As most of you already know, I am a computer repair tech. As a computer repair tech, you are expected to do miracles every second. To be ready for anything and to do the impossible very single hour of every single day. What does it take to be a repair tech? Well, reading.....lots of reading at first. Hands-on experience is also required. I was fortunate enough to be able to go pick up $5 computers every day at thrift stores and such when I was just learning computers at around 7 years old. Sufficed to say, I broke a lot more than I fixed. It doesn't take much to repair computers. Here are the standard tools that are required for almost ANY hardware problem:
As you can see, ya need a lot of canned air.
You're also going to have to buy a lot of Operating Systems. Not only that, but putting your nice disks into dirty old computers is not a good idea. You'll have to back up every disk and keep the original for backup purposes. I still have some legit factory disks, but that's just because I don't really use them that much (like the windows xp SP1 disk).
You'll eventually learn that going to bestbuy every time you need copy of xp is not very efficient. That's why MS allows repair techs like myself to just buy licenses. I haven't bought an xp disk in....oh.....4 years.
I've made about a billion copies of it though. On average, an xp disk lasts 10 computers. That means that I have to burn a new copy just about every day.
When you're a repair tech, you're gonna want a comfy office chair that rolls and along with that, a rollable stand is also advisable:
If you want to be a real repair tech, you're gonna have to know your way around DOS. You also need basic programming skills, enough to create a basic boot interface. Here is my master disk of programs:
Here is a list of the included applications:
Partition Tools:
- Partition Magic Pro 8.05 - Best software to partition hard drive
- Acronis Disk Director Suite 9.0.554 - Popular disk management functions in a single suite
- Paragon Partition Manager 7.0.1274 - Universal tool for partitions
- Partition Commander 9.01 - The safe way to partition your hard drive,with undo feature
- Ranish Partition Manager 2.44 - a boot manager and hard disk partitioner.
- The Partition Resizer v1.3.4 - move and resize your partitions in one step and more.
- Smart Fdisk 2.05 - a simple harddisk partition manager
- SPecial Fdisk 2000.03t - SPFDISK a partition tool.
- eXtended Fdisk 0.9.3 - XFDISK allows easy partition creation and edition
- GDisk 1.1.1 - Complete replacement for the DOS FDISK utility and more.
- Super Fdisk 1.0 - Create, delete, format partitions drives without destroying data
Disk Clone Tools:
- ImageCenter 5.6 (Drive Image 2002) - Best software to clone hard drive
- Norton Ghost 11.0.1 - Similar to Drive Image (with usb/scsi support)
- Acronis True Image 8.1.945 - Create an exact disk image for complete system backup and disk cloning.
- Partition Saver 3.50 - A tool to backup/restore partitions.
- COPYR.DMA Build013 - A Tool for making copies of hard disks with bad sectors
Antivirus Tools:
- F-Prot Antivirus 3.16f (1410) - Very good virus scanner (with ntfs support and easy to use menu)
- McAfee Antivirus 4.4.50 (1410) - a virus scanner (with ntfs support and easy to use menu)
Recovery Tools:
- Active Partition Recovery 3.0 - To Recover a Deleted partition.
- Active Uneraser 3.0 - To recover deleted files and folders on FAT and NTFS systems.
- Ontrack Easy Recovery Pro 6.10 - To Recover data that has been deleted/virus attack
- Winternals Disk Commander 1.1 - more than just a standard deleted-file recovery utility
- TestDisk 6.9b - Tool to check and undelete partition.
- Lost & Found 1.06 - a good old data recovery software.
- DiyDataRecovery Diskpatch 2.1.100 - An excellent data recovery software.
- Prosoft Media Tools 5.0 v1.1.2.64 - Another excellent data recovery software with many other options.
- PhotoRec 6.9b - File and pictures recovery Tool.
Testing Tools:
- System Speed Test 4.78 - it tests CPU, harddrive, ect.
