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Those of you who work on PCs reguarly probably have a few good software tools at their disposal.

I would like to hear what software YOU use to diagnose, optimize and repair problems (Disk scanners, stress testers etc..)

Some indispensible items on my list include Norton Ghost 2003, Partition Magic 8.0, Spinrite, Ontrack Easy Recovery Professional 6.0, Burn-in Test professional and a bootable copy of HWInfo.

To add to what you have there Rick, it is also good to have recertification utilities, such as PowerMax from Maxtor. Most HDD manufacturers have one available. These utilities come in handy if you need to write out bad sectors on a drive(manufacturers use this tool to test drives that have been repaired). I also keep a copy of MaxBlast from Maxtor, it comes in handy for older systems that need help recognizing larger HDDs.

http://www.bootdisk.com/utility.htm has several useful tools listed. Some more useful than others.

I still use Norton Utilities and Spinrite after all these years. I have MaxBlast too, cos I bought a Maxtor HDD recently. I look forward to hearing of other recommendations as well.

Ahhh... A Low-level format utility is something I've been meaning to add in my collection. Sounds good.

Has anyone tried making the 911 rescue CD? I just ran across this the other day and downloaded the software for making a bootable diagnostic/repair CDthat will work on any computer. it includes much of the software others have allready posted (links to get it and a lot of freeware tools.) Here is the site.

http://www.911cd.net/

later this week I am going to give building the Cd a shot.