Category: Spinrite

The Pen is mightier than the megabyte!

Paul8 Replies

Mass storage device for PC. USB flash drives. Image via Wikipedia

As technicians we have way to many pen drives!

If you are like me, you probably have several different USB Flash drives laying around like I do.  I usually have special ones for special projects.   You’d probably have one for Virus removal and another one for fixing Hard Drives like Spinrite.   A few years ago, I would have 6 to 10 Pen drives for just those special occasions.   I’d even have one for all my saved games and other important files that I might need.

One Pen Drive to rule them all, One Pen Drive to find them,
One Pen Drive to bring them all and in the darkness bind them!

So I have found some great programs to create one massive Pen Drive so I don’t have to have so many USB Flash Drives laying around on the desk!  I figured I would go about talking about the best way to pack your USB drive with all that valuable information and have it at your finger tips in case of the some problems with the system.

  • YUMI – Multiboot USB Creator — This is what you will need to pack that USB with all your favorite ISO‘s.    The only requirement is the size of the Pendrive.   If you don’t have a big enough Pen drive then you will ultimately have to split them into small pen drives.    I have several different useful programs on my pen drive.  The only down side is that it is Windows only.   I would love them to make it for Linux or even OS X but It is still darn useful.
  • WSUS Offline Upate —  This is darn useful program.   If you ever needed to update a Windows without being online this is for you.  It will download the files and then make an ISO.   Once you have the ISO you can Yumi to put it on the Pen Drive.  Good news about this is you can keep using Yumi to replace the ISO every month and it doesn’t take much time.   Just don’t delete the files that WSUS downloads or you will have to redownload them again.  Just keep those files safe and all you will have to do is download the updates each month and then copy the new ISO to Yumi.
  • Puppy Linux — Is by far my Favorite little Linux Distro because it will allow me to save my personal settings in any computer I use and thus when I come back to the system with Puppy, I do not have to redo anything I did before.
  • Ultimate Boot CD — Is another great little ISO to install in the Pen Drive.   If your having problems with the system.   This will let you test the system in ways you probably never thought about doing.   Very useful for any Technician who is doing some kind of problem solving.
  • System rescue CD — If you ever needed to rescue the system from a variety of problems like partition problems or hard drive crashes.   This is goo for that resource.  This Distro contains many different tools for Networks, file restoration and Many more.
  • Spinrite —  The is obviously the best tool there is because it will already come as an ISO and all you will need to do is us YUMI to put it on the USB drive.   Once on the drive you have a plug and hard drive repair program for any occasion.

I pretty much gave you a baseline of ISO and programs to use to make your Ultimate Pen drive for when you might need them.  I won’t go on to much longer because I know your itching to try these programs and find even more programs to install onto your USB Flash Drive.   I will say if you search long and hard you could find some really good treasures to make it even better and worth while.   I like having only a few Pen drives than having a hand full of them. Don’t you??

Have a Good day, See you real Soon!

 

Paul Sylvester

 

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Warning Signs of Hard Drive Trouble

Paul

For every computer there comes a time when you have a problem with hardware or software. This is for those who want to learn the signs of possible fixes for having hard drive problems. Although if you know you’re hard drive is dieing then you better back it up as quickly as possible. You will of course need to get the back up software to protect your data.  If you have special drivers you will need to backup yours drivers.  If you have an OEM system then you will need to backup the Hidden Partition.

So what are the warning signs of a hard drive failure:

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  • Unexpected freezing of Windows — When Windows Locks up and you have to reboot or getting a Blue Screen of Death.   You have no choice but to restart because you can’t do anything with windows.

  • Losing data files — if you seem to see files being lost or deleted without your direct input.  It might be a sign of a computer virus or it could be a damaged hard drive.

  • Locking up during boot — this is most common when you have a hard drive failure, although if you can restart and not be a problem then just keep in mind that it might be the beginning.  The more frequent you have the lockup boot problems the more chance of the hard drive dieing.

  • Hard drive isn’t recognized in BIOS– Although this can be a old hard drive, if the bios can’t see it then the problem might be a hard drive failure, usually this is meaning you just have to replace the hard drive.  there’s isn’t much you can do with this problem, just replace the hard drive.  Most of the time it is a problem inside the Hard drive bios and you really can’t fix this, you’d have to send it off to possibly save the hard drive data.

  • Clicking, Scratching, Whirling, Grinding sounds from Hard drive — This is the most dangerous signs of hard drive failure and means you need to get your data off ASAP.  If you want to hear some of the waring sounds of a dieing hard drive click here.

Although some of these can or can not be a hard drive failure, some can be driver issure or disk defragmentation and should be check out to rule out these problems.   There can be several problems that might be easily fixed.  If you think it is a failure you might try Spinrite.  The program is made by Steve Gibson and he actually has a “Absolute Satisfaction Guarantee“.  So if it doesn’t work or your not satisfied you aren’t out any money.  I’ve used this in the past for hard drives that are dieing so I could get all the important data off before it died all together.  It is essential that if you can get it working for a short time to get a backup.

Disclaimer: Although spinrite might fix some of the problems associated with a hard drive failure, it might not fix all the problems or any problems.   So it is left up to the user to decide if it is worth it or not to buy it.   I don’t recommend this for every situation or every problem only for the off chance that it might let you get the important data off the computer before you lose it.  Use at your own risk.