Neodude1123201
Bogan
- Messages
- 8,474
- Location
- Australia
So - Im going to be doing a series on building the ultimate IT Toolbox.Wether you need if for fixing a friends or computer or you want to start your own PC Repair business,This toolbox will get you out of trouble!
-
IT Toolbox - The Ultimate External Hardrive
IT Toolbox - The Ultimate External Hardrive
Why do you need an external hardrive for an IT Toolbox? Well External hardrives are perfect for:
-Backing up customers data
-Storing Diagnostic hardware that can be used to diagnose the customers PC
-Storing software that the customer might benefit from
-Storing the latest Updates and drivers
This guide will show you how to build the ultimate hardrive and then show you some software you might want to store on there!
-Backing up customers data
-Storing Diagnostic hardware that can be used to diagnose the customers PC
-Storing software that the customer might benefit from
-Storing the latest Updates and drivers
This guide will show you how to build the ultimate hardrive and then show you some software you might want to store on there!
1.Selecting the perfect drive
Before we get started,you are going to need an external hardrive! A good place to get on would be:
(US) http://www.newegg.com/
(UK) http://www.misco.co.uk/
(Australia) http://www.mwave.com.au/newAU/mwaveAU/default.asp
(Other) http://www.ebay.com
Before you buy one,we need to consider a few things first:
-Size (Data wise)
-Powered or Non-Powered
-Size (Physical)
Size (Data Wise):
How much space do you need? How much space do you want? Remeber you are going to need space for your software and possible customer backups.I Recomend a drive above 60gb.
Powered Or Non Powered:
If your drive is powered it means that you have to plug it into a power point,if it's non powered it means that it runs off the power of the USB Port.Now you have to consider wether or not you will have acsess to Power points if you are working on site (Such as at offices and customer homes) you may NOT have any nearby,but powered external hardrives are generally slighlty cheaper and get slightly better performance,but a non powered external hardrive is more convinient and smaller.
Size (Physically):
You alse have to consider the size of the drive? Are you going to be able to fit in into your Toolbox? Including the cables needed?
Once you have bought your hardrive and you have it home,the best thing to do is format it.
(US) http://www.newegg.com/
(UK) http://www.misco.co.uk/
(Australia) http://www.mwave.com.au/newAU/mwaveAU/default.asp
(Other) http://www.ebay.com
Before you buy one,we need to consider a few things first:
-Size (Data wise)
-Powered or Non-Powered
-Size (Physical)
Size (Data Wise):
How much space do you need? How much space do you want? Remeber you are going to need space for your software and possible customer backups.I Recomend a drive above 60gb.
Powered Or Non Powered:
If your drive is powered it means that you have to plug it into a power point,if it's non powered it means that it runs off the power of the USB Port.Now you have to consider wether or not you will have acsess to Power points if you are working on site (Such as at offices and customer homes) you may NOT have any nearby,but powered external hardrives are generally slighlty cheaper and get slightly better performance,but a non powered external hardrive is more convinient and smaller.
Size (Physically):
You alse have to consider the size of the drive? Are you going to be able to fit in into your Toolbox? Including the cables needed?
Once you have bought your hardrive and you have it home,the best thing to do is format it.
1.Partitioning the Drive
What we are going to do now is partition the drive into 3 Partitions:
1.Portable Apps
2.Software
3.Games
Now why games you ask? Some customer may ask you do you have any decent games,About 1 in 3 of my customers ask me,so it may happen to you .
Now partition this drive into 3 partitions as stated above,If you need help:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309000
http://www.wikihow.com/Use-Gparted
1.Portable Apps
2.Software
3.Games
Now why games you ask? Some customer may ask you do you have any decent games,About 1 in 3 of my customers ask me,so it may happen to you .
Now partition this drive into 3 partitions as stated above,If you need help:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309000
http://www.wikihow.com/Use-Gparted
*BE CAREFUL YOU DONT FORMAT THE WRONG DRIVE*
3. Selecting the Right Software
3. Selecting the Right Software
So now you have Partitioned it into 3 partitions,Now we need the right software to load onto your hardrive! First we are going to start with the Portable Apps Partition.
