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What Would You Put Into A Software Survival Kit?
LosManos asks: "A call for help to the Everyday Heroes that are out there: I have just returned from a 4 months scientific expedition to some of the more remote parts of the South Pacific. As soon as people we met found out that I was a computer guy they asked me to help them and all to often I had to reply that I didn't have the tools.This got me thinking; what should a software toolbox consist of? OS, patches, digital books, compilers, sniffers, servers, harddisk restore apps...? Please remember that the computers I met where often old and slow. The answers to this could be interesting also when you are not several days away from nearest inhabited island. I mean, what is it that most often break? How is it usually fixed? Are more fancy solutions more error prone?" If you were to create a "first aid kit" consisting of CDs, disks, books and other technical utilities you have used to resurrect dead systems, what would you put in it?
"So far I have found:
- A utility for reading and repairing hard disks
- 'regmon' and 'filemon' from Sysinternals
- Video drivers (but I don't know which)
- A diskette for booting MSDOS with CD support
- Digital books (but I don't know which)
- Remote controlling tools, such as VNC
- CDs with OS (but there are hundreds of those)"
M$ Boot Disks
7 0.html?tag= list
/ pstools .shtml
If you have to build a boot disk for a M$ machine, putergeek is
invaluable since M$ doesn't seem to want to you to boot to a DOS
prompt any more. You can find Win95B, WinME and Dos Bootdisks.
http://www.putergeek.com/downloads/
RegClean
If you do any development using COM or ActiveX components then
RegClean is a must have tool for fixing registry problems.
http://download.com.com/3000-2094-8814
PsTools
Listed in the Article are FileMon and RegMon from
Sysinternals.com, but I would add PsTools to that list. This
suite of tools is incredibly useful for diagnosing and solving a
vast array of problems. PsKill is probably my most frequently
used tool when I need to actually KILL a process instead of
politely requesting it to exit via End Task.
Oh and nearly everything works on remote machines as well.
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware
MDAC Utility
If you have to deal with programs accessing a variety of
Microsoft Data Access sources, the MDAC Component Checker is
essential. It's unbelievable to me how typical it is that MDAC
get's corrupted.
www.microsoft.com/data
Unfortunately, most of the essential tools relate to Microsoft
Software, but the reality is that it seems to be more difficult
to find "good" utilities to trouble shoot and fix problems under
a Microsoft OS than pretty much any other OS I've worked on.
Microsoft also publishes a tool that will automatically identify
any known security vulnerabilites that need to be patched, but I
can't find the link off hand. Again for a Microsoft OS it is
pretty handy.
Doug Tolton
"The destruction of a value which is, will not bring value to that which isn't." -John Galt
http://www.memtest86.com/ It's helped me any number of times when I was beating my head against the wall over a weird problem. It's just a diagnostic tool, though.
- Jonathan
There's also a good summary page of rescue discs that are available. Didn't look at windows specifically but I have used this to mount and fix various FAT type partitions. NTFS may be a slightly different animal.
Usually, this is mainly for data recovery - its almost easier to image broken workstations than it is to waste 2 hrs fixing it.
here is FIRE
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Thailand back in the mid 90's and was often asked to "look" at someone's computer.
With computers so expensive and knowledge about them so rare, these people were usually VIPs - the governor of the province, dean of a local university, important businesspeople... It behooved me to scratch their back so that they'd later help me.
Now remember, this was when Windows '95 was still brand new and a lot of people in Thailand still used DOS. CDROMs weren't in widespread use yet (I think if anything, the CDROM built Panthip Plaza - a bootleggers heaven!)
I found myself carrying around a complete set of MSDOS 6.22 disks, a Win95 CDROM and a couple of custom made boot disks - with things like FDISK, SCANDISK and such on them as well as a few floppies with common drivers on them.
Biggest hardware problem I saw on a regular basis was floppy and CD drives crapping out due to the dust in the air and, of course, moldy floppies (110 degrees F and 100% humidity will grow mold on ANYTHING that doesn't move and a lot of things that do!)
Ah, those were the days...
