Question PC/Linux Troubleshooting USB kit

[MarcB IT]

Howdy,

I'd like to know what would be the best programs to install on a USB thumb drive to troubleshoot operating systems, memory and hard drives. Is the below a good start?

Thanks, MB IT

Tool	Purpose	Download Link
Hiren’s BootCD PE	Windows-based troubleshooting & recovery	Download
MemTest86	RAM diagnostics & testing	Download
Ubuntu Live	Linux recovery, partition repair, data recovery	Download
Windows 11 ISO	Windows repair, installation, system restore	Download
Clonezilla	Disk imaging & cloning	Download
GParted Live	Partition management & repair	Download

 

[MarcB IT]

I've been trying to download these .iso files via Ventoy because it allows for saving multiple .iso files on a bootable USB drive but the uploads to Ventoy fail because Windows Disk Management reports that the USB drive space is un-allocated even though I used the New Simple Volume wizard.

 

[sheri parise]

A reliable PC/Linux Troubleshooting USB kit can help diagnose and fix common system issues quickly. Integrating rslhelper into your toolkit ensures faster analysis and streamlined solutions, making the process more efficient for both beginners and advanced users.

 

[Aeacus]

to install on a USB thumb drive to troubleshoot operating systems, memory and hard drives.

For troubleshooting OS'es, there are plethora of programs to find the needle(s) in a haystack. It would be far easier and faster to do clean OS install.
So,
* one USB thumb drive that has Win installation on it, created by the Windows Media Creation tool.
* 2nd USB thumb drive that has GNU/Linux distro installation on it.

Memory you have already covered - memtest86.

For HDDs - CrystalDiskMark (for benchmarking), CrystalDiskInfo (for seeing info/data about the drive), MyDefrag (to defragment HDDs).

I too have recovery USB thumb drive, where i have bootable GNU/Linux distro (currently Linux Mint), that i created by using Universal USB Installer.
The beauty of it is, that with this, i can either outright install GNU/Linux distro onto storage drive, OR boot to GNU/Linux distro. For the latter - OS is loaded into PC's RAM and then booted off from RAM, without installing anything on storage drives. This is great for data recovery.
Sure, it takes quite a while once distro loads into RAM and then boots from RAM to OS, but then, i can access the whole system just like GNU/Linux distro was installed to PC. Heck, i can even use this method to operate a PC that doesn't have any storage drives.

Oh, i also have WinDirStat on my USB drive. A handy tool, especially for data recovery, to locate all files on a drive.

Other great programs to use for Windows, are:
* Autoruns
* Process Explorer
* Ccleaner
* LockHunter

First three are essentially power user programs. Whereby you need to read a guide to understand on how to use them. (I have all of them installed on my PCs to keep PCs working smoothly.)

Note: Ccleaner is iffy. Latest version installer may come with bloatware. I'm running much older version myself, v6.08. Also, it can brick the OS if you don't know what you're doing, since it can edit registry. (I use it to clean registry of dud/missing items.)

LockHunter is great to get rid of malware (or when you want to delete a file and OS won't let it). It shows what is locking the file from deletion and you can unlock the file, so you can delete it.