What tools do you use?

[s0me0ne]

Just curious what tools people use? I've been out of the hardware scene for awhile and not sure if things have changed much in the last several years or so. And figured this would be a good idea to find out whats new and can save time and $

I use basic tools (screwdrivers, etc)
USB enclosure that can hold a optical drive or hdd
some CDs

• darin's boot & nuke - wiping drives
  
• ultimate boot disk - has lots of utilities on it - partition stuff, hdd tools, ...
• norton ghost 2003
  
• win xp / win 7 disc (incase of reinstalls)

I plan to get a usb to sata/pata ide /laptop ide & power adapter all in 1.

I also remember seeing someone with a usb drive that I think loaded ISOs like it was a virtual optical drive and it had a LCD interface that let them change what ISO was loaded on it on the device itself. I thought it was overkill but seemed kind of cool.

 

[drescherjm]

I don't use optical drives that much anymore. Instead I have 32GB and 64GB USB sticks with several ISOs installed. Things like the OS + sysrescuecd (includes gparted & memtest86+) + clonezilla. I use YUMI to allow for multiple boots on the USB stick. And the dd or ddrescue (under linux) to make the ISO file from a bootable DVD.

 

[Potatocodone]

I don't use optical drives that much anymore. Instead I have 32GB and 64GB USB sticks with several ISOs installed. Things like the OS + sysrescuecd (includes gparted & memtest86+) + clonezilla. I use YUMI to allow for multiple boots on the USB stick. And the dd or ddrescue (under linux) to make the ISO file from a bootable DVD.

Wow I wish I heard of this before.