Use jv16 PowerTools. It is better and with more features! Console, analyzer, etc.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
I would also add:
1. A copy of a decent AV. Norton/Mcafee basically suck with its new business model, I am sick and tired of cleaning up machines with expired AVs. The people from Grisoft make free nonexpiring AVs for noncomercial use.
2. Lavasoft Adaware is also a vital component. So much malware is responsible for irresponsive/crashy machines, I could set a business just selling copies of this and recovering machines.
3. The long list of SPs and QFs for Win98 and IE. Actually I am begining to ponder wether to start ditching IE and OE on the new machines I see in favor of Netscape.
My other OS is the MCP!
Just....KNOPPIX!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Reality is in the mind of the beholder - me 1996
Delpart.exe is unnecessary. FDISK.EXE has a complete host of undocumented command-line arguments which allow you to create/modify/destroy partitions on the command line.
FDISK Info
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
In my "tech kit" I've got:
/Library/Receipts folder with my up-to-date software update files
* A 20-GB iPod
- 10 GB of music (legal, I might add)
- All three MacOS 10.2 disk images
- The synchronized
- A MacOS 9.2.2 disk image
- An OS 9 bootable system folder with all stock cdevs/extensions, plus Toast's latest CD-R drivers. This'll probably change to an OS X folder in the next month or so.
- A copy of Norton Utilities
- A copy of Roxio Toast
- A copy of ResEdit
- Non-gimped PHP, Apache, GDLib, Freetype and mySQL packages (from Marc Liyanage, www.entropy.ch)
- Backups of my dialup fallback connection config files
- Various Free/Shareware files
* A leatherman
* A paper clip
* A smug look on my face when I say "Sorry, I'm a Mac guy"
No problem I can't fix in under an hour. Win troubleshooting, on the other hand, takes ridiculous amounts of time. You said you were on holiday -- right?
Lions and tigers and bears ... oh my!
:
Honestly though
Boot disks - make an emergency boot disk in Windows98. This thing makes a 2M RAMdrive, copies enough utils to jumpstart any computer, and CD drivers for every computer that can run 98 (which is pretty much all of them still running today.) I recommend this on a 3.5" floppy and also create a bootable CD using this as the boot image.
XTGold 2.0 or 2.5 - runs on DOS
ZTree 1.41 - in case they have a Windows environment 95 or higher running. Doesn't run in DOS but doesn't puke when the hard drive has more than 10,000 files on it.
McAfee Virus Scan, command line version.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
Anyways, first, I'd be interested to know what OS's he encountered on these remote islands. My guess is that it would be some flavor of Win95 or 98 (or even, gasp Windows for Workgroups). Having a Linux boot disk isn't going to do much for you, unless you can't boot to the OS. And in that case, I'd try an MS-DOS disk and do a C:\>fdisk /mbr to rebuild the bootsector FIRST.
Second, what types of problems did these people report they were having? Were they strictly software based, or could hardware issues also have been a factor? If you're REALLY interested in doing tech-support in this type of situation, you need to carry more than just a bunch of boot disks. You'll need:
* RAM, in both the new 168-pin AND the older 72-pin flavors
* a spare Floppy Drive
* an ISA video card, and probably a PCI one too. (probably NOT an AGP)
* a spare hard drive, AND its Master slave settings, AND a few of those little jumper thingys
* several IDE and floppy drive connectors
* a tiny bottle of WD-40 type oil, for squeaky (or non-spinning) power supply of CPU fans.
* I'd say 'a bottle of compressed air' for blowing out dust, but I don't think you can take this on a plane nowadays
* a floppy-disk cleaning kit, with a bottle of cleaning solution (I have to admit, I rarely use these nowadays, but PCs on islands may benefit. YMMV, of course.
* a few blank floppies
* pad and paper, for writing down notes and configuration and jumper settings (BEFORE you change them)
* an ISA network card, preferably a 3COM 3C5x9 (or any older common network card, plus a bootable floppy with its drivers and the program that lets you configure the card
* a Cat-5 patch cable or two, plus a small 10mbps hub * tie-wraps, in a few different sizes. These things are second only to duct-tape in their usefulness and variety of applications.
