Laptop PC and using it for troubleshooting need some expertise

Of course Networking the the machines together would be preferable

Brian,
    Congrats on starting your own business.

2. You can use the programs that CrazyOne mentioned to transfer files. You may want to consider burning the desired programs on a CD or CDs and running them from there. That's what I do with my customers' computers, run diagnostics from the CD or DVD drive.

3. If you plan to run tests for Windows 95/98 with the programs that you mentioned, Pentimum 266 laptop will do.

Best wishes,

Not necessary to connect your laptop to a PC you can put your hands on.
Build a repair kit you can take with you.
Put software tools on CD-ROM.
Get 5 good boot diskettes.
Get a toolkit with multi-tester, long needle nose pliars, a paperclip (for removing stuff from floppy drive) a flashlight, some compressed air, cleaning disks for floppy and CD-ROM.
Get the following 'known good' parts:
ATX power supply, a floppy drive, a CD-ROM drive, RAM, a mouse, a keyboard, and some cables (including Power cord)
A legal copy of Norton's Systemworks 2002 or lower (for temporary installation, repair/defrag, then uninstall)

Suggested for the CD-ROM:

SpyBot SEarch and Destroy (not Ad-Aware, and not both)
Aida32 (freeware also)
[url=http://www.grisoft.com]AVG ANTIVIRUS (FREEWARE)[/url],

Web links to:
[url=http://www.pcpitstop.com]PCPITSTOP.COM[/url],
[url=http://www.langa.com/cleanup_bat.htm] LANGA's CLEANUP.BAT [/url],
[url=http://security.symantec.com/ssc/home.asp?j=1&langid=us&venid=sym&plfid=23&pkj=FHZBKJBTVISBYWWYPWX]Symantec's ONLINE virus scan[/url]

dammit war1, beat me by 2 SECONDS! : )

triguy, it's all that typing that takes time. :)

Yea, but I took the tape on the previous question (see your other post). HEHEH.

To be honest I know very little about networking ... (I plan on supporting home users and later with training on networks supporting small businesses....)if I network them together it would be through NIC cards correct ... and if networked does this work also in Dos ?

Some other things I am not so sure about ...

If someone has a completely corrupted system to the point a format and reinstall is needed but they lost their Windows CD.... what do you do in this situation tell them to go buy a new copy or what ?

Also I have had problems in the past with bootable diskettes not running the cd-rom drive what is the correct way to make a correct bootable diskette for Windows 9x, etc... that will run the CD-rom drive ? is this something the user would have to have prior to their problem or can I create one generically (the only reason why I ask is I used a windows startup disk before that I made from the system and it wouldn't load the cd-rom drive)


This probably sounds like questions I should know but I learn by trial and error....
        I know how to troubleshoot software conflicts and viruses and configure most perphrials worked for a major document company for 4 years till they closed the department doing desktop support. My Dos is a little lacking I know the basic commands Fdisk, format etc.. I do not know what all the switches do such as mbr /r or whatever it is... and my networking is very lacking however when it comes to windows I know it pretty good inside and out.

>>>To be honest I know very little about networking ... (I plan on supporting home users and later with training on networks supporting small businesses....)if I network them together it would be through NIC cards correct ... and if networked does this work also in Dos ?

Yeah your machine would need a NIC and so would other persons machine. And a CAT cable. Although some may have a wirless NIC in which I don't think you will be able to network unless you have a wirless NIC, I think since I don't do wireless I am not sure

Bart's Network Boot Disk
http://www.nu2.nu/bootdisk/network/

If you use this bootdisk you will have a CD Rom driver

http://utils.skull-tech.com/bootdisks/boot98.exe

>>>If someone has a completely corrupted system to the point a format and reinstall is needed but they lost their Windows CD.... what do you do in this situation tell them to go buy a new copy or what ?

Well if they lost it and you are comfortable with them telling you that they did have a legal copy then you could use your Win98 CD to install. However this could be risky and is not a substitute for them not having on. The biggest problem is MS has stopped selling Win98 although you can find it for sell on ebay and such places like that. And at the end of June MS will be phasing out support for Win98 also.