Download This and install it onto the Portable Apps Partition.
Now once you have Installed this onto the hardrive,we need to put some software onto it.Now this drive will be for our Diagnostic Software:
I Recomend:
Notepad++ Portable - Lightwieght Text Editor
NVU Portable - WYSIWYG HTML Editor
GIMP Portable - Photo Editor
Firefox Portable - Internet Broswer
WinSCP Portable - FTP Client
Sumatra Portable - PDF Reader
Clamwin Portable - Antivirus Scanner
Infrarecorder Portable - CD/DVD Burning Suite
7zip Portable - Zip,RAR And More Compressor/Decompressor
JK Defrag Portable - Defraging program
Light Screen Portable - Screenshot Taker
Toucan Portable - Backup System
CCleaner Portable - Computer Cleaner
Aida32 Portable - Diagnostic Software
Download This and install it onto the Portable Apps Partition.
Now once you have Installed this onto the hardrive,we need to put some software onto it.Now this drive will be for our Diagnostic Software:
I Recomend:
Notepad++ Portable - Lightwieght Text Editor
NVU Portable - WYSIWYG HTML Editor
GIMP Portable - Photo Editor
Firefox Portable - Internet Broswer
WinSCP Portable - FTP Client
Sumatra Portable - PDF Reader
Clamwin Portable - Antivirus Scanner
Infrarecorder Portable - CD/DVD Burning Suite
7zip Portable - Zip,RAR And More Compressor/Decompressor
JK Defrag Portable - Defraging program
Light Screen Portable - Screenshot Taker
Toucan Portable - Backup System
CCleaner Portable - Computer Cleaner
Aida32 Portable - Diagnostic Software
Now for the software Drive! This software is also diagnostic software but it may need to be installed,it also contains software that the customer might need/want also should contain Service packs and drivers.
Open Office
CD Burner XP
Speedfan
JK Defrag
Every HDD manugacturer has there own HDD Diagnostic software,Please se here.
Avast
Avg
Zonealarm
Kompozer
NVU
Frostwire
Google Pack
Flash Player
Foxit PDF Reader
Firefox
Thunderbird
Pidgin
Winamp
Windows Media Player 11
VLC
Quicktime
GIMP
DVD43
MediaCoder
Audacity
Windows XP SP2 And Sp3
Windows Vista Sp1
You may also want to include Drivers on your drive,you can driver packs from here.
Now for games:
Plasma Pong
Urban Terror
Flight Gear
Scorched3d
Armegatron advanced
Phun
As a guide - You dont need all of this software but i HIGHLY Recomend it all.
Once you have put all of your software on the correct partitions,and organized it all - You have now got the ultimate External IT Toolbox hardrive! You may want to search google and download sites (Such as softpedia,Download.com,Filehippo) for more software/games that you could put on your drives!
A Word of warning: NEVER,EVER Give customers hacked/Cracked/Pirated software!
Open Office
CD Burner XP
Speedfan
JK Defrag
Every HDD manugacturer has there own HDD Diagnostic software,Please se here.
Avast
Avg
Zonealarm
Kompozer
NVU
Frostwire
Google Pack
Flash Player
Foxit PDF Reader
Firefox
Thunderbird
Pidgin
Winamp
Windows Media Player 11
VLC
Quicktime
GIMP
DVD43
MediaCoder
Audacity
Windows XP SP2 And Sp3
Windows Vista Sp1
You may also want to include Drivers on your drive,you can driver packs from here.
Now for games:
Plasma Pong
Urban Terror
Flight Gear
Scorched3d
Armegatron advanced
Phun
As a guide - You dont need all of this software but i HIGHLY Recomend it all.
Once you have put all of your software on the correct partitions,and organized it all - You have now got the ultimate External IT Toolbox hardrive! You may want to search google and download sites (Such as softpedia,Download.com,Filehippo) for more software/games that you could put on your drives!