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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)"
And maybe Norton Utilities. Those are great for when things go wrong.
Bring a copy of Knoppix and a copy of FIRE(Forensic Incident Response Environment.
Nothing I've found that those two can't handle.
I'll be interested in hearing just what sort of essential software I'd need about my person to help complete strangers fix their 'puters on holiday! Then I can make damned sure I don't have any of it ;-)
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
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
Gotta have the dead trees in case you can't access digital...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
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.
Single-floppy linux boot with a tremendous array of rear-end saving utilities.
What more could you possibly need?
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
You have to include fortune. It's nice to have somthing to read when you are frustrated to lighten the situation.
You need one of these :)
a sh lights/active/hdl33a1.PDF
http://data.energizer.com/datasheets/library/fl
$15 at Target stores (in the U.S.), available for just under $10 on sale online some places.
3 AA batteries (works great with rechargeables). I am on #2 because I gave #1 to my mom when she took a medical missionary trip to Haiti (motto: "Sometimes we have electricity.")
Great for reading in bed, but in the computer context great for looking inside cases, looking for tiny screws that fell on the floor, etc. Small enough that it can fit into odd spaces inside a case, too, and sometimes the angle of illumination makes all the difference.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Usually, this is mainly for data recovery - its almost easier to image broken workstations than it is to waste 2 hrs fixing it.
This article doesn't sit too well on the homepage directly opposite the current poll.
What Would You Put Into A Software Survival Kit?
- Salmonella
- Botulism
- Trichinosis...
Ladies, form queue here -->
I have always found a use for my Win98 boot disk. I know, I know, I use Linux all the time now, but back in the day, a Win98/95 boot disk was the way to go.
Nowadays, I would use a linux boot disk, but most old computers I have run into typically run Windows 98/95 or in rare occassions Windows 3.1 (gasp!).
These and a DOS floppy with the right kinds of tools (fdisk, format, edit, etc.) have saved my bacon so many times that I've lost count
Hmm, maybe you'd better include calc in your list then...
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
here is FIRE
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Just my two Mac OS X 10.2 CDs.
The Political Programmer
In the M$ world, WinZip (or pkzip for dos). I learned the hard way that all my other utilities didn't help much if I couldn't unzip them.
They have the Internet on computers now?
In my computer toolbag, I carry a CD case with copies of every Windows CD I have, since most users use Windows and can never seem to find their CD when I need to install drivers and things. Also, I have common video drivers, MS patches and service packs, lots of free (some as in beer, some as in speech) software. I also have a Win98 boot floppy, since it comes with a CD-ROM driver, a Linux boot disk that can reset any password on an NT system, and various other boot and rescue disks. A couple of blank floppies are in there, too, for when I need to make boot floppies to install OSes when an old computer won't boot from a CD. Of course, there are also some Linux distros in my CD case, for people who want to try something new.
It's an operating system, not a religion.
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...
1)ISO Buster to restore corrupted CD's. Isobuster
2)Partition Magic Partition Magic3)Restore lost data on hard disks Google and Download.com
4)Hard disk diagnostic tool PowerMax from MaxtorAbout two years ago I created my own bootable CD that contained the Cab files for Windows 95, 98, 98SE and ME, along with scripts for unattended installs for each of them. This CD has saved me countless of hours. Can't really do the same for 2000 and XP, more's the pity. I also made a second CD that contained a full install of Internet Explorer 6 for all OS versions. It's amazing how many problems you can fix in Windows just be installing the latest version of IE. I also carry around of set of floppy disks with me:
Maxblast - Maxtor tool for copying hard drives, works with other brands too. I prefer this to Ghost.
Powermax, SeaDiag, HDDiag, WD Lifeguard - Various manufacturers HD diagnostic disks
Offline NT password and reg editor - Need I say more?
---- El diablo esta en mis pantalones! Mire, mire!
The first thing I try to keep is a list of how to clear the BIOS settings for every computer I manage. You would be amazed at how dumb you feel if you have all these nifty CDROM/floppy based utilities and are unable to make the damn PC boot from anything other than the screwed up hard drive.
