So that's an HP brand CD, not something like Ultimate Boot CD or Partition Magic on a cover disc.

ratfink wrote on 2024-08-09, 23:43:

So that's an HP brand CD, not something like Ultimate Boot CD or Partition Magic on a cover disc.

it does sound like Hirens or Ultimate Boot CD, 98/2000 would make it Hirens which was really popular back then.

It was an HP disk. That's all I can say.

I never looked at archive.org ...

Seemingly hundreds of disks archived.

It was likely a driver and utility disk. It just bugs me I can't remember. I just remember it having a utility that was exactly what I needed. It couldn't have been so important that made it worth keeping. Perhaps formatting a cf card or something. Something XP couldn't do natively? That's what the laptop had.

Could it be HP Big CD?

I got one of those bundled with an ink cartridge. It included:
- Word Perfect 6.1 for Windows.
- Corel Draw 4.
- Corel Printhouse.
- SoftKey Calendar Creator.
- Hanes T-Shirt Maker.
- Key Label Designer.
- SoftKey PhotoFinish.
- Compuserver 3.01.

Every program is a complete functional version, with reduced resources. I mean, Corel Draw 4.0 works as expected without limitations but it doesn't have the entire clipart and font collection found on the official CD version.

My CD has spanish versions of that programs, and has timestamps from 1997.

Edit: HP Big CD can be found on archive.org.

The other only thing I could think of is Field Flash Drive (FFD), a compilation of diagnostic tools and resources available only to HP technicias. But, as it names says, I guess it was only intended to be used as a bootable USB. I don't know if it was released as CD/DVD image, I've got one USB of FFD20 (2014).

It wasn't anything near in terms of functionality.

I'm just curious how I wound up with the thing. There were a lot of computer shows back then, maybe I swiped it off a table for a .25$ US.

Eventually I'll figure it out.

Circa 2002 cf cards needed a utility to format, no? I'm not sure that was the utility in question. As stated I had Norton to make boot cds. I may not even have owned a thumb drive yet.

HP had their own USB format utility (look the pictures to see if it rings any bell). It was simple, fast and reliable. Maybe I've got that tool somewhere, but it is not hard to find on the internet. In any case, I don't have an specific HP CD with that utility.

Also, that utility has been superseded by Rufus, that has similar interface and better capabilities. If your only goal is having a good and reliable utility to format USB drives or flash cards... go get Rufus.

I know all about Rufus. Just wondering what I had.

I threw out dozens of cds years ago. That must have been 1. Can't even remember the last time I saw it though. Amongst those dozens were dozens of foreign language Windows 2000 install cds. I only kept the inglush ones.