2.2 Tools

It's worthwhile to assemble a toolkit that contains the hand tools and software utilities that you need to work on PCs. If you work on PCs only occasionally, you can get by with a fairly Spartan set of tools. If you work on PCs frequently, devote some time, effort, and money to assembling a reasonably complete set of hand tools and utilities. The following sections detail the components that we've found worth carrying in our toolkits.

2.2.1 Hand Tools

You don't need many tools for routine PC upgrades and repairs. We've successfully repaired PCs using only a Swiss army knife, but a more complete set of tools makes jobs easier. Putting together a dedicated PC toolkit and keeping it in a fixed location avoids the hassle of looking for a tool when what you really want to do is work on your PC.

Your first thought may be to buy one of those PC toolkits available from various sources, but we suggest you avoid them. Inexpensive kits available from most mail-order vendors contain shoddy tools and are not worth even their low price. Kits available from specialty catalogs like Specialized Products (http://www.specializedproducts.com) and Jensen (http://www.jensentools.com) are fine if you fix PCs for a living (and if your company buys the kit). Otherwise they're overkill and much too expensive.

Instead of buying any of the prepackaged kits, head for Sears and assemble your own PC toolkit. The basic tools you need for routine PC work cost under $50. Store these tools together, using a tool wrapper (available from auto parts stores) or a zipper case (available from specialty tool vendors or a home improvement warehouse). You can often buy sets of pliers, screwdrivers, and so forth for less than buying them each individually. We carry only the tools we need, so we usually buy the set, remove the ones we really wanted for our toolkit, and contribute the remainder to the general stock of tools around the house. Table 2-1 lists what we carry and recommend as a basic kit, with Sears part numbers in parentheses.

Table 2-1. A basic PC toolkit

Description		Description
Slotted screwdriver, 3/16" X 4" (41581)		Nutdriver, 1/4" (41971)
Slotted screwdriver, 1/4" X 4" (41583)		Nutdriver, 3/16" (41977)
Phillips screwdriver, #0 X 2 1/2" (41293)		Flashlight (twist switch)
Phillips screwdriver, #1 X 3" (41294)		Spare parts tube/organizer
Phillips screwdriver, #2 X 4" (41295)		Small brushes
Long-nose mini-pliers, 4 1/2" (45173)		Band-Aids®

Even when we're not working on PCs, we always carry a Swiss army knife (we like the Victorinox CyberTool). If you don't routinely carry a knife, add a disposable snap-off razor blade, which is useful for opening blister-wrap packages, cutting cable ties, and so on. Also, although we prefer drivers with individual handles, you may prefer a handle with interchangeable bits. If so, get the Sears Craftsman 11-in-1 Screwdriver (41478), which includes five double-end bits and also serves as a 1/4" nutdriver.

If you work on PCs frequently or have special requirements, you may find useful the additions to the basic kit listed in Table 2-2. Depending on the types of PCs you work on, some of these tools may also be needed in the basic kit. For example, Compaq PCs use a lot of Torx fasteners.

Table 2-2. Supplemental tools for the basic PC toolkit

Description (Source)		Description (Source)
Pliers, 4" diagonal mini-pliers (Sears #45178)		Dental mirror (drugstore)
Torx driver, T10 (Sears #41473)		Hemostat (drugstore)
Torx driver, T15 (Sears #41474)		Spring-hook tool / parts retriever (auto parts store)
Screw starters (Phillips and slotted, twist-lock) (Sears)		Digital voltmeter (Radio Shack, specialty vendors)
Wire stripper/crimper (Sears #82563)

If you work on a PC in place—under a desk or wherever—you often need a third hand to hold the flashlight. For twenty years, Robert had been using the straightforward male method, holding the flashlight in his mouth and using his tongue to aim it. That works, but flashlights often taste disgusting. Barbara, being a smart woman, bought a headband-mounted flashlight, shown in Figure 2-1. That works even better, and Robert has now sworn off chewing on flashlights.