The second thing I keep is a NT password recovery disk. About 90% of my problems are based on not knowing the admin password for a machine that has been in some users closet for 3 years. The user suddenly needs the PC on his network, and there I am trying to figure out the admin password. The best disk I have found is here.
The third thing I keep is a Norton Utilities CDROM. You can boot off the CDROM and scan for a virus or diagnose a flaky hard drive.
I also keep a Gentoo live CD. I have thought about going over to Toms Boot Disk, but the Gentoo disk usually does what I need.
Although I don't carry it with me, I also keep a spare hard drive and a Win2k disk with all the latest patches and utilities that my company uses for the standard install. If worse comes to worse, I just move the users hard drive over to the secondary IDE and then install on a fresh hard drive. Then I can copy the users data onto the new hard drive. After that, the users old hard drive becomes my spare for the next user.
I also have a folder with a hard copy of every config for every switch, router, and other configurable device on my network. This folder also has IP address schemes, network maps, building diagrams, and user names and phone numbers. The folder also has a floppy with soft copies of the above, PuTTY, and a TFTP server for uploading into a router quickly.
I try to locate at least one geek for every office. I try to show this geek some of the details about his office. I let him have localadmin for the computers in his office. If the (l)users in his office need a printer reinstalled or otherwise need localadmin access, I direct them to their local geek. This also serves to deflect all the "my home PC is acting dumb and can you fix it" type users.
Finally, I try to write a "Why Stuff Breaks" document for all the major problems on my network. "User in office 12a keeps unplugging the switch so he can make coffee" type comments for common problems can help my minions diagnose a problem quickly.
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
- Drivers: Via, nVidia, and Intel chipsets; ATI Rage 128, ATI Radeon, and nVidia GPUs; Highpoint HPT37x and Promise Ultra IDE controllers; miscellaneous 3Com, AMD, Intel, Linksys, and NetGear NICs; Sound Blaster PCI, Sound Blaster Live, Santa Cruz, and Via integrated sound cards; DirectX; Palm Desktop; Nero UDF reader
- Applications: Mozilla, CDex, OpenOffice.org, Pixia*, SmartFTP
- Plugins and viewers: Adobe Acrobat Reader, Flash Player, Ghostscript and GSView, IrfanView, Java Runtime Environment, QuickTime, Winamp
- Emergency rescue stuff: Norton Disk Editor, Diskman, DOSLFN,
MBRWork, Norton Disk Doctor, RegEdit, CTMOUSE, FIPS, Ghost, NTFSDOS, Partition Manager, Partition Resizer, RawWrite plus a DOS boot disk image, Info-Zip UNZIP, Restoration
- Miscellanous utilities: Ad-Aware, UnxUtils, wget, PGP, Privoxy, Restoration, TweakUI, TweakUI XP, VDMSound, XVI32
Needless to say, this isn't something you want to put together in one sitting (I've been throwing stuff I find useful onto the CD for about 4 or 5 years). Most of it is freely-distributable (either free-as-in-beer or free-as-in-speech) but you might have to nix some of them (like the Symantec stuff) for licensing reasons.* I'd like to include The Gimp, but I often install the free/Free stuff from this CD onto computers I give to charity, where people might take offense to the name. I'll probably replace Pixia with CinePaint in the future.
Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer is the tool you mention that you couldn't remember the name of:
Mmmm.. Donuts
You can install the Win2k Recovery Console on NT boxes. At least on NT Server you can. Throw in the 2k CD and run winn32.exe /cmdcons from the run prompt or the command line.
Leisure Suit Larry
really and truly, I wouldnt take a lot of software out of the country. If you actually read the EULA on some of them, taking them outside of the US is a felony at least. Not that you'd get caught, but you never know who theyre going to call a terrorist nowdays.
Oh yeah! Delpart is invaluable. Don't groan, but a Windows98 Rescue Disk plus Delpart.EXE is one of the most important tools in your quiver if you have to deal with Windozers.
The Knoppix CD is a goodie, particularly the new ones with the newest KDE which is perhaps the tightest, least hoggish KDE yet.
