How-to guides
Practical, step-by-step guides for everyday jobs such as making a bootable USB stick, verifying a download and checking a drive’s health, using free tools from our catalog.
About these guides
How to create a bootable USB drive (with Ventoy) — Step-by-step: make a bootable USB stick on Windows or Linux with Ventoy, put several ISO files on one drive, boot it, and fix common problems.
How to verify a SHA-256 checksum (Windows, macOS, Linux) — Check that a downloaded file is intact and unchanged: SHA-256 commands for Windows PowerShell and certutil, macOS shasum and Linux sha256sum, with examples.
How to check SSD and HDD health — Check your SSD or hard drive health for free: read S.M.A.R.T. data with CrystalDiskInfo or HWiNFO, use built-in Windows, macOS and Linux tools, and know which warnings matter.
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