One of the convenient features in early versions of Windows (yes, Windows) was the ability to easily create an MS-DOS boot disk out of any floppy disk, which could then be used to troubleshoot ...

Bootable disc image files may contain all the data necessary to create a disc from which computers can boot, but if you want them to work, you can't just burn them to a disc the way you would ...

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 ...

4. Create a boot DVD The process for creating a bootable DVD is very similar, and again uses Disk Utility and demands the InstallESD.dmg file we extracted from the Lion installer.

You can make a bootable MS-DOS disk using the utilities built into Windows XP. Alternatively, you can create an image of the Windows XP files to use as a bootable disk.

With it, you'll be able to use Safari to find troubleshooting information, run Disk Utility to fix filesystem errors, restore from a Time Machine backup, or install Mountain Lion from scratch on ...

To create a bootable optical disc (or, similarly, a bootable Zip or floppy disk) was a bit more involved, but not by much. So how does all of this compare to the situation with Mac OS X today?

Windows 8 has the ability to create a bootable USB flash recovery drive that can be used to troubleshoot a Windows 8 computer that is unable to start. A recovery drive is the same as a startup ...