Going down the IT rabbit hole

Not so often anymore, but still sometimes I find myself in situation when I have to analyze and possibly repair broken Windows system. When that happens, it is good to have few tools at hand. Because you never know what went wrong in advance, it is good to be prepared for all occasions. I usually need only one USB drive – my 32GB multi-boot USB drive (you can also go with less).

On my USB, there are quite few tools; some of them might come in handy even to you some day. Just to kick-start your journey I will give you few pointers:

You need bootable USB and something to boot. I prefer:

Windows 7 USB/DVD tool
– Free
– Good for Windows-only multi-boot
– Wizard driven “ISO to USB/DVD” converter
– Can create bootable USB from any WIM based image, like:
     – Windows Vista & Windows Server 2008
     – Windows 7 & Windows Server 2008 R2
     – Windows Defender Offline
     – Microsoft Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset
     – Windows PE – you can get it in Windows AIK
     – Windows RE – Create a Windows RE Recovery Media

Windows Defender Offline
– Free
– Dedicated to finding and removing malicious and potentially unwanted programs
– Based on Windows PE
– Wizard driven USB/DVD creator

Microsoft Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset
– Free for Microsoft SA customers, available to Volume Licensing customers, Microsoft Development Network subscribers, and Microsoft TechNet subscribers
– Packed with tools like Locksmith, Crash Analyzer, File Restore, Disk Wipe and Standalone System Sweeper
– Based on Windows PE
– Wizard driven USB/DVD creator

Universal USB Installer
– Free
– Great for true multi-boot
– Can combine multiple Windows based and non-Windows based images onto one media
– Supports Windows XP and newer
– Supports 90+ Linux distributions (don’t forget to check out KON-BOOT*)
– Wizard driven USB/DVD creator

When creating bootable USB all the applications require USB format (wipe and FAT32 created).

If you also like to have updated Sysinternals tools with you, don’t forget to check out SysInternalsUpdater.

*Great tool for true bypassing of local Windows Logon passwords.