Figure 2-1. Barbara uses a head-mounted flashlight while replacing the cover on her all-SCSI main system

In addition to the tools themselves, a good toolkit contains several consumable items, including:

Alcohol

PC components accumulate greasy brown residue, particularly if you smoke or if you heat with gas or oil. This residue attracts and holds dust, but can be removed with rubbing alcohol. Buy isopropanol (isopropyl alcohol), which removes grease better than ethanol (ethyl alcohol), and carry a small screw-top bottle of it in your kit.

Swabs

Keep half a dozen Q-Tips® or foam swabs for cleaning mouse rollers, tape drive heads, and similar difficult-to-reach places. We prefer the foam swabs, which do not deposit stray bits of cotton.

Cotton balls

Carry a few of these as disposable cleaning aids. Moisten one with rubbing alcohol so that it is wet, but not dripping, and use it to clean larger components like disk drives. These things come in at least two sorts. In our experience, the ones intended for medical use (which are really cotton) leave fibers all over the place. The ones Barbara uses with her nail polish remover (which appear to be a man-made fiber) don't shed nearly as much.

Freon®

You can't get real Freon now because of the damage it supposedly does to the ozone layer, but everyone still calls the stuff you can buy Freon. We use Zero Residue Cleaner from Radio Shack. It comes in a pressurized spray can with a small tube that attaches to the nozzle and allows you to direct the spray. The stuff evaporates almost instantly, and does a good job of cleaning really dirty components. It's particularly useful for cleaning inaccessible things like the fan blades inside the power supply enclosure, which tend to get really filthy and are almost impossible to clean otherwise. It's also useful for cleaning the heads on floppy and tape drives. Just stick in the tube and give them a good squirt.

Canned air

Many technicians carry a can of compressed clean, dry air to blow out dust bunnies, to evaporate cleaner residue quickly, and so on. We've never felt that air was worth paying for, so we simply blow gently to accomplish the same thing. You can use an ordinary drinking straw to direct and strengthen the airflow. Try not to spray saliva on the components.

Two tools found in nearly every packaged PC toolkit should never be used:

DIP chip puller

A DIP chip is an individual rectangular package with rows of pins perpendicular to the chip body running down each long side. In theory, you use these tools, which resemble ice tongs, by fitting the tabs at the end of each arm under the DIP chip and pulling up gently to remove the chip without bending the pins. In practice, you're almost certain to bend the pins when using one of these things, and you're as likely to pull the entire socket as just the chip. To remove a DIP chip, slide a small flat-blade screwdriver under one end and lever up slightly. Do the same on the other end of the chip and alternate ends until it pops free.

DIP chip inserter

By design, the pins on DIP chips never quite align with those in the socket—the opposing rows of pins are a bit further apart on the chip than on the socket so that the "spring" in the pins will ensure firm contact with the socket. These devices are intended to help you insert a DIP chip into a matching socket. In theory, a chip inserter gently squeezes those pins together so that they are aligned properly for insertion. In practice, it seldom works that way, and you end up squashing the pins flat and ruining the chip.

To insert a DIP chip into a socket, use one of the following methods, both of which work for us:

• Place the DIP chip flat on a table or other hard surface so that one row of pins is flush against the table top, and then gently press downward to bend all of the pins slightly inward toward the center of the chip. Repeat this process for the other side of the chip, alternating between sides to bend the two rows of pins gradually inward toward each other. Check frequently by putting the pins against the socket to determine when you have bent them inward enough to align directly with the socket. In theory, using this method eliminates the "spring action" built into the chip and should result in unreliable connections. In practice, chips we inserted this way have worked for years without problems.

• Without pre-bending the pins, and with the body of the chip at a slight angle, seat one row of pins partially into the socket. Then, using a pencil (or your finger) press gently on the other row of pins until they align with the socket and press down gently.

Be sure to orient DIP chips properly when inserting them. A DIP socket has a semicircular notch centered on one end. The DIP chip has a small printed or engraved circle on one end. To align the chip properly, seat the circle end of the chip in the notched end of the socket.

