Need your input

[Cav]

Hi everyone,

Long time lurker, (somewhat) first time poster here. Let me start off by thanking you for the vast knowledge you've unknowingly helped me gain. Your many posts and threads have lead to countless hours of learning and researching. Thanks.

I come to you now in search of your input on an idea that I've been brainstorning for some time. In my area there is no one that I know of that opperates a Geek Squad-like service, where I would come out to the customer's home or place of business and troubleshoot/fix/clean/install etc for them on the spot. I've come up with a list of the software and tools I would carry with me to do these various jobs, but I'd like to see what some of you would add to it. Here is what I have so far:

- Various spyware removal programs, such as Spybot, Adaware, MS Antispyware
- AVG Free edition for virus removal
- Diskeeper for Defragging
- Various start up program removers, such as StartEd, or Scotts Windows Start up program manager
- Clean Cache
- Updated Drivers for video cards on Re-writeable media
- a boot disk
- Extra stick of RAM, sd, ddr etc to test potential bad memory

Any other ideas? I appreciate the input.

 

[Sieravor]

Bootable diagnostics software is a must-have. www.ultimatebootcd.com is free and has a pretty complete set of tools. Other than that, there are the more expensive suites like Norton Utilities.

Also, a good partitioning suite, like Partition Magic (not the best, but good) is always nice to have on hand for when someone has been tooling around with their partitions.

If you're familiar with linux, and are comfortable with hacking, knoppix-std is wonderful. It's bootable and comes with a tremendous, and I mean damn huge, suite of programs that will allow you to manipulate literally everything about the computer. It's very useful for things like lost passwords or accessing files on the HDD that normal OSes won't allow you to access.

But, you're going to need more than software to be able to fix alot of problems. A good multimeter is invaluable for testing cables and PSU's.

They make commercial grade PSU testers, RAM module testers, and HDD testers. They're stand alone hardware that you just powerup and connect the devices to. They're expensive though, and I dont' recommend getting them unless you see an extreme need. I just thought I'd mention that they do exist.

Also, you may want to pick up a large volume flash drive. I keep a 4gb drive on me at all times. I use it mostly for on site installs for people who have a liscense but no disk for their OS. Alternatively, external USB HDD's are always nice.

If you come across a new driver or commonly corrupted but needed system file, keep a backup of it. that way you can just do a quick restore from your copy instead of hoping they have their mobo driver disks or whatever.

Really, I could go on all night about what would be appropriate to carry with you, but I think what I've listed is a nice compliment to what you already have or plan on getting. As always though, nothing makes the job better than experience and practical knowledge. Familiarize yourself with as many consumer level software and hardware products as you can. Oh yeah, learn BIOS password backdoors. You won't encounter a computer with a locked bios very often, but when you do, it'll be nice to know you can just backdoor it and move on with the repairs.

::EDIT:: One more thing. Pick up one of those snazzy PC repair kits. They're only like $20 or so, and come with alot of the tools you'll need to get at the innards of those broken computers.

 

[Cav]

Great ideas! Thanks for taking the time to write all that out, I will certainly look into what you've said.

Thanks again!