>> If someone has a completely corrupted system to the point a format and reinstall is needed but they lost their Windows CD

Many OEM systems have cab files loaded in their system. Check if the cab files are store in their Options folder. If they are you can type C:\windows\options\cabs\setup

>> Also I have had problems in the past with bootable diskettes not running the cd-rom drive what is the correct way

Get the Windows 98 OEM boot disk from www.bootdisk.com  It has CD-ROM support and works with most CD-ROMs.

You should setup a network between your laptop and your desktop computer, to get some familiarity of setting up a home network.

war1,

 If you formatted their driver wouldn't they lose the cab files ?

I guess a good example would be a friends computer that I recently worked on that was infected with the funlove.int virus spaces.1499 , weird32, funlove.4099, spybotworm.... funlove.int infected all of his files and norton couldn't repair the damage only delete the files... I had reloaded his system a week prior by running the cab oem setup... A week later he was having bad problems, on a hunch and a few newsgroups I had him run an online virus scan is crashed nortons online scanner trendmicro did work but picked up less of them it said he had only 600 files infected and 4 viruses. When I ran Norton rescue disk set every file over 2,000 were infected with 7 different viruses one of them an unknown w32 virus... in this case because of how badily his pc was infected the only option was to fdisk and format the drive. In this case he did not have his windows 98 CD. I made him a copy of mine but I would think doing this for a client could get me and them in some real trouble. What would you do in a case like that of a virus that is a PE infector (infects .exe's etc.) it would make the setup.exe infected also... especially when they do not have their CD....

lets say they even had XP or Win 2000... I don't have copies of those Operating Systems!

Yeah you are correct Brian

If a machine gets that badly infected it could infect the installation file on the disk. So removing the partition recreating it and formatting is the way to go. Even better is getting a zero fill disk and using it.

http://www.seagate.com/support/disc/drivers/discwiz.html

You do have a major problem if your client does not have the installation disk. If they have proof of purchase then in the case of XP and Win2000 MS will work with them to get a disk to them. Quite frankly you really should not take the risk of using your CD's to install with unless you have procured the neccasary OEM licenses to do so.

Also in the case of XP or Win 2000 you really need to have these CD's, this is pretty much a must. Not so much for installation purposes but for repair purposes. These OS's have something called a Recovery Console that can be handy for certain things. Plus chances are if you are dealing with a XP or Win2000 installation then you most likely will be dealing with the NTFS file system and you can't access this file system with a Win98 boot disk. You can use the following to gain access to NTFS from DOS but note that this tool is not cheap.

NTFSDOS Professional
http://www.winternals.com/products/repairandrecovery/ntfsdospro.asp

Something else to consider if you are going to work with a XP or Win2000 installation to be honest I think you need to actually have one or both of them installed on your own machine to get the experience of using them. You really cannot in many cases approach fixing and dealing with these OS's in the same manner as Win98. They are very different in this respect from the Win9x family.

Oh something I forgot to mention you can use the setup disk for XP and Win2000 to use the Recovery Console. I think with the XP disks they don't have all the command tools available as there is on the XP CD. Note if you use these disk be for-warned that it could take some time before they are fully loaded. You see when you boot to a Win98 boot disk it doesn't take long because it is only loading a few 16bit drivers and such. However the XP and Win2000 setup floppies are loading a host of 32bit drivers and what not so when you do get to the Recovery Console you are in a 32bit environment.

download and create the Win2000 setup disks
http://www.tech24.com/tools/bootdisks/win2kpro.asp

Obtaining Windows XP Setup Boot Disks
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;310994

Oh and something else I just remembered. Even if XP or Win2000 are using FAT32 do not and I repeat do not run scandisk from the Win98 boot disk on these installation. Doing this could really mess up the installation something royally. The reason being is the these OS's even using FAT32 are true full to the hilt 32bit operating systems which Win98 is not. Therefor when one runs the scandisk from the Win98 boot disk you are running a 16bit version of it and this can be disastrous on a XP or Win2000 installation using FAT32.