- PC-Check 6.0 - Easy to use hardware tests
- Ontrack Data Advisor 5.0 - Powerful diagnostic tool for assessing the condition of your computer
- The Troubleshooter 7.02 - all kind of hardware testing tool
- PC Doctor 2004 - a benchmarking and information tool
- Test Cpu/Video/Disk 5.6 - a tool to test cpu, video, and disk
- Test Hard Disk Drive 1.0 - a tool to test Hard Disk Drive
RAM (Memory) Testing Tools:
- DocMemory 3.1b - RAM Test utility
- GoldMemory 5.07 - RAM Test utility
- Memtest86+ 2.00 - PC Memory Test
Hard Disk Tools:
- Hard Disk Diagnostic Utilities
- Seagate Seatools Desktop Edition 3.02
- Western Digital Data Lifeguard Tools
- Western Digital Diagnostics (DLGDIAG) 5.04f
- Maxtor PowerMax 4.23
- Maxtor amset utility 4.0
- Maxtor(or any Hdd) Low Level Formatter 1.1
- Fujitsu HDD Diagnostic Tool 7.00
- Fujitsu IDE Low Level Format 1.0
- Samsung HDD Utility(HUTIL) 2.04
- Samsung Disk Diagnose (SHDIAG) 1.28
- IBM/Hitachi Drive Fitness Test 4.11
- IBM/Hitachi Feature Tool 2.08
- Gateway GwScan 5.12
- ExcelStor's ESTest 4.20
- MHDD 4.6
- WDClear 1.30
- Toshiba Hard Disk Diagnostic 2.00b
- SeaTools for Dos 1.09
- HDD Regenerator 1.51 - to recover a bad hard drive
- Ontrack Disk Manager 9.57 - Disk Test/Format/Maintenance tool.
- Norton Disk Doctor 2002 - a tool to repair a damaged disk, or to diagnose your hard drive.
- Norton Disk Editor 2002 - a powerful disk editing, manual data recovery tool.
- Hard Disk Sentinel 0.01 - Hard Disk health, performance and temperature monitoring tool.
- Active Kill Disk 4.1 - Securely overwrites and destroys all data on physical drive.
- HDAT2 4.6b - main function is testing and repair (regenerates) bad sectors for devices
- SmartUDM 2.00 - Hard Disk Drive S.M.A.R.T. Viewer.
- Victoria 3.33e and 3.52rus - a freeware program for low-level HDD diagnostics
- HDD Eraser 1.0 - Secure erase using a special feature built into most newer hard drives
System Information Tools:
- Aida16 2.14 - a system information tool, extracts details of all components of the PC
- PCI and AGP info Tool (1410) - The PCI System information & Exploration tool.
- System Analyser version 5.3t - View extensive information about your hardware
- Navratil Software System Information 0.59.16 - High-end professional system information tool
- Astra 5.34 - Advanced System info Tool and Reporting Assistant
- HwInfo 5.1.0 - a powerful system information utility
- PC-Config 9.33 - Complete hardware detection of your computer
- SysChk 2.46- Find out exactly what is under the hood of your PC
- CPU Identification utility v1.12 - Detailed information on CPU (CHKCPU.EXE)
- CTIA CPU Information - another CPU information tool
MBR (Master Boot Record) Tools:
- MBR Work 1.07b - a utility to perform some common and uncommon MBR functions
- MBR Tool 2.2.100 - backup, verify, restore, edit, refresh, remove, display, re-write...
- DiskMan4 - all in one tool for cmos, bios, bootrecord and more
- BootFix Utility - Run this utility if you get 'Invalid system disk'
- MBR SAVE / RESTORE 2.1 - BootSave and BootRest tools to save / restore MBR
- Boot Partition 2.60 - add Partition in the Windows NT/2000/XP Multi-boot loader
- Partition Table Doctor 3.5 - a tool to repair/modify mbr, bootsector, partition table
- Smart Boot Manager 3.7.1 - a multi boot manager
- Bootmagic 8.0 - This tool is for multi boot operating systems
- MBRWizard 2.0b - Directly update and modify the MBR (Master Boot Record)
BIOS / CMOS Tools:
- CMOS 0.93 - CMOS Save / Restore Tool
- BIOS Cracker 4.8 - BIOS password remover (cmospwd)
- BIOS Cracker 1.4 - BIOS password remover (cmospwc)
- BIOS Utility 1.35.0 - BIOS Informations, password, beep codes and more.
