Put your thumb drive to work (updated)
I often use a specially configured USB “thumb drive” as my portable PC repair kit, and use it as an alternative to a “boot CD”. I have made it “bootable” and loaded it with useful tools and repair applications (like an antivirus scanner). It has come in handy, from time to time. With the price of these drives being as affordable as they are, there’s really no reason you cannot have a portable PC repair kit (on a stick) too.
Tip of the day: Making yourself a toolkit-on-a-stick requires a couple of steps; first you must format it to make it bootable, and then you must load it with the tools and applications you think you will need — if the thumb drive you’re planning to use is small (say, 512MB), you will want to get the “portable”, or “Lite”, versions of these programs if they’re available.
1) Make the drive bootable. The geekier (remember, I use “geek” as a compliment!) of you out there may be already familiar with the DOS utilty FDISK, and if you are and you still have a Windows 98 Install CD (or a Win 95 boot floppy) laying around, you can format the drive using the format /s command as outlined here.
If that doesn’t fit your description, or you are going to use a larger thumb drive, I suggest you download and run (it is a Wizard, so you just follow the prompts) a tool offered by HP (the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool), which should do the work for you: get it here.
2) Now that your thumb drive can be used to boot a machine, it’s time to load it up with some useful programs and utilities. I started with the DOS tools FDISK, scandisk, and format. There is some debate amongst my fellow Tech Support-types as to which utilities are “must have’s” (but we all agree on some version of antivirus and anti-spyware) and I’m not going to trouble you with that. Instead, I’m going to point you towards today’s free link (below) and a wonderful pre-made suite of very handy portable applications, and suggest the addition of (my previously mentioned) HiJack This!
If you used the copy-the-system-files method (the “format /s”) you will already have chkdsk and fdisk and a few others.. or if not, these can be added. If you are not going to install Portable Apps, I suggest you do install Portable Firefox (or similar Web browser) so that you can access the Internet, for downloading device drivers.
To make it more of a “repair kit” you can add: a Registry cleaner/fixer, such as CCleaner and or AMUST Registry Cleaner, Process Explorer, and another anti-spyware like Spybot Search&Destroy.
Click here to read my article on the steps for installing programs on thumb drives.
Today’s free link: Portable Apps.com. This collection of portable application runs completely from the USB thumb drive. It has a Webbrowser, word processor, antivirus and more. Get started on the road to thumb drive power here.
[Update: Bill Mullins has brought to my attention a program for running apps on your thumbdrive that seems superior to others I have mentioned. To read his review, click here.]
Copyright © 2007 Tech Paul. All rights reserved.
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About Tech Paul
Welcome to my blog. I am a CompTIA Certified computer technician, and the owner of Aplus Computer Aid. I offer my affordable and friendly services via remote control over the Web, or over the phone. My email is tech4everyone(at)gmail.com.
I regularly post how-to’s and tricks & tips and general computing advice. Sometimes I will answer (your) specific questions in an article if I believe that it is generally helpful to “everyone”. All the writing you see is my own, typos and all.
I do my very best to provide the best solutions and advice. I use only industry best practices, and reliable sources for my research. I strive to Do No Harm.
Note: You are responsible for using this blog and its content. I am in no way liable for any losses caused by user error, viruses and/or other malware, hardware or software failure, or any other conceivable reason.
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Copyright 2007-9 © by Tech Paul. All rights reserved.
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Folks, this is not one of those "trick you into buying" free scans, but a scan that show what is running, and loaded to run (Startup folder, etc.). You can also click links to learn more about the files it finds. And, please, do a search before you decide something doesn't belong. 
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the hp wizard isn’t working becuase it takes forever the windows(vista) sais that it is not responding
Dan,
The HP tool does not, in fact, work on all models of thumb drives, you may need to try it on a different drive.
Also, in Vista you need to ensure the app is run “As an administrator”. My article on how to do that is, http://techpaul.wordpress.com/2007/09/14/quick-tipovercome-access-denied-in-vistas-command-prompt/.
And it is particularly important that you pay carefull attention to the choices and selections you make at each step in the wizard– an errant selection could have it trying to format your hard-drive!
I hope this helps.
Thank you for the help did good
Dear Paul, I got a question from you. Have you heard of macecraft regsupreme and what’s wrong just only using CCleaner’s Registry cleaner/fixer?
Asha–
I am familiar with Macecraft’s Jv16 suite of Windows optimization tools, PowerTools. This is not a bad option for people at all, but I don’t personally use it. (Please see, http://techpaul.wordpress.com/2009/02/20/speed-up-your-pc-free/)
I am not a big fan of Registry “optimizers”, and side with those in the debate that say they accomplish nothing tangible (at best). I only use Reg tools when I have performed a manual malware removal. If and when I am asked to recommend one, I recommend Ccleaner as it has a good record for being non-aggressive and ’safe’. I also recommend that users create a Registry backup and Restore Point before using any Registry tool.
This topic has come up in a number of my articles, so I am kind of wondering why you posted this question on this one… My Search tool searches all my articles by keyword.