(Current version is: 17.0, released 2022-October-25)

Bootable Solutions

DFSee USB, CDROM and other bootable data recovery solutions

To improve usability, bootable solutions are offered like a bootable CDROM, USB-stick and diskette-image. These have the big advantage that they can be used for recovery tasks on systems that support booting from CD, USB or diskette, without the need to install anything on the (possibly damaged) harddisk. DFSee is available on a bootable CDROM for a small cost, covering media creation and shipping These bootable media are based on FreeDOS, Pendrive Linux and Puppy Linux with user supplied additions.

DFSee bootable USB stick, PUPPY Linux based

You can buy a ready-made, DFSee branded, 16GB DFSPUPPY stick from the webshop.
This bootable USB stick will work out-of-the-box (OPEN SOURCE EDITION, 17.0 and up)

Or you can also create your own DFSPUPPY stick from an installed DFSee program.

Updating to newer DFSee releases can be done from the DFSee 'Help' menu itself, as long as the booted DFSPUPPY has a working Internet connection.

The DFSPUPPY releases, based on an official PUPPY distribution are:

Creating such a stick is integrated in the DFSee Script menu, just like the previous USB-bootable, but it WILL require a separate download of the disk-image for that, since this is too large to include in the standard distribution package.

Downloading the extra required image, plus downloading and installing program updates is automated too, and available from the Help menu.

This procedure is almost self-documenting when run from the menu, but some additional information can be found in dfspuppy.txt. A summary for the current stick variants follows below.

Create new stick, DFSPUP64

Help -> Program Updates / Downloads -> Get DFSPUP64 UEFI capable IMZ

Then, to actually create the stick, use the menu:

Scripts -> Make Puppy64 boot (USB) disk -> select your stick

Note that at least a 2 Gb stick is required, but larger is better, so log files and reasonably sized image files can be stored right on the stick itself. The remaining space on the stick is directly accessible from DFSee, and is set as the default location for logging and analysis files, and can be used for images too. On disks/sticks larger than 64 Gb, a second FAT32 partition will be created to be able to use that for additional storage.

Create new stick, DFSPUP32

Help -> Program Updates / Downloads -> Get DFSPUP32 BIOS based IMZ

Then, to actually create the stick, use the menu:

Scripts -> Make Puppy32 boot (USB) disk -> select your stick

Note that at least a 2 Gb stick is required, but larger is better, so log files and reasonably sized image files can be stored right on the stick itself. The remaining space on the stick is directly accessible from DFSee, and is set as the default location for logging and analysis files, and can be used for images too. On disks/sticks larger than 32 Gb, a second FAT32 partition will be created to be able to use that for additional storage.

Create new stick, DFSPUPPY

Help -> Program Updates / Downloads -> Get DFSPUPPY BIOS-only IMZ

Then, to actually create the stick, use the menu:

Scripts -> Make Puppy boot (USB) disk -> select your stick

Note that at least a 2 Gb stick is required, but larger is better, so log files and reasonably sized image files can be stored right on the stick itself. The remaining space on the stick is directly accessible from DFSee, and is set as the default location for logging and analysis files, and can be used for images too. On disks/sticks larger than 32 Gb, a second FAT32 partition will be created to be able to use that for additional storage.

Internet connection, activate wireless on a booted DFSPUP stick

The most reliable way I found to get wireless with WPA/WPA2 encryption working on PUPPY Linux is:

• Click [Menu] in the lower left corner of the screen
• Setup
• Internet Connection Wizard
• At 'Connect to Internet by', click 'Wired or Wireless LAN'
• Select the GUI Tool: 'Network Wizard'
• In the Interfaces window, click [wlan0]
• In the next window click [Wireless]
• In the next popup (not supporting WPA encryption) click on [Add To List]
• In the confirmation popup, click [OK]
• In the next window, click the [Scan] button in upper right corner
• In the list of wireless networks, select yours (by SSID), and click [OK]
• The SSID will now be filled in, click the desired encryption, like [WPA2]
• Enter the required passphrase ('Provide a key')
• Click [Save] followed by [Use this Profile]
• Back in the Wizard, click [Auto DHCP]
• It should connect now, and the WIFI icon in the status bar should become green
• In the final popup you can choose to KEEP this configuration for the next boot
• Close the Wizard window(s)

Update existing stick

Help -> Program Updates and Downloads -> Get latest Stable update

or, when you want to use the latest BETA/Experimental release:

Help -> Program Updates and Downloads -> Get latest Experimental update

When there is NO Internet connection with the stick, use a system with Internet access and download either the Stable ZIP, or the Experimental ZIP.

