Minimal install on USB stick - what now?

[longtom]

Hi,

I did a minimal install on a 8 GB USB stick (flash drive), added a xfce desktop environment, gparted, text editor and a device manager.

I am amazed how little space everything takes - but that's for the testimonial forum.

I would like to use this stick as an emergency tool (as an alternative to a cd).

I'd like to tap your brain and ask you, what you reckon would be essential on such an emergency device in order to access and analyse corrupt PCs (and maybe even fix them if possible) or just to use on somebody else's PC to get some basic work done.

Any suggestions welcome.

[dandnsmith]

Have a look at things like hirens boot disk, UBCD ...
That should give an idea of tools.
Also look at testdisk.

Finally, are you convinced this is the way to go?
More PCs will boot straight from CD than will boot from a USB stick - I keep finding ones which won't. The big exception are netbooks, which don't often have a CD device, but will boot from USB devices.

[longtom]

Have a look at things like hirens boot disk, UBCD ...
That should give an idea of tools.
Also look at testdisk.


Thank you. Haven't thought of testdisk.


Finally, are you convinced this is the way to go?
More PCs will boot straight from CD than will boot from a USB stick - I keep finding ones which won't. The big exception are netbooks, which don't often have a CD device, but will boot from USB devices.

Yeah - I reckon its the way to go for me. Covering as many bases as possible. You don't want to be in a tight spot because a CD drive decides to play up or you UBCD just has one scratch to many. It is also faster. Otherwise I do agree with your opinion.

I also wanted to see if it works. Well - it does, so I can make it into something useful.

[longtom]

bump...