Good Sytem Info utility for PC without OS (DOS) ???

[mips]

Anyone know of a good system information utility that is free and can be used on a PC without an OS installed ??? It must fit on a 1.44MB stiffy disk.

Need the following info:
CPU type & speed.
Memory size
HD size
Video chipset
MB chipset
Any other info besides the above would be usefull.

Must be able to collect the above info and safe it back to the stiffy so he can email me the info as a text file.

A friend living in the middle of nowhere just brought a secondhand PC without any OS on it. I need to know the system specs so I can recommend an OS to install on it.

[slimdog360]

I havent checked this sort of thing in a while but shouldnt that sort of thing be in the bios? I know the amount of ram comes up at the start up.

[mips]

I havent checked this sort of thing in a while but shouldnt that sort of thing be in the bios? I know the amount of ram comes up at the start up.

He is not computer literate at all so this is not an option. I would prefer to tell him how to format a bootable stiffy in windows, copy the program over, run it and send me a text file.

[matthew]

My first thought was FreeDOS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedos), but I think it has to be installed...hmm...

EDIT: one of these (http://www.tinyapps.org/system.html) might work

[saracen]

does he have a CD-ROM? If so send him a Linux Live CD and have him get the specs for you. You could use Ubuntu Dapper's LiveCD, but I heard that requires at least 192MB RAM to load and since you don't know how old the PC is, it may not have enough memory. There are some other distros with Live CD's that are a lot lighter.

[Dr. Falken]

what about HWInfo (http://www.hwinfo.com/)??? Yes, it's shareware (14 day trial), but maybe is enough time to make those diagnostics... Or, you can use AIDA16 or NSSI (http://www.navsoft.cz/indexen.htm)from the Ultimate BootCD (http://ubcd.sourceforge.net/)


El doc

[mips]

Anything CD based is NOT an option, it has to be a STIFFY.

[mips]

Thanks, NSSI & HiNFO looks like it can do the job.

AIDA16 is no longer available, looks like they were bought out.

Any other recommendations would be appreciated and looked into.

[saracen]

how does he plan to install the OS with no CD-ROM?

[Sam]

Here (http://www.linuxlinks.com/Distributions/Floppy/) are distro that runs on floppy. Some of them have some system info utilities.

[prizrak]

Ultimate boot CD

[enopepsoo]

STIFFY

Please stop saying that.

[mips]

Thanks people. I will go with the recommendations.