The ubiquity of SIMM and DIMM memory modules nowadays means there aren't many socketed DIP chips in PCs. Your system may still have a few, however, and it's a good idea to reseat them every time you pop the cover. Do a quick scan of the motherboard and expansion cards, and just press down firmly with your thumb on each socketed chip you see. If the chip has begun to walk out of its socket, you'll feel it snap back into position as you press.

2.2.2 Software Tools

In addition to hand tools, your toolkit should have an assortment of floppy diskettes and CDs that contain reporting and diagnostic utilities and essential applications. The location of the kit can vary according to your own needs. If you have only one PC, keep all this stuff near it. If you work on many PCs, carry these items with you.

2.2.2.1 Essential Utilities

The contents of your software toolkit depend greatly on how many PCs you maintain, which operating systems they run, and similar factors, but a good basic assortment includes the following essential utilities:

DOS boot diskette

Even if all your computers run Windows 95/98/Me or NT/2000/XP, the most important item in your software toolkit is a DOS boot disk with drivers for the CD-ROM drive. When the PC won't boot, this disk allows you to install or run diagnostic and repair utilities from a CD. Without it, you may be stymied because you can't access the CD-ROM drive, even to do something as basic as reinstalling the operating system. The Windows 9X startup disk described below fulfills this purpose. If you run only Windows NT/2000/XP, borrow someone's Windows 9X computer long enough to make a startup disk.

To create the Windows 95/98/Me startup diskette, open Control Panel and double-click Add/Remove Programs. Display the Startup Disk page and click the Create Disk icon to create a Startup Disk. This disk is bootable and contains the drivers needed to access most IDE CD-ROM drives. You can use a Startup Disk created on any computer to start any other computer. Floppy disks have a way of getting lost or damaged, and you can't get far if you can't boot a problem PC, so we generally keep several copies of the Windows 98 SE Startup Disk distributed around our work areas, in our toolkits, and so on.

On this or another diskette, depending on free space, you'll want copies of essential utilities. At minimum, add the following files to those present on the Windows 9X startup floppy:

FORMAT.COM

Necessary to reformat the hard disk, if that becomes unavoidable.

EDIT.COM and EDIT.HLP

A standard ASCII editor that is bundled with Windows 9X and Windows 2000. Note that this is a standalone program, unlike earlier versions that required BASIC. If disk space is tight, as it may be if you need to add special drivers to the boot floppy, you can dispense with the help file. This editor uses Alt-letter commands, e.g., Alt-F, to open the file menu.

All three of these "extra" files fit on a standard Windows 98 startup floppy.

The Win 9X startup floppy contains drivers that work with nearly any IDE/ATAPI CD-ROM drive or DVD-ROM drive, and may work with a SCSI CD/DVD-ROM drive, depending on the type of host adapter it's connected to. If your system has a SCSI CD/DVD-ROM drive, verify that booting with the standard startup floppy allows you to access that drive. If not, download the DOS SCSI drivers from the web site of the manufacturer of your SCSI host adapter, copy them manually to the startup floppy, and make any necessary additions or changes to autoexec.bat and config.sys. Verify that the modified startup floppy will allow you to access your SCSI CD/DVD-ROM drive before you have a problem.

DOS diagnostics

Years ago, PCs often came with CheckIt, QAPlus, AMIDiag, or a similar diagnostic utility. Now system vendors expect people to use the bundled Windows utilities. These are fine, as far as they go, but they don't go very far. Windows (particularly NT) isolates users and programs from the hardware, which makes it hard for a diagnostic utility to do its job. Also, Windows-based utilities are usable only if the computer boots. You can use these bundled utilities to do things like detecting a misconfigured component or an IRQ conflict on a bootable system, but that's not enough when you need detailed information or when the PC won't boot. For that, you need a DOS-based utility that provides comprehensive testing and reporting. Any of the following products will do the job. We use them all, but if you get only one, make it SmithMicro Software CheckIt.