- !BIOS 3.20 - a powerfull utility for bios and cmos
- DISKMAN4 - a powerful all in one utility
- UniFlash 1.40 - bios flash utility
- Kill CMOS - a tiny utility to wipe cmos
- Award DMI Configuration Utility 2.43 - DMI Configuration utility for modifying/viewing the MIDF contents.
MultiMedia Tools:
- Picture Viewer 1.94 - Picture viewer for dos, supports more then 40 filetypes.
- QuickView Pro 2.58 - movie viewer for dos, supports many format including divx.
- MpxPlay 1.56 - a small Music Player for dos
Password Tools:
- Active Password Changer 3.0.420 - To Reset User Password on windows NT/2000/XP/2003 (FAT/NTFS)
- Offline NT/2K/XP Password Changer - utility to reset windows nt/2000/xp administrator/user password.
- Registry Viewer 4.2 - Registry Viewer/Editor for Win9x/Me/NT/2K/XP
- Registry Reanimator v1.02 - check and restore structure of the damaged registry files of NT/2K/XP
- NTPWD - utility to reset windows nt/2000/xp administrator/user password.
- ATAPWD 1.2 - Hard Disk Password Utility
NTFS Ext2FS, Ext3FS (FileSystems) Tools :
- NTFS Dos Pro 5.0 - To access ntfs partitions from Dos
- NTFS 4 Dos 1.9 - To access ntfs partitions from Dos
- Paragon Mount Everything 3.0 - To access NTFS, Ext2FS, Ext3FS partitions from dos
- NTFS Dos 3.02 - To access ntfs partitions from Dos
- EditBINI 1.01 - to Edit boot.ini on NTFS Partition
Dos File Managers:
- Volkov Commander 4.99 - Dos File Manager with LongFileName/ntfs support (Similar to Norton Commander)
- Dos Command Center 5.1 - Classic dos-based file manager.
- File Wizard 1.35 - a file manager - colored files, drag and drop copy, move, delete etc.
- File Maven 3.5 - an advanced Dos file manager with high speed PC-to-PC file transfers via serial or parallel cable
- FastLynx 2.0 - Dos file manager with Pc to Pc file transfer capability
- LapLink 5.0 - the smart way to transfer files and directories between PCs.
- Dos Navigator 6.4.0 - Dos File Manager, Norton Commander clone but has much more features.
- Mini Windows 98 - Can run from Ram Drive, with ntfs support, Added 7-Zip which supports .7z .zip .cab .rar .arj .gzip, .bzip2 .z .tar .cpio .rpm and .deb, Disk Defragmenter, Notepad / RichText Editor, Image Viewer, .avi .mpg .divx .xvid Movie Player, etc...
Other Tools:
- Ghost Walker 2003.793 - utility that changes the security ID (SID) for Windows NT, 2000 and XP
- DosCDroast beta 2 - Dos CD Burning Tools
- Universal TCP/IP Network 6.2 - MSDOS Network Client to connect via TCP/IP to a Microsoft based network. The network can either be a peer-to-peer or a server based network, it contains 85 different network card drivers
Dos Tools:
- USB CD-Rom Driver 1 - Standard usb_cd.sys driver for cd drive
- Universal USB Driver 2 - Panasonic v2.20 ASPI Manager for USB mass storage
- SCSI Support - SCSI Drivers for Dos
- SATA Support - SATA Driver (gcdrom.sys) and JMicron JMB361 (xcdrom.sys) for Dos
- 1394 Firewire Support - 1394 Firewire Drivers for Dos
- Interlnk support at COM1 To access another computer from COM port
- Interlnk support at LPT1 - To access another computer from LPT port
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When you're a repair tech, you won't have much time to do anything except work on computers. You'll try to keep up with the cords, but new ones get added all the time so you just give up and say "Screw it":
Is being a computer repair tech fun? Most of the time. 99% of the time you're just doing something that requires very little personal attention from you like installing windows. I wouldn't trade my life for any other. If you want to become a repair tech, talk to me. Be warned however that it's a long journey and not everyone can be a good tech.