BTW, don't leave Delpart.Exe on your hard drive. It WILL nuke your HD in situ. The result is a spectacular BSOD/Stop Error that will make your hair curl. We did it once at the tech school I attended, just for grins. Great BOFH tool. >:)
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Jeff
Reviews with a twist! http://www.sardonicbastard.com
Find a version of antivirus that lets you create a DOS bootable floppy set, and take that with whatever is the latest def files. You wouldn't believe how many machines I've stumbled across without antivirus (or with a 4 yr old deffile, which is less than useless) that contain some not-so-new viruses on them. This is assuming you might stumble across some Windows machines.
Now keeping them safe after you leave while still being legal is another story.
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!
Reality is in the mind of the beholder - me 1996
The Free Software Foundation membership card is a bootable linux CD in the shape of a card. It has many nice utilities and it's Linux!
Partition magic is golden... and always bring your Windows CDs with you.
Whoa! Hold your fire, linux geeks.
Now, I'm not suggesting that anyone pirate windows (Horrors!), just that sometimes CDs walk off, and you can reinstall with their license by using the key code off the sticker on the box.
Also bring a good current virus scanner with you, (connectivity has its hazards), and tools. When I say tools I'm talking tiny screwdrivers, torx bits (security torx bits and regular), grounding strap, etc. The torx bits are a lifesaver; you never know what kind of screws they use to hold the boxen together, particularly govt. boxen. Spare 'puter parts are also critical when you need to repair stuff.
For instance, I was out in the middle of Saudi Arabia one time (about an hour from the nearest major city) and had a hard drive failure. Complete, total, utter failure. I didn't bring an extra drive... sooo... I had to wait weeks to get a new drive (you don't even want to know how difficult it is to RMA a drive from the middle of a 3rd world country).
Yes, I realize the article was about software... but if the hardware ain't runnin, you might as well use those CDs for coasters.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
One utility that I recommend all my clients and friends use is Startup Cop. This is a great tool to find out what spyware and other annoying crap loads at startup.
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
For broken workstations:
Norton's ghost bootable floppy with cdrom support plus 2 60 gig drives worth of standard images.
For servers:
Veritas back-up exec 9 plus latest backup tapes
For both:
Tom's root boot disk
Win NT/2k/XP password recovery disk
CD full of tools, VNC, Dameware, putty, pumpkin, regedit...
OS CD's
I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.
-Xenocrates
Here's what I'd put in a Mac version of the tools.
OS CDs
Any Mac with a CD-ROM should boot from CD...
System 7.5.3 + 7.5.5 update disk images on CD
(good for booting up 128k through many PPCs and free from Apple)
System 8.1 & 9.1 CDs
8.1 is the last for pre-PPC, 9.1 the last pre-G3
8.6 is solid, but possibly unneeded...maybe take.
System 9.2.2 and OSX 10.2 CDs
For my system or G3 and above
Arguably one could just have a CD or two with working system folders for each version...but I like to be able to install for the machine.
Utilities
Diskwarrior - Fix filesystem problems
Techtool Pro - Diagnose and fix problems
Stuffit installers
Apple disk tools floppy images on CD (in case no CD drive)
Mac general software (browsers, clients, etc)
A serial cable (can do Appletalk networking with one)
A firewire cable (target disk mode for newer models)
Pack o' floppies and a USB floppy drive (so I could use the antiquidated media)
Ethernet crossover cable
AUUI->Ethernet adapter
if there's room...
a SCSI external Apple CD-ROM
external SCSI HDD and/or SCSI ZIP
2.5" firewire HDD
a 1/2 AA battery
Mac->VGA and VGA->Mac adapters (you never know...)
that's all I can think of offhand....
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.
I've got a complete set of tools I use. One of the best uses I have for them, is installing a computer that does not have internet access. I'll highlight a few good ones.
