Building a PC Repair kit and Learning Linux
Ok, I have kinda a strange request so im not 100% sure where to post it, this seemed like the proper area on the forum.
I was at a cousin's house attempting to clean his WinXP computer full of viruses and spyware, however, after hours I was unable to do it, mainly because I lacked the proper tools. There was some nasty spyware that hid itself from the Windows API, disguised itself as a 3 meg .txt file despite obviously containing binary data, and re-installed all the viruses/spyware on his system each boot when I removed them, it even started along with safe mode. My main problem was that I was unable to enter the recovery console because the files needed to do that on the system's hard drive had been corrupted, and I didn't have a windows 2K/XP cd to boot off of since this was a prebuilt and came with those annoying repair disks instead. I attempted to try to find a Live CD distro to fix it but his main drive was NTFS and I could not find a Live CD distro that could write to/delete from a NTFS volume, plus I don't really know how to use Linux that well.
Well, considering that I get called out to my friends/cousins houses often to fix their physically damaged or spyware-ridden systems, and sometimes my own systems suffer hardware problems, I decided it might be a good idea to try to design my own portable PC repair/maintenance kit, but I need some advice on what to include. Obviously I am not planning on having $1000 state of the art test equipment in there nor make it a kit designed to fix every problem possible, but one designed to fix (or at least diagnose) most of the problems that are likely to occur hardware or software wise, as well as perform maintenance/tweaking on a system.
The first and probably the hardest thing to decide on would probably be the case I would put it all in, probably something like one of those square-shaped 100 CD holding cases but with slots to hold various tools, the problem would be finding one with the proper slots and areas to hold all the disks/tools needed.
So anyway, what would you recommend hardware-wise I bring with the kit? I mean, screwdrivers, pliers and tweezers are a given, but what else? That's more or less all I've needed to repair or upgrade my own systems before but I want to be prepaired.
As for the software, this really is where I want help what on what to bring. First of all, what are some good freeware (or at least free for private/personal use) utilities and applications I should bring with me? I want to consider virus scanners like AVG, utilities like Media Player Classic and Irfanview, hardware diagnosing and identification programs like memtest86+ and Aida32 (and preferably some type of dos-equivalent to Aida) and others like firewalls (I used to use Kerio, but its no longer free now, it was bought out). I want to pack a DOS and NT-based boot floppy (just enough to get me to the command prompt and possibly some limited diagnosis software) but while I know how to do this with DOS disks, I have no idea how to do this with a single disk for a NT/NTFS system, if its even possible, not to mention floppies appear to be extremely fragile, I have so many with damaged sectors all over the place, I don't know what is a good brand or good way to store them. Finally, is there a good way to design a minimalist DOS/NT boot CD so I can at least get to the command prompt? What would be some good diagnosis software you would recommend for that CD that can run in DOS or the NT recovery console's OS?
And finally, I should probably bring a few Linux Live CDs to boot with if the software on the hard drive is too far damaged/infected to risk booting with; this is the one I need the most help with. I will probably get the latest version of Knoppix, but I want to bring several others as well. I was trying INSERT, as it was the only Live CD version of Linux I could find that claimed it could write to NTFS volumes, but I couldn't get it to work. What other Live CD distros should I be aware of mainly designed for repairing or just plain testing a system (namely Windows systems)? Are there any good ones to scan hard drives for viruses and other malware off the Live CDs themselves? Can they download the latest virus definitions and other updates from the internet (either into memory or on a USB flash drive, not the HDD), or if not, at least allow me to manually download and store the updated files on a USB flashdrive? Also, if they are small enough (INSERT was small enough to fit on a pocket CD for example) is there a way to put multiple Live CD versions of Linux on a single disk and use some type of boot manager to choose which one you wish to boot? I've seen lots of different Live CD Linux distros that sounded like they might be useful, such as INSERT, Overclockix, F.I.R.E., Arudix, PHLAX, Salvare, Hakin9 Live, CHRONOMIUM, stresslinux, and god knows what else, but I have no idea which ones to choose and which ones will be useful (especially when troubleshooting Windows2k+ problems)
So, how would you recommend I go about putting all this together, and what should I bring?
On the second topic, the main problem that I had with INSERT Linux is that I don't really know how to use Linux; I've been using Windows for the last 10 years now and have had only minimal experience with Macos and Linux. I heard of a Live CD distro of Linux designed to teach you called Elarnix, but I don't think that will be enough, are there any good online sites/tutorials you can recommend? When I tried to Google them I kept getting results for books/training videos they wanted me to buy.
