About

Active@ LiveCD is a powerful set of tools designed to assist with a wide range of data recovery and data security scenarios.

Active@ LiveCD combines a number of powerful utilities that enable you to recover lost data, reset Windows passwords, create computer system backups, and securely erase data. Active@ LiveCD launches when you start your computer from a bootable storage media.

When using Active@ LiveCD, you gain access to drive data at both a physical and logical level, bypassing the resident operating system. This allows you to lock selected volumes for exclusive use. Locking a volume is important when you need to wipe residual data from unoccupied space on a drive, create a clean data backup, or recover files and folders located on system volumes.

When booting from a local hard drive, volumes cannot be locked by the resident operating system. The recovery operation must have exclusive access to the target location. If a service or another application gains access to the target location, it may overwrite the files you are attempting to recover, rendering them unrecoverable.

The following are some additional operations that can be performed by booting from a bootable storage media:

  • Back up the system drive — If you back up the system drive while Windows or Linux is running from the same drive, the restored backup will start as though recovering from a power loss, beginning with a system integrity check. If you back up the system drive with the operating system started from an external drive, the restored system starts cleanly.
  • Wipe unused data from system records and directories, MFT (on NTFS), unused clusters, and file slack space (see Active@ KillDisk) — A clean wipe operation is not possible while Windows or Linux is running from the same drive. If you perform the wipe with the operating system started from an external drive, the operation completes cleanly.
  • Delete files — If you delete files while the operating system is running from the same drive, the Recycle Bin or Volume Shadow Copy service may still be active, retaining previous versions of files or even a full disk snapshot. This confidential data could potentially be retrieved by an unauthorized party. If you delete files with the operating system booted from an external drive, the deletion is permanent.
  • Recover files — When booting from an external disk, no operating system activity is expected on local system disks. You can recover deleted files and data from deleted or damaged volumes without the risk of data being overwritten by the operating system.

Active@ LiveCD includes the following products and utilities:

  • Active@ Disk Backup
  • Active@ Partition Recovery
  • Active@ UNDELETE
  • Active@ Password Changer
  • Active@ Disk Editor
  • Active@ KillDisk
  • File Managers: Midnight Commander, Thunar File Manager
  • Network utilities to help you map network drives (YaST Network), view network status, configure IP settings, and connect to and work with remote servers.
  • System monitoring utilities to check hard disk status, copy, move and delete files and folders, create text files, use a calculator, create graphics, capture display snapshots, and access a terminal (Xfce terminal).
  • Partition management utilities to create, delete, format, and resize partitions (GParted, KDE Partition Manager, YaST Partitioner), run command-line commands (Terminal), check disk integrity, scan for viruses, display system information (System Monitor), and configure display settings.
  • Internet tools: Web Browser, Mail Client, Remote Desktop Client.