.EXE file of a bootdisk. Make bootdisks of ALL major OS's. (http://www.winimage.com/download.htm)
:) Don't forget to download an install version of the latest Java JRE (http://java.sun.com/j2se/downloads.html)
p -serv.polito.it/winpcap/
y /)
:( (damn sypware)
t m), OllyDbg (free) (http://home.t-online.de/home/Ollydbg/), Ida Pro (http://www.datarescue.com/idabase/). You might want to take along a set of password crackers for the various populair programs too, in case a user forgot his password.
- Install CD's for WinXP, Win98 and Linux. These are always usefull, since a lot of them also boot from CD.
- DirectX9 and the WinXP SP1 (137MB, not the net installer)
- Extra DLL's like mfc42, vb6setup and cygwin1.dll
- SFX-Bootdisks. You can use WinImage to create a self-formatting
- DOS programs: the latest Symantec Ghost, Norton Commander 4.0, ZIP, RAR, ACE. Bzip2 and gzip for DOS or Win32 won't hurt either.
- WinACE supports a lot of compression formats natively. It's really good. If you work in a mixed Win/Mac enviroment, get a copy of StuffIt for Windows.
- Drivers.. Hard to choose for 'generic' use, but a recent set of ATI and NVIDIA reference drivers never hurt. Also don't forget 'Via 4-in-1' and generic NE2000 and PPPoE drivers. ASPI drivers for cd-rom drives or writers are good too.
- For graphics ACDsee is king. For editing a copy of Paintshop Pro is useful.
- Compile a complete set of internet tools. These are some that are very useful:
Mozilla, ofcourse. That way you have a mail client too
Agent (NNTP) http://www.forteinc.com/
PCMacLAN (Let Mac and PC share files and printers on the network)
Ethereal, really good free sniffer program
http://www.ethereal.com/
http://netgrou
ICQ, latest version (www.icq.com)
Mirc (IRC) (www.mirc.com)
Gonna use SSH or telnet? Putty! (free) (http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putt
If you want to remotely contol a PC, check out Radmin. I like this a lot better then PCanywhere. (http://www.radmin.com/)
- Movies
Codecs are important, try using codec packs like Nimo or klcodec. Bring a copy of VirtualDub too. Don't forget Quicktime, PowerDVD and such. RealPlayer won't work well since it cannot install without contacting the internet
- Sound
Winamp, Lame, CoolEdit
- CD stuff
Nero CD writing software (www.ahead.de), Daemon-tools allows you to mount CD images right from the harddisk (www.daemon-tools.com)
- Harddisk
R-studio can recover both NTFS, FAT32 and EXT2 files, Ext2FS will let you mount an EXT2 drive under Windows.
- Misc
Norton anti-virus, Adobe Acrobat reader, UltraEdit. Microsofts free Word and Excel viewers.
- If you're going to code some small programs, you might want to bring a copy of CygWin (www.cygwin.com) or a Borland compiler (the old ones are free) useful to make a small tool to do some repetitive task for example.
- For the real hardcore debuggers: SoftIce (http://www.compuware.com/products/numega/index.h
The best toolkits are self-designed. Find yourself the tools to make a bootable CD with menu system, then dump install files for every Windows you can cram on there-- at the very least, 95, 98, and 98SE.
You want NTFS DOS Pro to clean up NTFS partitions from a plain DOS disk, Knoppix for working with systems you're really having problems with (and emergency internet access), a memory tester utility, diagnostics to test hardware, and Partition Magic never hurt...
Oh yeah, and a few tools to grab Windows install keys from the registry. Be sure you grab one that supports XP; you'll probably end up working on at least one install when you can't find the keycode.
On the hardware side, pick up an extra PS/2 keyboard and mouse to keep around for testing purposes. Also an old style DIN keyboard and serial mouse, if you can find any. You can't underestimate the value of having replacement hardware for two of the most common pieces of broken kit.
Well, that about covers the setup I've been carrying with me for my repair jobs.
Interestingly enough, I once saw a pirated XP setup disc called "8-in-1" at my local college; by extremely careful use of deliberate crosslinked sectors, they were able to get eight different installs of XP onto a single CD, plus a copy of Partition Magic, and NTFS DOS Pro-- plus the disc was still bootable (it had all of the original boot sectors from the original CDs) and had a nice menu for which section to boot.
