Thumbdrive Tools

[Krynn72]

Its important to note that while the iodd and zalman (relabeled) are great tools to have it is by no means a tool that works 100% of the time. Its not that theres a fault with the tool itself its just that in my experience certain devices simply don't handle booting from it well. I find that having an external usb cd drive and some boot cds available will eventually come in handy and I don't even do a lot of in person repairs. That being said the zalman vm-200 has been infinitely useful but if I was going to peoples homes and making repairs I would at least keep an external usb cd drive in the car with some boot discs.

I just carry a couple USB flash drives, instead of CDs.

Does anyone use E2B's UEFI mode? I remember trying to get it to work, and it seemed like it was more effort than it was worth. It'd be really nice to just have one flash drive than can boot multiple UEFI images without needing to unplug the thing, put it into another non UEFI computer, boot to it, change it out of UEFI, change the image, change it back to UEFI, and then finally put it back into the computer I'm working on. The point of E2B was so that I didn't have to carry a bunch of flash drives, but now I'd rather carry several than deal with that all the time.

 

[UrbanIT]

I have one of these iodd drives with the LCD screen that allows you select an ISO and boot to it. Works really well.
It has a 500GB SSD drive in it.

These look awesome, I am trying to order 4 for our tech's but am unable to find any online retailers (tried Aliexpress, but no joy) and their website appears to be down. Any ideas on where I can purchase these from?

 

[jfm]

These look awesome, I am trying to order 4 for our tech's but am unable to find any online retailers (tried Aliexpress, but no joy) and their website appears to be down. Any ideas on where I can purchase these from?

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?field-keywords=iodd

Found here
http://en.iodd.kr/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

 

[fencepost]

Surprised no-one's mentioned GeGeek. Got pretty much everything you're likely to need on-site. Just wish I could remember to switch off folks' AV before I plug it in. Lost count of the times half my NirSoft stuff has been nuked!

I highly recommend getting a flash drive with a write-protect switch. I think the Kanguru ones are supposed to be great, but I'm actually just carrying a Netac U335. Generally the only time the write protect on it is turned off is when it's plugged into my own system.

 

[UrbanIT]

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?field-keywords=iodd

Thanks jfm, but unfortunately Amazon does not ship to Australia.

 

[allstarit]

These look awesome, I am trying to order 4 for our tech's but am unable to find any online retailers (tried Aliexpress, but no joy) and their website appears to be down. Any ideas on where I can purchase these from?

Strange it was on aliexprese but now unavailable.

Maybe Ebay? Should be iodd2531 for model i think

 

[NviGate Systems]

If you want an easy and (cheap) write protect for your tools, put them inside a VHD and write a small script that creates a child VHD. How it works is that any writes that occur happen to the child, essentially like a snapshot of changes. When you make your script, have it delete the child before creating a new one. Worked awesome for me. Kangaroo drives were super expensive for the media sizes I required.

 

[Calx]

I've started using Tech Tool Store http://www.carifred.com/tech_tool_store/

You can add in your own scripts and other programs you use to the interface.

Certainly worth a look. They do a free trial.

 

[labtech]

Thanks jfm, but unfortunately Amazon does not ship to Australia.

If have friends on TN or outside in UK/USA can make order arrangements to them and then they ship to you.

 

[Galdorf]

I got a few thumbdrives that I have thought about putting applications on that would allow me to have portable tools when I go places for easy and fast access to those tools and hopefully a faster resolve of the issue(s). I have come across tools once in a while that people put on thumb drives, and a couple of those would include antivirus software/tools, easy2boot (which I tried to setup and failed), and a few other things that I'm not recalling at the moment. Im just wonder what you guys have on your thumbdrives to help you install certain things or help you resolve certain issues.

The tool i use the most for multiboot usb thumbdrives is RMPrepUSB

 

[cypress]

I've started using Tech Tool Store http://www.carifred.com/tech_tool_store/

You can add in your own scripts and other programs you use to the interface.

Certainly worth a look. They do a free trial.

Yup I have switched to this tool and absolutely love it!

I run it off my Kangaru USB drive.

 

[UrbanIT]

If have friends on TN or outside in UK/USA can make order arrangements to them and then they ship to you.

Thanks a bunch for the offer, it is greatly appreciated.

But I have already ordered from Amazon and used a remailing service to get it back to Australia.

Thanks!

 

[MilitaryMan407]

I, like allstarit, use a Zalman 350 with an SSD in it. It does everything I need and more.