boot CD. The step-by-step instructions should now be clearer for most people to follow. In addition, it is no longer necessary to download an additional file cdrommi.zip. The files on the Ultimate Boot CD itself should suffice.

5 Aug 2003: I have added a CDR label template for Roxio EZ CD Creator, contributed by a user who prefers to remain anonymous. Check it out!

5 Aug 2003: Donation is up again (total: $84)! I was thinking about how I could bring in some pocket money on the side. Will any of you be interested in making customized boot CDs? You can upload floppy disk images to me (commercial or otherwise), I will add them to the Ultimate Boot CD and send you a private link to download the ISO image. Of course, you can still create your own customized boot CD using BCD and the template provided in cdrommi.zip, but you may not want to get your hands dirty, so I am providing an alternative. I am thinking of charging $10 + ($5 x number of floppy disk images). Is that too expensive? If you are interested, please send me an email to discuss.

4 Aug 2003: Donation is marginally up (total: $59). Well, thanks to everyone who donated! Ver 1.2 has just been released, with the upgrade of PowerMax to Ver 4.06, and the addition of Partition Resizer. It will take a while for the mirrors to reflect the new version, so please be patient.

31 July 2003: Thanks for the donations! Total donation now stands at $54. I have also added quite a number of mirror sites, so hopefully they stand firm under the download frenzy. Thanks to Bruno Tiago Rodrigues, Jonathon Merz, Sandip Patel, MyBootDisks.com and Tim Vanlint for providing the mirrors!

30 July 2003: I have received a number of requests to "buy" the physical CD, but I don't want to ruin my regular day job burning CDs at home and licking envelopes. :-) Someone suggested SwiftCD as a fulfillment service. Does anyone know anything about them and whether there are any hidden pitfalls? I just want a reliable, minimum-fuss service that will deliver to those folks who want a physical CD at the lowest-cost possible. At the same time, I don't want to deal with things like minimum orders, inventory etc. Any advice will be welcomed.

30 July 2003: Don't make me beg! I have clocked up quite a princely sum in bandwidth since this site appeared on Lockergnome. So I am appealing to you folks who download the Ultimate Boot CD and find it useful to make a small donation using PayPal (total donation so far: $30). I am not trying to profiteer from this! Once I recover my cost (target donation: $300), I will make it known to the whole world through this web site, and you folks can go back to your old ways. :-)

30 July 2003: Marcus' mirror should be up. Please email me if you find any other problems with the mirrors.

29 July 2003: OK, it appears that there is some problems with "ubcd.zip" on the first mirror site. I am trying to sort that out with Marcus. Meanwhile, I have added another mirror site for downloads.

29 July 2003: Thanks to Marcus Widén, we have our first mirror site! From the emails I have been receiving, there should be more mirror sites coming soon. Thanks for all the support so far!

28 July 2003: I am in the process of getting some mirror sites for the ISO images, so hopefully download will be restored soon. Please check back again later, or sign up with the mailing list to receive notification when download is available again.

27 July 2003: I got the shock of my life when Lockergnome featured the Ultimate Boot CD on 23 July 2003, and suddenly the download traffic spiked like crazy! Within a couple of days, I was clocking up hundreds of dollars in bandwidth, which I can no longer afford as a hobby project. I am serious! My hosting company charges me $12 per extra GB, and last I checked, I owe them over $300! Hence, I have decided to disable the download until I can figure out what to do. If any of you are willing to mirror the files for me, I will be extremely grateful. Otherwise, the download stays closed until I become as rich as Bill Gates. :-) Sorry about that folks.