I'm not advocating piracy here, but that's the kind of tools you want-- extremely compact and workable.
I maintain a large network, or at least 75 machines feels large, of computers spread across 12 locations. It is a point of sale network using a private WAN and an application hosted on linux servers. I must be able to repair a machine in one visit to be worth my money. I keep the following in a box in my trunk, and if I were you I would bubble wrap and ship two of each to your isolated destination.
:-))
60 gb hard drive
Cdrom
floppy drive
Socket/Slot 370 Motherboard (tyan board has both interfaces on one board)
Socket 370 cpu fan (coolermaster)
Case fan
DDR and SDRAM chips. I have a few PC100's and a few PC133's. The DDR is pc2100.
Power Supply -sparkle, full size 350w atx and smaller 175w
IDE and Floppy Cable
Power Supply Cable
50 pin scsi cable
68 pin scsi cable
68 pin lvd-se scsi cable
68 pin scsi terminator
Generic ati video card
Tekram scsi card
Several 10/100 nics
5-port switch
USB Switch
USB Cable
Print Server
Power strip
DC Adaptor with lots of tips in an altoids tin
Lots of tie straps (quick release)
Philips Head (not magnetized)
Straight Screwdriver
Small eyeglass screwdriver
Printer Cable
Several Cat-V Cables 6-ft to 50-ft
Several Phone Cables and line splitter
Extra DSL modem (our private wan is dsl-based)
DSL filters
Cdrom sound cable (fixes the "my cdrom only plays music through the headphone jack" problem
Power Cables intentionally redundant
Mouse/Keyboard extension cable
Mouse and Keyboard
AT-ps/2 adaptor for keyboards (I think it is AT)
PS/2 to usb adaptor
In my software pouch I have copies of:
Debian for PowerPC and i386
Redhat 8 (nearly outdated now,
Mandrake 9 for PowerPC and i386
Copies of win98, win2k, winxp, win95 (try to buy one of the recent issues that come with the Service Packs on cd. It is not current, but it is closer.)
Copy of Norton Antivirus (cd only, I need to add floppies)
Partition Magic (cd and floppy)
Partition Commander (I bought it without researching that it couldn't resize xp partitions)
Win98 boot floppy
A road-runner installation cd because I can install microsoft internet apps from it (sorry)
A cdr called stuff with securecrt, secureftp, wsftp, far, tridiavnc, mozilla, and openoffice
The most recent edition of Knoppix.(this is a sysutil dream unless the cdrom is bad or unbootable)
The name of the game is eliminating the variable, and if you have the diagnostic tools, working replacements, and enough time and patience you can track down the problem. It is a big box and I obviously have a business level budget, so to speak. I actually keep a ready to go machine that dual boots win98 and rhat8 in case I just want to swap it out and work on it at the house. All of this really would fit in a foot locker (not the spare machine unless a *small* case) that I am sure you can ship there with you next time. I hope others can suggest a comprehensive but generic enough book, I don't have one.
Success without humility is an indulgence in arrogance
8x dvd drive
2 nic cards
1 pci video card (5 dollar card for testing)
1 pci modem
rj45 crimper
rj45 ends
2 case fans
2 different types of heat sinks (nothing expensive)
any other old computer parts could help (old processors for fixing older computers)
different types of old ram if your like me you have tons laying around
1 dvd-r that includes windows OS's dos 6 all the way to windows xp (this disk is also bootable win98)
all windows patchs
1 dvd-r with all the rest of the utilities witch include
zipping programs
Browsers
burning software (nero with neros virtual drive)
drive imaging (drive image 2002)
Partition Magic Pro 7
drivers for the nic cards (in the toolbox)
drivers for the video card (in the toolbox)
drivers for the modem (in the toolbox)
ftp software
webpage design software
testing utilities (memory testing, fix it utilities)
ad busters (ad-ware, lsp fix)
virus scanners
other person programs will also fit on the dvd-r
a bootable win98 floppy disk incase the dvd doesnt boot on older systems
with everything here should be able to fix almost any problem or at least get to the bottom of it
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
Often I'll come across low-end Pentium and K6 systems with one or two USB ports. If a system is much older than that, well, we tell them how much more expensive our increased trouble will cost them versus an upgrade. Strangely, some people actually opt to spend upwards of several hundred dollars in labour charges (across multiple visits, usually) over buying $300 worth of parts to build a new PC. I think our record is about $500 dropped on a 486 DX-33 with 16MB of RAM crammed into it and about three hard drives totalling about 600MB. We've kept it together (upon great insistance) with whatever 'best of breed' used equipment we have in the shop, but with a failing motherboard, chip, and RAM and a case that won't stay closed without a length of duct-tape there's not much more we can do for it. But now, see, they've got so much invested in it they don't WANT to buy new.