SiSoft Sandra

SiSoft Sandra is our favorite Windows-based diagnostic utility and probably the most-used diagnostic program, not least because a free version can be downloaded from SiSoft. Although the free version is sufficient for most people's needs, SiSoft also sells the $29 Sandra Professional, which includes additional functionality and technical support. (http://www.sisoftware.demon.co.uk/sandra/)

Symantec Norton Utilities (NU)

Almost since the first PCs shipped, most technicians have carried a copy of NU. Unfortunately, Norton discontinued the DOS version some time ago. The current Windows versions are nice desktop extenders, but provide limited hardware diagnostics. Grab a copy of a late DOS version if you can find one. (http://www.norton.com/nu)

SmithMicro Software CheckIt

The best dedicated hardware diagnostic program is CheckIt, available in several versions. For most users, the $40 Portable Edition suffices. If you repair PCs for a living, the $296 Professional Edition provides additional tools and utilities that are worth having. Either edition can boot independent of the installed OS, and so can be used to diagnose hardware problems on a system that won't boot to Windows. The various CheckIt products are hard to find at retail, but can be ordered directly from the web site. (http://www.checkit.com)

DOS diagnostics remain a popular shareware and public-domain software category, although most are single-purpose products (e.g., a serial port tester) rather than general-purpose diagnostics. If that's all you need, though, searching a shareware library like http://www.shareware.com using the string "diagnostic" may turn up a program that does the job for free.

Emergency repair diskette

Recent versions of Windows allow you to create an emergency disk that contains critical system configuration data, part or all of the registry, etc. Create or update this disk for a computer any time you make a significant change to it. Label and date the disk and store it near the computer or keep it with your toolkit. If you don't have a recent copy, do yourself a favor and make one right now. Use the following procedures to create an emergency disk:

Windows 95/98/Me

For Windows 9X, we recommend backing up the entire registry, which you can do simply by copying the registry files to another location. The registry comprises two files, SYSTEM.DAT and USER.DAT, which are located in the \WINDOWS folder. These files are assigned the Hidden and Read-Only attributes, so you'll need to change the default settings of Windows Explorer before you can view or copy them. To do so, from Explorer, choose View Folder Options and then click the View tab. Under Files and Folders, locate the Hidden Files item and mark the Show all files radio button. Once you have rendered the registry files visible, you can use Copy Paste to copy them to a different location. USER.DAT is usually only a few hundred KB, and will therefore easily fit on a floppy. SYSTEM.DAT may be quite large. On our test-bed system, for example, it is more than 3 MB. Fortunately, registry files are easily compressible. Using a utility like WinZip or PKZip yields 4:1 or 5:1 compression, which allows the compressed SYSTEM.DAT to fit on a floppy unless the original file is huge.

Note that the Windows 9X Startup Disk is not an emergency repair disk. It is a simple boot disk that does not contain registry files or other configuration data.

Windows NT 4.0 Emergency Repair Disk (ERD)

Run \winnt\system32\rdisk.exe, choose Create Repair Disk, and follow the prompts. To update an existing disk, insert that disk and choose Update Repair Info. Note that the Emergency Repair Disk is not bootable. Repairing an NT installation requires a set of Windows NT boot floppies. If you have lost the set that came with Windows NT, you can recreate them by running winnt32\ox from the distribution CD.

The Windows NT 4 Emergency Repair Disk contains only a subset of the registry. To create a standalone full registry backup—as opposed to backing up the registry to tape during routine backups—use the REGBACK.EXE utility supplied with the Windows NT 4 Resource Kit. That kit also includes the REGREST.EXE utility, which restores backups created with REGBACK.EXE.

Windows 2000/XP Emergency Repair Disk (ERD)

Run Start Programs Accessories System Tools Backup. With Backup running, click the Emergency Repair Disk icon to create the disk. In the resulting dialog, mark the Also backup the registry... checkbox to copy key system files to the repair directory on the hard disk. Like the NT ERD, the Windows 2000/XP ERD is not bootable. To repair Windows 2000/XP, you must boot either from the distribution CD or the boot floppies.