Hi
(if someone has already mension this, sorry because I havernt read all the post's above), i think if you put all the programes that you will be using to diagnose customers machines on to CD's (burn as many programes as you can on one CD) then all you have to do is stick the media in the customers machine and run it from there, so as far as that goes you will not need to connect to their machine (no networking).
You could also put these on floppy if no one has a Cd ROM drive for you to run the programes. But I also understand you may want to Back-up there data, Why not get a rewriter (for a desk top) and install that on customers machines, then simply use that to back up. I mean if you are confident in setting that up, I'd go for that, it's better than setting up a network, and as you say this is something you havernt done before.
as far as reinstalling the OS, if the cutomer has lost the CD, and/or the registration number (code) then yes they have to buy a new on, i dont know if you can istall an OS with different reg numbers, because if they have a reg number then you can certainly put your CD of the OS they have and just you thier number (code), (very important to keep the M$ rules, not good to break the law, M$ law any way, I mean what has M$ done to us, hmmmm) any way...
Good Luck with everything hope al goes well for you.
H

CrazyOne could I run a Triboot or Quadboot system win98, winme, win xp, win 2000 on 1 laptop and how much hard drive space would this take ? any ideas .....

Would you say most home users are 98 and ME or do you think a lot of gone to XP ?
I have seen a lot of win98 machines myself a few ME's and have yet to run into an XP system...

also you mentioned that the end of june MS is phasing out support for windows 98 when this happens does that mean all of their information on their knowledgebase for win98 will be gone ?

You do have a point about installing the above O.S. and playing with them...

Biran a Quadboot can be done. First it is best that they all have there own separate partition. But the problem here is ME and Win98 don't like to coexist so to do this with the least amount of hassle would be to use Partition Magic and the boot manager the comes with it or System commander.

XP and Win2000 can coexist along with one of the Win9x family.

Disk space just for the OS's alone would probably at the Min be 5GB's and a min of 256MB's of RAM. Although XP will chug along with 128MB's of RAM.

I would say world wide the current install base of windows would be

1. 98 by far the most used Windows OS
2. XP
3. A tie or a tossup between ME and Win2000

MS positioned Win2000 as more of a Business OS rather than a Home OS. However people finally did figure out that Win2000 was equally good as a Home OS but by that time XP was on the horizon so there probably isn't a lot of home users with Win2000 installed. A shame really because Win2000 is my main OS. I had XP installed but I prefer Win2000 because it is the most stable of all the Windows OS's and between Win2000 and XP Win2000 uses less disk space needs a little less RAM then XP.

As far as the Win98 Knowledge base is concerned it will still be there for some time to come. When MS says it is pulling the support basically means they will discontinue to supply new patches. And they will no longer try to code there other Products and Product patches like IE, Office, Money etc to be compatible with Win98. Eventually they will cutoff phone support as well.

NOW, SOMEONE EXPLAIN WHY HE WOULD NEED TO CONNECT A LAPTOP TO A CUSTOMERS COMPUTER TO DO 'ANYTHING' other than setup a LAN!

My Suggestion, study for A+ certification before starting something you know nothing about. You are putting  the cart before the horse.

I think brian is talking about doing some of this at the clients home. I don't think this is just in shop idea that he is toying with. BTW no need shout and to be insulting to others. A+ certs are nice but not neccasary.

''Triboot or Quadboot system win98, winme, win xp, win 2000 ''

win 98 minimum I''d suggest 1 gig
winme *same*
winxp 2 gigs
win 2k 1.5 gigs

total= 5.5gig

CrazyOne,

 I have considered the A+ but do not have the money right now for the exams I know where I am lacking in my skills and I will freely admit it unfortunately through the 4+ years at my previous job and my home experience I have not had much time with networks also My home system is win ME at work it was NT 4.0 and Win95/98... My experience is application troubleshooting and printer / periphrial troubleshooting... and cleaning out systems of useless leftovers from previous drivers etc... Also I do plan on doing this at CLIENTS homes I do not want them to have to come to me or to drop it off. I have two ways I go there and work on it or go there pick up at their home bring it back to my workbench fix it and bring it back to them when done.