{shrug} I take their money and get paid either way, but I'll still never understand people.
BD Phone Home!
Shameless plug. Like you weren't expecting it.
I'd suggest most people reading Slashdot put a bar of soap in their survival kit.
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
"Survival kit contents check. In them you'll find:
one forty-five caliber automatic;
two boxes of ammunition;
four days' concentrated emergency rations;
one drug issue containing antibiotics, morphine, vitamin pills, pep pills, sleeping pills, tranquilizer pills;
one miniature combination Russian phrase book and Bible;
one hundred dollars in rubles;
one hundred dollars in gold;
nine packs of chewing gum;
one issue of prophylactics;
three lipsticks;
three pair of nylon stockings.
Shoot, a fella' could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff."
If you're really hardcore you can probably get by with a good leatherman tool and a Nnoppix CD, however...... for software Knoppix is great or GNUWin as it contains an OS, a number of apps and a lot of tools/utilities that can be used for diagnostics and fixing. I highly reccoment Knoppix, as all you need is a bootable CD drive and RAM to run it. Plus it's Linux based ($0.25 for a CDR) and even has some games. On the hardware side, i always have a pair of needlenose pliers, a screwdriver with multiple bits for different sized screws, a can of air (I once saved a computer that wouldn't start solely becuase of the amount of dust buildup) and i like to have my own NIC and drivers should a network conection prove available. The vid card drivers would be good but you would have to know specifics and its far easier just to work with minimal graphics for repair/maintainence. That's the bare minimum. If you have the space, i would also tack on bootable floppies (win98 boot disk is decent enough);2-3 blank floppies for random file movement (you never know what you may have to back up from a machine); a 56K modem + working drivers in case a network connection should be unavailable; I also reccoment some high-explosives or a big hammer, because some machines just can't be saved and after hoursr of frustrating trying, sometimes it's better to put them down in a fitting manner.
In the Compuserve branded small plastic case you get a knife (obviously for trimming over sized VESA boards) philips head and flat head screw driver and of course a hammer, thats right a hammer, that i have found remarkable useful on a number of occasions.
"Error reading drive A", ah hammer time
"GPF in kernel31", ah hammer time
"ID10T error", HAMMER TIME baby!
ERR 411[Max number of witty sigs reached]
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.
I'm rather surprised no one mentioned a USB hard drive enclosure along with a laptop (but maybe some one did, I didn't read all the replies because I'd rather do more than that today). It seems to me that one could be insanely useful if your system isn't booting at all for whatever reason.
What's life? Life's easy. A quirk of matter. Nature's way of keeping meat fresh.
With these tools, I can usually get the machine up and running; MicroEMACS lets me edit autoexec.bat and associated scripts. Should I need to write and compile a simple program, the compiler is invaluable.
I've found these tools to be useful on machines up through Win-95. They don't help much with machines of more recent vintage.
[this
Oddly, the most useful utility I ever found for the Windoze/MS-DrOSs world would have to be Borland's Turbo Pascal 3, which I believe you can download from the Borland website nowadays because it's so old. It's a gem - it can do everything you need a programming language for, at least in the DOS environment, and it produces fast, small executables in no time. Even tho it's ancient, it still has its uses simply because the editor, compiler and runtime environment all fit on a bootable 360K floppy. Find me a version of C# that does THAT!
