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The Famous Mr. N.E.D.
iPod, the Missing Manual, 6th edition
AppleTV with 2.0 Software Release
Getting StartED with Mac OS X Leopard
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iPhone Missing Manual
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iPhone: The Missing Manual
Switching to a Mac For Dummies
Clean up that Mess (And Lock the Door Behind You)
Mac OS. X Leopard Here Comes Another One

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Date: Jul 26, 2007 Reviewed by: Judy Richards


Developer: SubRosaSoft (http://www.subrosasoft.com/) Freeware

During our last EPMUG Saturday morning workshop, Ken Westeen was showing off one of his famous "toys" and I noticed that it was just a simple USB thumb drive. But he was quick to elaborate that not only is it just a "simple" thumb drive but also a bootable toolkit loaded with his favorite OS X software tools. So I tried to talk him into to a small "how to" for the newsletter but instead, he copied the software application over to my thumb drive so I can do a review on it. By the way, it's totally FREE! and available to download from http://www.subrosasoft.com.

All you need to do is install DasBoot and follow the prompts as they come up, the first being, start DasBoot, it will ask you to insert a valid boot disk (like Tech Tool Pro, DiskWarrior, etc), from the next screen it will present available application tools to load onto your iPod, Thumb Drive or Firewire Drive. In my case, I'm using a 30GB external Firewire Drive since I do not have a Intel mac (Yet!) and I chose the following tools (which you must own the license to) DiskWarrior, TechTools Pro, Disk Utility and DataRescue II.?
Keep in mind that the storage device that you're using needs to be formatted as a Apple HFS (standard Mac OS format) in order to be seen as a valid destination by DasBoot. When DasBoot can see your destination drive, you then select start, DasBoot will ask you to authenticate, and it will proceed towards installing everything you need to make your iPod, Thumbdrive or FireWire Drive into a bootable software toolkit. This process takes about 15 minutes. After completing the process, I decided to test out my new "toolkit" on my powerbook (G4 1.5 Ghz). First I had to boot into the newly created "tools" by holding down the option key and selecting the firewire drive when it became available. After it finished booting. I was presented with a menu of different applications much like TechTool Pro or Disk Warrior called SRS Launcher. For the purposes of testing, I ran Disk Utility and repaired the disk and permissions. Worked fine. I then tried running Disk Warrior but ran into trouble with that but maybe it was more with my version since mine is a couple of years old so maybe a newer version would work better. But anyway, very nice little tool to add to your software "toolbox" and what more can you ask for.... it's free!