BTW tnguy seems to have an attitude prob. he already gave me a smart remark in other posting by another user when he suggested the same exact thing I said and I had pointed out to him that it was already posted. I am not too worried about his comments see below:

tnguy,
I am not too worried about your comments afterall I do not see much expertise with only 3,050 Expert Points

here's your stats

Login Name: tnguy  
Registration Date: 12/31/2002  
Last Login Date: 05/22/2003  
Expert Points: 3050

Here's mine  

briancassin  
Registration Date: 03/24/1999  
Last Login Date: 05/19/2003  
Available Points: 2255  
Expert Points: 169526

I really don't think you have much room to talk...
.. I wouldn't have 169,526 Expert point if I did not know what I was doing and I would not be listed as one of the overall top 15 for the Printers, HP Printers, Scanners, HP Scanners

Printers Area  
Hardware
 
Top 15 Printers Experts - Overall   Overall Last Year This Year Last Month This Month Yesterday Today  
1 jrhelgeson 47910
2 briancassin 45550
3 duckers 15250
4 slink9 13275
5 Gtrist 12965
 
HP Printers Area  
Printers
 
Top 15 HP Printers Experts - Overall   Overall Last Year This Year Last Month This Month Yesterday Today  
1 briancassin 13075
2 Gtrist 9440
3 jj_mako 5475
4 zombiwulf 5010
5 bparnes 4310
 

So with that said tnguy please refrain from insulting others abilities!
 

:>)

>>>but do not have the money right now

I kind of thought that but didn't want to show you disrespect so I refrained mentioning it as a possibility. :>)

One word about being a consultant.  Make sure to get your customer to write down all the files they want you to backup BEFORE you format a drive.  Have them sign it with a disclaimer saying you are not to be held responsible for anything that was deleted that wasn't on this list.  A statement about some files might not be recoverable due to virus activity is also wise.  I've been running my own business for awhile now and let me tell you, I've heard some wild stories about why I should give them free software.  One customer actually found her 2000 CDs under the desk, without protection.  My old 60's Beatles albums had less scratches!

I never EVER load software or an OS the client doesn't own.  As a business owner, you have to make some decisions on how you want to run this business and stick to it.  Usually they can purchase a restore CD from the computer's manufacturer.  If they've lost the software - explain the costs of purchasing the software and OS versus purchasing a new PC and let them decide.  The cost of this is not your problem - it's theirs.


There are a couple of excellent books on how to be a consultant you should look up.  It would be a good idea to talk to a lawyer and find out about liability and business insurance.  More than one tech gets burned when a repair goes bad and the client sues them.

briancassin states:  >>So with that said tnguy please refrain from insulting others abilities! ".  

Where is that coming from?

No disrespect meant, "My Suggestion, study for A+ certification before starting something you know nothing about. You are putting  the cart before the horse." was obviously NOT talking about your points, but your knowledge of running a computer business, and the A+ is to sell your customers on the idea that you know what you are talking about.  So I reiterate. (This is NOT a smart remark)

briancassin also states: >>"BTW tnguy seems to have an attitude prob. he already gave me a smart remark in other posting by another user when he suggested the same exact thing I said and I had pointed out to him that it was already posted."

WTF are you talking about, ALL CAPS? What remark are you talking about, "reiterate"? Look it up in a dictionary.

and again briancassin carries on: >>"tnguy, I am not too worried about your comments afterall I do not see much expertise with only 3,050 Expert Points"

How old are you, 12?  Is this point thing a power thing for you?  Good, I'm glad you have something to keep you outa the street.  Should we all bow down and kiss your almighty ass, because of your points. Yes, I am clearly pissed that you would take a simple statement, and grow it waaaaaaay out of proportion, then start dissing someone. GROW UP.

BTW, points are great and all, but don't use them to say you are "better" or have more "ability" than those with less. Maybe others don't have as much TIME to spend on forums, as you.  I don't see Bill Gates (or 99.999% of the rest of the world) having any points, does that make you smarter than everyone?  I think not. (This IS a smart remark)

CrazyOne states: >>"I kind of thought that but didn't want to show you disrespect so I refrained mentioning it as a possibility. :>) "    

Read the story of the Emporer's New Clothes.  

 

Dissing someone ?  --- I think this would be language best used by someone young.
No I do no not want anyone to kiss my &*^ I am simply making a statement, just as you did! I made this statement just to clarify I DO know what I am talking about because apparently you found it righteously so to make comments that were less then digestible and quite contrary to my knowledge level.

