Linux OS for Diagnositc Purposes instead of Windows

crystal-whatever you are using is actually a graphics wrapper for linux smartctl (from smartmontools package)
How do you mount image if your disk is partitioned? something does not stick together...

gheist, Not sure what you're asking.  Right now I only use Windows for the diagnostic procedures so the drive is mounted as the system boots.

gheist, I backup the entire drive before any diagnostics begin.  I do this to maintain the files on the disk for a period of time and so that I may replace this image back to another HD.  I need to mount the images so that I may access them sometimes in case there are files that get lost.

Thomas, I need this system to be static.  I don't want to have to utilize different means of booting unless one in the static system fails.

I need to attach a drive to the system and perform all the aforementioned functions on this system without having to switch OS's and/or different boot methods.

As for imaging, it appears that the Linux imaging tools will create an image that's the entire size of the drive vice just the used space.  That true?  Also, if I were to reapply the image to another drive and the size of the destination drive was less that that of the original captured drive but there is still plenty of free space, Linux tools will not allow for this, correct?

I don't know what you mean by "static" in this context. If a system has a virus, the best way to repair is to boot from another device such as a CD, DVD, or USB drive. That way the virus is not resident in memory, and the virus cannot stop itself from being removed. It is also much more convenient to plug in a USB key and reboot than it is to disconnect a hard drive, and then connect it to another system.

Yes, the Linux imaging options copy the entire drive or partition. Because of that, I create a smaller Windows boot partition, and move the Desktop and My Documents to another partition. That way I can backup the OS partition with the Linux dd command, and backup the data partition using a tool like SyncToy that syncs individual files.

By static I mean all the tools I want on one OS loaded on its primary hard drive that I can boot to.  I'm not interested in cleaning the viruses just scans that I can create a report with.

I guess I don't really need the entire drive imaged but its nice to have especially if the image ever needs to be reapplied to another drive to be booted in the system.  Acronis normally images an entire drive 100gb in under 30 minutes.

You need to read SMART status. If drive is had bad sectors you will not be able to image it.
You are lucky so far you did not encounter bad drive

To add to CD/USB way - you can boot it over network... Then image-backup to ftp server then run SMART tests while FTP server runs viruses filesystems behind the scenes...

For Linux it is a single system to boot, not that CD or USB or SD card boot is any different from local drive... the functionality is same, no matter how you booted.

No kidding about booting from camera cards- high-end servers have SD card slots, and high-end SD cards are cheaper and faster and more compact than full-fledged SSD storage...

I'd suggest you start with LUbuntu LTS LiveCD (you miay like graphics, LXDE is minimalistic, but still has some window management...

Try - maybe you manage to follow 3 steps you wanted...

OK - install it on HDD
Once you ar fine with that you may move on to PXE and release most of your test bench computers...

>As for imaging, it appears that the Linux imaging tools will create an image that's the entire size of the drive vice just the used space.  That true?

No that's not true, CloneZilla can compress the imagefile similar to Ghost or Acronis.

>Also, if I were to reapply the image to another drive and the size of the destination drive was less that that of the original captured drive but there is still plenty of free space, Linux tools will not allow for this, correct?

CloneZilla can restore an image to a larger disk than the original disk, but NOT to a smaller disk. A workaround is to first use GParted to shrink the partition on the original disk and then back it up with CloneZilla to be able to restore it to a smaller disk, but this requires a lot of extra work.

Regards, Tobias

As for imaging, it appears that the Linux imaging tools will create an image that's the entire size of the drive vice just the used space.  That true?
Sure thing, what do you want - image is 1:1 copy. It can be compressed. If you make fle backup then it does not include copy of free space...

Would this work for what I'm looking for?  http://www.caine-live.net/

Downloaded and tried it via USB but could never get it to load.  Stuck on the raster screen with the loading bar full.

Well, it's an impressive amount of tools inluded in the dist, but didn't you require an antivirus app and an imaging tool for saving an entire harddrive using compressed files? I don't see those apps included in the dist.

Regards, Tobias

I got to far ahead of myself.  You are correct in it lacking tools needed.  Thanks to all for your suggestions.

Any UNIX has disk imaging tool called dd (very simple and ages old), or DUMP atchival tool that saves files with permissions (but since Linux does not use Windows permissions they will be ignored, so you are left with the first tool)

No distribution includes antivirus because there are no Linux viruses, and if windows files are to be handled one installs an antivrus

Fixed iso image will not have the tools ready installed. You need to install system to a disk to add packages like mt, smartmontools, and antiviruses.