Knoppix is one of the better tools for rescuing data from sick machines. Note: This article is also available as a PDF download. I hope one or two of them will find their way to your toolkit. So I decided to highlight some of the better tools. But because of the plethora of tools available, it's sometimes tough to sift through the cruft and find the ones that are usable. From corrupt partition tables to severely infected machines, Linux tools come in handy when the host system won't boot. Our consulting firm has had a rash of problems recently that required the help of Linux rescue tools.