The Windows 2000/XP ERD does not contain any registry files. Creating the ERD copies the registry files to the %SystemRoot%\Repair folder, where they may be lost if the hard disk crashes. To be safe, each time you create or update the ERD, copy the entire contents of that folder to another hard disk or network volume.

Operating system distribution disks

You need the OS distribution disks to upgrade or replace the system hard disk. But you'll also need them frequently during routine upgrades because Windows often prompts for them to load drivers for a new device. If you've updated the operating system from the initial distribution version (e.g., by applying a Windows NT/2000/XP Service Pack), also keep the Service Pack or update CD handy.

With huge hard disks costing so little, we create a separate "distribution partition" on the hard disk for most systems we build. We copy the Windows distribution CD to this partition, along with service packs, the Office CD (and any other programs the system uses), the driver CDs for installed hardware, and so on. This has several benefits, including faster installation, the fact that you don't have to locate the CD when you change options or want to install additional modules, and the fact that you can if necessary completely rebuild the system using only a boot floppy to get started.

Backup utility

If you use a third-party backup utility, keep a copy of the distribution disk in your kit to make sure that you can restore backup tapes after reinstalling the operating system. Few things are more frustrating than getting a failed computer up again, having a good backup tape, but not having the software at hand that you need to restore it.

Anti-virus utility

If your system becomes infected by a virus, you need to have a DOS-bootable, write-protected floppy disk and a recent version of an anti-virus utility. In fact, any time a system behaves strangely, a good first step is to run a quick virus scan. The DOS-bootable floppy allows you to boot cleanly and detect and remove a virus on a DOS or Windows 9x disk, or on a Windows NT disk that is formatted as FAT. Because you cannot access an NTFS volume after booting from a boot floppy, the only way to remove a virus from these volumes is to boot the system from the hard disk and run an anti-virus utility from a local hard disk or network drive. The big names in anti-virus utilities are McAfee VirusScan from Network Associates (http://www.nai.com), and Norton AntiVirus from Symantec (http://www.symantec.com). We've used both, and either is sufficient for the task, but by preference we use Norton AntiVirus.

CMOS save/restore utility

CMOS settings store the current configuration of a PC. These settings range from easily understood ones—current date/time, boot options, hard disk configuration, and so on—to ones like advanced chipset configuration that only system designers fully understand. Although you can manually record all of the settings on paper, there's a better way—a CMOS save/restore utility. These utilities save CMOS settings to a disk file, which you can later restore to recreate the settings in one step. CheckIt Diagnostics Suite includes such a utility. If you don't have CheckIt, download a dedicated CMOS save/restore utility. There are many free and shareware alternatives available. One that we've used is Benjamin Johnston's free CMOSViewer, which runs under Windows 9X and is available at http://student.uq.edu.aul~s355171/cmos.zip. Numerous DOS products are available from shareware archives like http://www.shareware.com. Search for CMOS.

Most expansion cards, modems, and disk drives come with a driver CD. Just keeping them all straight is hard enough, let alone making sure that you have the correct and most recent driver for a particular component. When we buy or build a computer, we create a folder for it on a network drive. When we buy a component that comes with a floppy diskette or CD with drivers, we copy the contents of that disk to a subfolder of that folder. If you have a CD-R drive, use it to make a customized CD for each computer. Collect all the drivers and other miscellany in a folder and copy them to a CD for that system. Include a change log in the root directory. When you replace a component, note that in the change log and burn a new CD with the updated and new drivers. If there's room on the CD, also include the operating system, diagnostic tools, and so forth.

2.2.2.2 Supplemental Utilities

Beyond essential utilities, we carry several supplemental utilities. These tools are nice to have, but not absolutely required. Rather than doing things you can't do without them, they save you time—sometimes a lot of time. If you work on PCs frequently, every one of these commercial utilities belongs in your bag. Each of them costs money, but unless your time is worth nothing, these utilities pay for themselves quickly—usually the first time you use them.