I've supported Windows systems since the 'original' 3.1 version. More often than not, software based problems could be solved by either mucking with win.ini, system.ini, autoexec.bat and config.sys and/or other DOS and Windows files. Use scandisk to see if the harddrive is bad. Use FDISK to see what's up with the partitions.
Having a few flavors of MS-DOS boot disks can't hurt (www.bootdisk.com) I also agree with previous posters that having a linux boot disk with the NT password recovery utility would be great idea. And, of course, if these are WinNT or Win2k systems you can't go wrong with ANYTHING you find on www.sysinternals.com.
In general, if you're going to do this at all, and you can't just 'run home' and grab what you need, you really need to have anything and everything at your fingertips. The above list is what I carry with me when I get called to a client site to do support. I have all the cards in those static-proof bags, the cables are tie-wrapped to keep them organized, and I have a collection of print-outs of various stuff.
By the way, if you see any job openings for PC support next time you're down there, please forward them to me. Boston, Massachusetts (USA) is getting ANOTHER snowstorm tonight and I'm losing my mind.
It is indeed possible to create a multi-bootable Win2000 or XP CD with your own utilities on it. I followed the general instructions at this site to make my own Windows 2000 SP3 integrated Pro/Srv/AdvSrv CD, with bootable menu. The CD boots up and I can choose to install any version of Windows 2000, or I can choose the Win98 bootable floppy image to work with Dos utils. I include on the CD the floppy copies of Norton Ghost, Partition Magic, NTFSDos, McAfee, SpinRite, and a few other small utils. It's also got menu options to boot the floppy image of Tom's Most Boot (linux boot disk mentioned in an earlier post) or to simply boot from the HDD. I do the same thing with Windows XP.
It's a *very* complex process but if you put the effort in it's well worth it. The secret to making Win2000/XP do an unattended install is to make your unattended file name winnt.sif and put it in your i386 directory. No floppy needed like MS would have you believe. I do this mostly so I don't have to type that $@^# cd key every time I want to install a copy of Windows.
I haven't tried it yet but if you cut out the crap you don't need from Win2000 and WinXP (language files etc) you might be able to combine both those into a massive everything-in-1 CD.
Oh yes, Knoppix and TOMSRTBT are a must have for any software survival kit. In case you arent familiar, Knoppix is Debian Linux installed ONTO a CD, so you can run it straight from the CD. TOMSRTBT is a very small linux distro on a single floppy diskette with a good number of recovery tools.
Survival Gear for Macheads:
.TXT.
System Software:
MacOS X Jaguar install disks
MacOS 9.2 install disk.
MacOS 8.1 install disk (for Oooold hardware)
System 7.1 boot floppy (for really, really old hardware.)
Software Utilities:
Alsoft DiskWarrior
Norton Utilities for Mac
Norton Antivirus
Retrospect
Hardware:
Apple-branded Firewire emergency backup and restore device (Or as we like to call it when not adding it to our equipment req: the iPod.) Go for the big one, you'll be glad you had it when you need to rescue your data from a flaky powerbook. Use Retrospect to make sure you get everything backed up proper.
Firewire to SCSI adapter (for getting data to and from older Macs.)
If you're going to dealing with real old Macs: AAUI dongle, phone-net adapters, Mini DIN 8 to DB24 and DB9 serial cables.
Unix Survival Kit:
Hardware:
Powerbook or iBook, with aforementioned Firewire SCSI adapter, USB serial adapter and a nice terminal emu program.
SCSI external HDD
Bunch 'o SCSI adapters/cables/testers
A SCSI CDROM... if you deal with Sun equipment, make sure it's able to boot a SPARC box.
Software:
Install CDs for your Unix flavors of choice.
CDs with the most current OS patch levels on it, one per OS.
Another CD with your customized dot files, shell scripts and all the useful stuff you really wished came with your vendor's Unix, but didn't (GNU).
NetBSD install CDs "for when all else fails." Comes in handy when you need to repurpose an old Motorola VME system previously installed with telco switching software to interface with lab monitoring hardware with shell scripts, a serial port and a prayer.
