Microsoft Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE) is a Windows version capable of booting directly from a CD, DVD or USB drive. This allows one to create a very powerful recovery tool, which can contain almost any repair utility one could wish for. Making it possible to create your own Emergency Recovery Console utility like the Microsoft Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset (DART).

Different solutions which uses PE:

• Bart's PE
• UBCD4Win.com - Based on Bart's PE
• Reatogo.de
• WinBuilder.net - Scripts and utilities for building your own PE

Note before PE surfaced, then another possible option was bootable Linux CDs which contained drivers to access NTFS partitions and utilities to access the Windows registry:

• Knoppix Linux Live CD
• Helix
• Password recovery utilities

Related Create a system repair disc
Related Creating a bootable USB stick
Related DOS bootdisks