[SOLVED] What diagnostic programs should I use?

[KCav45]

Plan to setup a bootable USB Flash Drive that boots to a menu with hardware diagnostic programs listed on it..
What diagnostic programs would you recommend for my system?

System Summary

Operating System Win 7 Pro 64-bit SP1
CPU Intel Core i5 2520M@250 GHz Sandy Bridge 32nm Technology
RAM 8.00GB Dual Channel DDR3 @ 665MHz
Motherboard Hewlett Packard 161C (CPU 1)
Graphics Generic PnP monitor (1366 x 768@ 60Hz)
Intel HD Graphics 3000
Storage Crucial CT500BX100SSD1
Optical Drive hp DVD DS8A5LH
Audio IDT High Definition Audio CODEC

 

[ohiou_grad_2006]

One of my favorite systems like that is called parted magic. You have to pay a little for it, I think it's like 11 bucks, but it's Linux based. Has tools to test ram, hard drive, do disk partitioning, they also have a program where if you have a drive that's failing, you can use it to attempt to recover sector by sector preferably to a larger drive. I think the name of that is ddrescue, but they have a gui for it. That used to be command line based. Also has a quick tool for hard drive testing. I personally like it as a techie since if I go to a system that's not booting, I might be able to start it up with that and maybe do file recovery etc.