Favored Freeware: BootCD

BootCD is a Cocoa app that creates a disk image that can be used to burn a MacOS X boot CD with a working Finder and Dock on it. This utility is unfinished and still has some flaws, but works. The current version works much better than previous versions, and includes the ability to run Drive10 and other utilities, although Norton does not yet work from the CD.

Pros: Finally, a working boot CD with all of your favorite utility apps! This is a life-saver for anyone who has to fix computers on a regular basis.

Cons: BootCD is not compatible with MacOS X 10.4 (“Tiger”).

Note: BootCD is a featured tool in my recommended Routine Maintenance.