If you seldom work on PCs, these utilities probably aren't worth buying ahead of time. Instead, try to schedule your upgrades, and buy these as you need them. Note that most of these utilities are available in both inexpensive single-user/single-PC standard versions and much more expensive versions that are licensed to be used by a single technician on multiple PCs. The prices given are typical street prices for the standard versions.

Partition Magic

This $50 PowerQuest (http://www.powerquest.com) utility has saved us countless hours of extra work over the years. Before Partition Magic, the only way to change disk partitioning was to backup, delete the old partitions, create and format new partitions, and restore. In addition to taking hours, this process is perilous. More than once, we've been unable to restore a backup tape we made immediately before starting to repartition, even though that tape had passed a verify flawlessly. Partition Magic lets you repartition on the fly. It takes less time and is probably safer than the old backup-and-restore method. In fact, although PowerQuest recommends backing up before repartitioning, we confess that we seldom bother to backup our own systems before repartitioning. We've never lost any data doing it that way, but if you repartition without backing up and lose data, please don't send us any nasty messages. You have been warned.

DriveCopy

This $20 PowerQuest utility is the cheapest, easiest, and most reliable way we know to copy the contents of one hard disk to another, for example when you're replacing a hard disk. Using DriveCopy allows you to avoid the time-consuming process of backing up the old drive, installing the operating system on the new drive, and then doing a restore. Instead, you simply connect the new drive with the old drive still installed and use DriveCopy to replicate the entire contents of the old drive to the new. When you remove the old drive, the system boots from the new drive without further ado.

DriveImage

This PowerQuest utility is available in a $50 DriveImage version and a DriveImage Pro version that is priced by user. DriveImage Pro is primarily a disk cloning product. It allows you to create an image of a master disk and then replicate that image to multiple hard disks—just the thing when you need to set up 100 identical workstations. It even has a SID editor, which allows you to get around the problem of Windows NT's unique SIDs. As a personal utility, DriveImage is useful for migrating programs and data between partitions and for disaster recovery. Unlike DriveCopy, DriveImage can copy individual partitions, can change the partition size after copying to the destination, and can automatically resize partitions to fit within a smaller drive. As useful as all this is, the really important thing about DriveImage is that it can create a compressed image of a partition. The image file typically occupies about a quarter of the space used on the source partition, and can be stored on another partition or on removable media. If disaster strikes, you can recover the image file automatically using the bootable recovery floppies that DriveImage creates for you. Any time we're about to do a significant software upgrade to a system, we run DriveImage first to create an image backup. That way, if the upgrade ends up causing a problem, we can immediately roll back the system to its original state.

DisplayMate

This $50 tool from Sonera Technologies (http://www.displaymate.com) does just one thing, but does it supremely well. It helps you optimize your video card and monitor. More than any other PC component, monitors can vary significantly between individual examples of the same model. We don't buy an expensive monitor without using DisplayMate to test it first, and neither should you. DisplayMate is also useful on an ongoing basis. Monitors change as they age. Using DisplayMate to tune them periodically results in the best possible picture. You can download a demo from the web site, which is sufficient for casual testing.

The best way we've found to organize and protect CDs is to lose the jewel cases and store the CDs in one of those zippered vinyl audio CD wallets you can buy for a few dollars at Wal-Mart or Best Buy. They use plastic or Tyvek sleeves to protect the CDs, hold from a half dozen to two dozen CDs, and make it easy to find the one you want. If the CD has a serial number or init key on the original jewel case, make sure to record it on the CD, using a soft permanent marker on the label side. We stock one of these wallets with essential CDs—Windows 95/98/NT/2000 distribution CDs, Office, various diagnostics, and so on—and always carry it with us. We also buy a CD wallet for each PC we buy or build. New PCs usually arrive with several CDs, and even video, sound, or modem cards are likely to come with their own CDs. Storing these CDs in one place, organized by the system they belong to, makes it much easier to locate the one you need.