Copy the downloaded ZIP to the 'dfsee' subdirectory on the stick (x:\dfsee\), then boot from the stick again, and in the DFSee menu use:

Help -> Program Updates and Downloads -> Install a program update

DFSee bootable USB stick, multi-ISO (FreeDOS)

If you want to use Linux however, it is advised to use the newer and much more flexible DFSPUPPY, described above.

This is a very flexible solution, based on some excellent work from the linux community allowing booting almost any (CDROM) ISO file stored on a memory-stick from a selection menu. The DFSee solution uses this UNCHANGED, you just add a Linux ISO (PartedMagic), the DFSee CD-ISO and linux files to the stick and are ready to boot into FreeDOS or Linux and use DFSee.

You can create your own custom stick in any size using the instructions supplied on the PenDriveLinux website (which requires a Windows system to make the stick bootable).

However, it is much easier to restore the DFSee prepared imagefile using the install script dfsusb32.dfs, through the Scripts menu (requires EXPERT mode from version 12.x onwards). The script prepares a fully bootable stick, and all you need to add are the actual ISO files to be booted.

For FreeDOS, you can download the BARE ISO file with the the corrrect DFSEEDOS.ISO name right here!

For Linux you need the appropriate Linux ISO as documented in DFSUSB32.TXT, the DFSee linux files so you can run them from the Linux desktop. This procedure is almost self-documenting when run from the menu, but some additional information as well as instructions for manual creation of similar sticks can be found in dfsusb32.txt.

When setup properly the stick provides a boot-menu as shown on the right:

So this gives you the following options:

• Boot to the DOS-version of DFSee, with access to the stick to store files
  Requires 'dfseedos.iso' to be present in the root of the usb stick.

  You can download the BARE ISO file with the the corrrect DFSEEDOS.ISO name right here!

  If you want to save on download usage, a special DFSee 'stick' ISO is available, that is not only much smaller (2.5 Mb), but that also has the default selection on the FreeDOS menu changed to '0', which is the most convenient one when used with the USB bootable stick. Just copy the ISO from this ZIP to the root of the prepared USB stick as 'dfseedos.iso' and you are ready to boot into the DOS version of DFSee.

• Boot to a Linux KDE desktop, with a DFSee icon to start DFSee, access to the stick and many other Linux programs including network and internet access.
  Requires 'pmagic-4.10.iso' to be present in the root of the usb stick.

  Since it is somewhat hard to find on the internet, download it from PartedMagic 4.10 'stick' ISO

DFSee 17.x bootable CDROM

The perfect recovery solution!

With a bootable FreeDOS and DFSDOS available, it can be used for recovery tasks without having to install anything!

Your CDROM will be burnt on demand, at the moment you order it, so you will always receive the latest available DFSee version.

Buy the CDROM here or just click on the large CDROM image ...

If you can burn CDROMs yourself, you can also download the ISO file for FREE, and create your own CDROM. (See below)

DFSee bootable CDROM, ISO image

If you can burn your own CD's, this might be the best recovery solution for you.

This is a ZIP file with the latest ISO image for the bootable CDROM, plus a few small programs that are used to customize the ISO before burning it to CDROM, or copying it to a bootable USB stick:

• Change the keyboard language used
• Change the default selection for the FreeDOS boot menu

    Download latest DFSee ISO image (55 Mb ZIP)
Download the CD ISO files separately, to create a custom ISO with additional tools. (54 Mb ZIP)

Download the standard DFSee CDROM labels in JPG and TIF format (2 Mb ZIP)
The label is designed to fit 12cm CDROMs when scaled properly ...

Example CD, buyer info is printed on the greenish label field

DFSee bootable diskette image

For evaluation, or simply to get a nice bootable recovery solution, this image will get you a bootable FreeDOS diskette with DFSDOS.

This is a ZIP file with a self-extracting diskette-image (Thanks to Daniel Valot).
It can be extracted on any platform capable of running DOS or OS2 textmode executables.
Simply run the enclosed 'bootdisk.exe' and it will write to a (formatted) diskette,
or use 'bootdisk /h' for other usage ...

  Download latest DFSee bootdisk image (1 Mb ZIP)

DFSee CDROM ordering and pricing

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Created by Jan van Wijk:   May 2005, last update:   2022-Oct-25