Project Reality Forums

To my fellow techies, what are the contents of your troubleshooting/repair toolkits?

For mobile kit, I have;
WinXP 9-in-1 CD (everything from basic XP home to the various MCE's, in both 64 and 86)
Win7 Pro DVD
Win Server 2k3 & 2k8 discs
MiniPE (excellent ramdisk based toy, full of programs for everything)
MS DaRT CD (always handy, several handy tools)
EVEREST (windows based audit/diag/performance monitoring tool, tells you everything you could want to know about a computer, including model details of unknown devices)

If the issue can't be fixed on site with the above, at home I am running a Win2k3 server with PXE, Ghost and WSUS to allow for quick reformats & updates.

If the situation is really desperate, I have access through work to a full Microscope kit, which is supposedly able to un-brick anything...not that I've managed to get any meaningful results from it yet.

Any tools or applications you use that you find particularly handy?

working on windows "unlocker" UNLOCKER 1.8.9 BY CEDRICK 'NITCH' COLLOMB comes in quite handy from time to time
Sysinternals Suite (with Process Explorer) Sysinternals Suite

for extra HDD file recover purpose and other HDD related errors
a TestDisk Live CD TestDisk Livecd - CGSecurity
an Ubuntu Live CD (Memtest is quite important)
I have grown acustom to INSERT Live CD but that tool hasn't turned out as helpful as I hoped (INSERT (english pages))

My Laptop and a LAN-Cable with loads of different tools I am too lazy to list (probably a lot are obsolete)

edit: oh and yeah, what ever Windows Install Disk I can get my hands on (OEM versions, prefere XP Pro)

Not a professional, just a kid who does it as a favor for mates/family or others if they are willing to pay.

- Ubuntu bootable disc (Handy for getting data off of a drive when the OS is corrupt/driver issues)

- Several Win Vista discs for running repairs

- Win XP Pro disc for repairs/re-installations

- Avast (Can do virus scans before the OS fully boots, has managed to remove a few pesky virus's that I've otherwise had no joy with)

- AVG Free (Either this or Avast left on clients machine if they didn't have an existing Anti virus)

- The usual monitoring stuff (CPU-Z, GPU-Z, P95 if I've been clocking, CoreTemp, Realtemp, CCleaner etc etc)

- Latest ATI and nVidia drivers.

- Any recovery discs the client was given when the PC was purchased.

- 30m Cat5 network cable if no other PC is connected to the net, the PC is suffering wireless issues and it's too much of a hassle to move it.


Things I don't have already but will burn/buy when needed (Not yet had to)

- Memtest

- Windows recovery disc

- Win 7 (Will grab as a personal upgrade at some point and use for repairs)

- Relevant drivers (If wireless problem for example)

- SATA to USB adaptor for virus scans/getting files

- External DVD drive



That's all I can think of off the top of my head, pretty much all freeware stuff that has managed to get the job done for me, although tempted by a few of the bootable CDs with a lot of tools on them.