[conspire] Hardware diagnostics - Ultimate Boot CD

[Rick Moen]

Ryan Le was asking what software is available on Linux to diagnose /
test hard drives that are suspected of having problems.  I was
_intending_ to post some sort of comprehensive rundown, starting with
the "smartmontools" suite:  

http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/  (Ryan, notwithstanding the
"download" links at that URL, you're much better off, as always, getting
any software mentioned _within_ your distribution's packaging system, if
possible.  Ubuntu Linux will definitely have the smartmontools.)

What are the smartmontools?  First, I'm going to have to explain SMART, 
the Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology System that is
built into _all_ modern hard drives.  Essentially, modern drives have
been caused to continually mutter about themselves in a specialised 
language defined as part of the SMART protocol.  Therefore, if you
launch a program designed listen in on and decode that muttering, you
can get advance warning of incipient hard drive failure.

Bruce Allen's smartmontools are a suite of exactly such utilities, and
are available for any Unix, including Linux.


Anyhow, while I was digging for that information and other things, I
happened to come across this:


Ultimate Boot CD:  http://ubcd.sourceforge.net/
Ultimate Boot CD for Windows:  http://www.ubcd4win.com/

It's a one-stop set of nearly every conceivable diagnostic tool
available for x86 PCs, on a single bootable CD image.

I intend to burn a copy (of the Linux version) and add it to my toolkit,
right away.