 This is not a point thing to me at all, it's just that you seem all high and mighty yourself if this was the case then why only 3,050 expert points that's all I was saying, you apparently got very upset over this maybe you would have more points if you changed your tone when you write. Maybe more people would be apt to listen to your help...

For only being on here for 5 months though you show a very bad attitude problem...You make a derogatory remark towards me I give you a little jab and you go off the deep end it's nice to see how easily someone can be manipulated into making themselves into a sideshow extraordinaire. No one is high and mighty here but you apparently find yourself using whitty idiams to insult people a high and mighty cause. Now I do not feel like wasting my time any longer dealing with romper room. I posted this to ask serious questions not have someone come into it insult me and then other people in this posting.
so with that I bid you adieu!

By the way read the book : "How to win Friends and Influence People"
here's the link http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0671723650/qid=1053886131/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/002-4203356-3352832

Here's another link for Amazon.com for their Health, Mind, Body, RelationShips section where you can find lots of useful books dealing with conflict management, relationships etc...

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/4729/ref=br_bx_c_2_7/002-4203356-3352832

and here is a very useful website dealing with conflict management

http://www.work911.com/conflict/

Now see this is what EE is all about helping one another to solve problems. :)

briancassian the A+ exam wont really teach you much - but the cert will make your clients happier (you'll be a QUALIFIED tech )........dont bother paying some educational provider thousands to 'learn' the A+ stuff do it on line for free there's a HEAP of resources out there........including practice exams etc etc..........when you are pretty sure you have it sussed then go sit the exam and it wont cost you too much at all.....

check the book at the top of this page it's excellent and a good reference manual for later also.......

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/269191/ref=br_dp_bl/202-8220092-6123043


I basically do exactly what you are suggesting you will be going to do........I visit clients and fix the puters in their homes tho occasionally i need to take one away to fix........they are usually very pleased at the service as it dont involve them having to unplug the beast and take it to some shop where they may not see it again for three weeks

Sorry if I bruised your ego.

I sure hope I still get those points.   : )

TNYGUY - let me "reiteratre" "How to win Friends and Influence People"
here's the link http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0671723650/qid=1053886131/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/002-4203356-3352832

If I had an ego I wouldn't be posting questions up here now would I ???? Having an ego means you can't admit when you lack something or need help.  Try thinking outside "your" box next time.


DRCSPY,

I have the 2001 version of that same book I don't know if it would still apply to the exams now though I doubt it. I got stuck in the book on the binary code... they kind of explained it halfway... Also that same section was over 60 Pages long a lot of information to take in on Processors and how the registers etc... work.  

Do you find a lot of clients who do not have their system CD's ? if so what do you do in that case I have gotten input from others just wondering what your take is on it.

ah well I have the 2001 version too.........ummmm......as for applying to the current exams I'm not too sure but I'd suggest that a lot of it would still be relevant of course.....and you cna find practise exams and LOTS of info online.........Practically speaking I found that a lot of the info they give you is quite irrelevant as far as being a tech goes.......

clients without cds........well many clients simply dont realise that the system they are using is a 'liscensed' system and this is pretty common.  Folks also often have either lost their cds or simply purchased second hand puters with no accompanying cd's (not sure about the law where you are but it's very common here).  In the second case I tell em that they'll need to purchase a 'liscensed' OS............in the first case if it is obvious that they've purchased a system in good faith from a shop or wherever and it has a liscense key on it somewhere..... (usually a sticker on the case) then I'm happy to use 'my' copy of the OS to sort em out.......I kinda see it as a tool.........

So you can use their CD key for your copy of windows ?

heres another question ............if a client buys a system.......and gets the cdrom with it.....and with their new cdwriter makes a copy of the cdrom for backup purposes, are they legally allowed to do this ?

......then  if they lose the original ..........are they allowed legally to re load the system from their backup copy ?........

and if not why not ?.........

and..........if I reload their legal  system with my copy then what is the difference to them loading the system with their own backup copy ?

Making archival copies is "expressly permitted".

http://www.lgu.com/publications/softcopy/8.shtml

http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/resources/overview.asp

AH...........

EEcomputings

I would like to split the points between CrazyOne, War1, drcspy.

Awwww, none for me??? Bad sportsmanship!

; ) jk