I have discovered a truly remarkable
If you really need to get a file on or off of a PC with no removeable storage, eg broken CD and floppy, then something like FastLynx can be a godsend. If your just using DOS and or Window 9X then the the old DOS interserver is also a way to go, it will even transfer itself over the serial cable (I seem to recall Laplink used to do this as well). FastLynx has the advantage that it can transfer files between XP and say DOS or Linux, over Serial, Parallel, or USB. I haven't used Laplink for years, it may be as capable now.
Oh, and remember a double headed serial cable and appropriate parallel file transfer cable (4 UKP each last time I bought one, cheaper and easier than rolling your own!)
Actually it is rocket science...
is an internet connection - if you hav some floppys, cd-rs, network-cables, a cd-burner, a floppy drive, wireless-lan, ethernet and a modem in your notbook that is everything you need.
:)
some dos/linux/rescue disks and os cds would be good, but you'll never be able to have all tools for everybodys needs, so you need an internet connection to search for them (e.g. on groups.google.com, the best source for tech info on the net imho)
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.
Now I agree with including Regmon and Filemon from this great company, but also I would include Process Explorer (Gives you access to process like the Task Manager for Win2K for non NT machines), Portmon (Allows the monitoring of the serial and parallel ports, which can be useful to debug printers and the like), and PsTools (remote administrating through the command line).
As far as a bootable OS to put in the kit, I would recommend Knoppix since it has several utilities built in just for data/computer recovery.
--If only there was a license required to use a computer.
Also a good idea to keep a list of important IP addresses handy - your DNS servers, and servers you'd need to access when/if your DNS server went down. I tend to keep them as contacts in my PalmOS device.
In addition to that, my emergency toolbox contains instructions on how to convert ext2 to ext3 and back again, since Norton Ghost 2003 doesn't seem to like ext3.
Just curious about this post and its purpose. Will someone, after this post is frozen, gather all of the suggestions and then create these kits for download?
ThinkGeek could sell them. Yeah.
--If only there was a license required to use a computer.
I keep one of those hermetically sealed AOL floppies in my glove compartment. Unfortunately I can't get them anymore. So far I haven't yet had to use up the last one I have.
It's amazing the number of times I've been at someone's house and I need to make a boot floppy and of course they don't have any blank floppies available. I've had to unseal quite a few of those blank floppies to save someone's computer.
I've been doing this for YEARS. Every 6 months I refresh by software kit, not hardware, for hardware I have my home office full of supplies. But, when I'm off at work or at someones house doing a "favor" then I just grab my CD holder with CDs filled into special catagories:
...)
Applications CD1:
Adobe Products (Reader, Illustrator, Photoshop, Premier, Livemotion, yadda yadda yadda)
Applications CD2:
Macromedia (Allaire) ColdFusion Products
Application CD3:
More Macromedia Products (flash, director, studio mx,
Application CD4:
SQL Monitoring/Dev tools (DBArtisan, etc)
Utilities CD1:
Norton, Web Browsers, Quest Software (Partition Magic, Drive Image, MusicMatch, etc
Utilities CD2:
Smaller tools into directory catagories (MS Plus, mIRC, Compression [WinZip, WinRar, SFX, StuffIt), drivers for most common stuff (network, modem, video), DOS utilities, JPG Viewer, etc.) You get the idea
Utilities CD3:
Cracks and Serial #s, downloaded personal small apps, also a huge repository of other apps (System Commander, Sandra, PowerDVD, etc)
I also bring plenty of blank floppies and different boot dists (Custom Multi boot disk with common CD-ROM drivers)
Be sure to include a bootdisk for SCSI drives.
Like I said, my toolkit is software orientated. For hardware I will be better bringing it to my own home lab/office.
I know what I'd put in: the Internet. ...or at least - the copy of the Internet that google has :)
Since you don't seem to have a limit on space, I'd bring a CD filled with Linux/MS/Mac FAQs and HowTos in text format to be safe :P