What is a boot disk and why do I need one? A boot disk is a floppy or a CD that you can use to boot your computer into a state in which you can use it to fix a problem. There will be times that your ...

An optical disc (CD, DVD) or USB drive that contains a bootable program that takes control of the computer. Computers are typically configured to look for the OS on a CD or DVD first and then the hard ...

Topher, an avid Mac user for the past 15 years, has been a contributing author to MacFixIt since the spring of 2008. One of his passions is troubleshooting Mac problems and making the best use of Macs ...

It's easy to make boot disks on old Macs for older hardware, but as the years have gone on, it's gotten a little more difficult. Here's how to make classic Mac OS 9 and early Mac OS X boot media on ...

When your PC stops booting, a boot drive is the electronic version of a defibrillator. If you can boot your PC, you can detect bad memory, chase bad sectors, change passwords, and recover data … all ...

Using a Windows XP upgrade CD The Boot Camp installation instructions claim that a valid full Windows XP SP2 disc is required and that upgrade discs cannot be used ...

[Editor’s note: This article is part of our series of articles on installing and upgrading to Lion (OS X 10.7). We also have a complete guide to installing and upgrading to Mountain Lion (OS X 10.8).] ...

I recently said that an MS-DOS boot disk couldn’t be created in Windows 2000. As several readers pointed out, this isn’t quite true. An MS-DOS boot disk can be created using files located on the ...

Use Automatic Startup Repair Verify the boot order Verify the hardware connection Use System Restore Repair the computer using Installation Media To learn more about these tips and tricks, continue ...

Mavericks (OS X 10.9) doesn’t ship on a disc. Instead, it’s available only as an installer app downloadable from the Mac App Store, and that installer doesn’t ...

If your Mac is having problems, macOS has multiple keyboard combinations that you can hold to recover your system, start in safe mode, run diagnostics, and more. Here's how to use them. Apple's macOS ...

I recently bought a new 1 TB NVMe SSD (970 Evo Plus) to upgrade from my current 256 GB M.2 SATA SSD. The current disk is LUKS encrypted using the default options were when I originally installed ...