How can I tell if a drive can be used to boot from? For ages I couldn't work out why my P133 machine wouldn't boot of CDs even when the option was checked in the BIOS. Then I realised it was the drive ...

In last month's column, I described the hurdles that Mac OS X puts in your way when you try to create a bootable disc, especially a custom bootable CD, DVD or flash drive. I offered various solutions ...

Here's a problem I'm dealing with that I'm sure someone here has an answer for. I've made bootable CDs before with no problem using Adaptec Easy CD Creator 3x and 4x. I noticed for the first time the ...

Stop throwing away old boot drives—they're still faster than any USB stick ...

Rufus is a free, portable utility that creates bootable USB flash drives from ISO files. As of 2026, the latest version is Rufus 4.13 — and it’s faster and more capable than ever, with built-in ...

Still, if all you want is a backup copy of a bootable disc, it is easy enough to do. It's especially easy if you have disc-duplicating software (such as Toast Titanium) and two optical drives.