Documentation:
Unix System Administrator's Handbook on CD.
A copy of the "Fixing Solaris" howto in
Linux Kit:
Mac Powerbook or iBook, haughty sneer.
Software:
Slackware to inspire feeling of inadequacy in self proclaimed Linux gurus. Gentoo Level 3 on a USB keychain drive... especially usefull if you're stuck with a 2400 baud modem in a jungle where the pbone only works for three hours alternating tuesdays. (Ah, sarcasm!)
Copy of NetBSD or OpenBSD install disks to get real work done.
Windows Survival Kit:
Hardware:
Powerbook or iBook
Software:
Condescending sneer.
SoupIsGood Food
1). tomsrtbt Linux on a floppy - essential!
2). Windows 98SE boot floppy
3). Knoppix 3.2 bottable Linux on a CD.
4). Memtest86 bootable CD for testing RAM - excellent!
5). DOS freeware F-Prot and recent virus definitions
6). Norton's DOS utilities
7). Various HD setup utilities (eg: Western Digital, Seagate boot floppies)
8). Freesco Linux router/webserver on a floppy
9). Sample linux config files (eg: XFConfig-4, fstab, etc)
10). Frozen-Bubble bootable CD for times of stress
SuperUTL is a damn useful CD. It features: bootable DOS with NTFS support, boot to partition magic, drive image, ERD commander (reset a lost password), Ghost, Norton SystemWorks, SpinRite, tomsrtbt, ...
On the CD, you can also find the Winternals Administrator's pack, recoverNT/98, tweakUI, 4dos, and MANY other small useful apps.
The author of that disc, Michael K.H. Au-Yeung has plenty of details on his site about the way to create such many-boot CDs. Definitely worth a look.
Note that the CD image is not available on his website, only the way to build it from YOUR version of the applications. Of course, I'm sure it's crawling around the P2P networks. And no, I don't have it.
Of course, Knoppix is your other best friend as it'll bring you your beloved Linux system in no time.
It sounds like what you're going to be taking with you is a CD holder that holds about a dozen CDs, and maybe a few floppy disks. A little bit of hardware won't hurt either, but I'll try to keep it to fitting in a medium sized pocket.
You're going to want:
Windows 95c
This is a good version of Windows 95.
Windows 98se
This is the OS that most people in small business are still using. It's the best of the Windows 9x series. You'll find that it could come in right handy.
Windows NT
You never know when you'll come across it.
Windows 2000
A lot of people are using this product. It's not bad, and the repair utility can be nice.
NOT Windows XP
No real reason to carry this around. Most people who have their XP machines should still have their restore disks.
Office 97 Pro
Most small business are still using this
Office 2000 Pro
This is a better product that Office 97 Pro. Sometimes comes in handy when you just cannot fix Office 97 Pro
Norton Ghost
When a small business buys PCs, they tend to buy two or three at once. This means that you can just drop a copy of a good build onto a bad build. It saves a lot of time.
Norton Antivirus
It's a good thing to have. You can use it as a bootable CDROM to search for viruses on a PC.
Partition Magic
It's also a good thing to have. It can save you work when someone has set up a PC foolishly.
Your own utilities disk
You're going to want to get a CDR and put the following on it: WinZip, Novell Client, Adobe Reader, Various Microsoft Office Readers, Possibly AOL, Sun's Java, Microsoft's VM, WinAmp, Possibly RealPlayer, Quicktime. Recent versions of MDAC. You get the idea.
You're also going to want four or five 3.5" floppies.
Windows 98 bootable disk.
This comes in very handy.
Dos 6.22 Utilities Bootable Disk
Not quite as handy as the 98 disk, as it doesn't handle FAT32
Two Blank Diskettes
For Ghost to use during TCP/IP operations
As for hardware, we'll make it easy. You'll want 2 older Intel Pro/100 NICs. These things are beautiful.
You'll also want a cross over CAT-5 cable to make ghosting easier.
A good leatherman wouldn't hurt either, but a small toolkit would be best. Those leathermens just aren't very good screwdrivers.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.