unusual/cool tools

I just used my sata/ide to usb adapter to rid a laptop hard drive of a virus and it was easy! Are their any other must have tools for my toolbox that you know of? I feel like that is a MUST have for everyone that works on pc's. Thanks,
Tony

 

Believe it or not, a USB floppy drive can be VERY helpful, esp when working on laptops and you need to boot to a pure DOS environment like a Win98 boot disk. For software, the Ultimate Boot CD For Windows (or UBCD4Win; more info here and here and FAQs are here) is worth 5 times it's weight in gold. Check it out. I use it for virus removal all the time. It allows you to boot into a Windows-like environment that runs entirely from the CD (you can even surf the web or browse a local network), you have unrestricted access to the PC hard drive (or remote network drives) making deleting malicious files VERY simple. Again, check it out. You can also add in all your own favorite apps, making it a very customizable boot CD. More info about that can be found here. There's also the original Ultimate Boot CD (or UBCD) which is a bunch of diagnostic tools and other utilities for system troubleshooting, repair, maintenance, etc. More info available here and here. I believe this CD can also be customized. To take things a bit further, you can create bootable thumb/flash drives with these CDs, making 'em a bit more portable, but less secure since malware can jump on to a flash drive, but cannot write itself to a CD. Anyway- these 2 discs have saved me countless hours of frustration and I highly recommend them to anyone in the PC-fixing realm, and the USB floppy drive has proven quite useful also, but not as much as the CDs.
:-D

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

 

I second everything dlb said... especially the UBCD! that disc is my first port-of-call for most issues.


Another sort of "tool" i always have is a CD filled with all the latest installers for the basics like Flash, Java, Firefox, Kaspersky, Comodo amongst many others.

As dlb said once soething is on a CD it can't be messed with


Q

 

Cat5 cable tester is helpful, also a DMM. Another handy adapter is one that lets you hook up a standard IDE cable to the smaller IDE latptop drives.

 

LOL For those who might not know, DMM = Digital MultiMeter. LOL

 

I'm gonna check this cd out now. Thanks again.