https://www.hirensbootcd.org/

Hirens boot cd is a great tool if you’re working with windows. You are not always going to need it, but when you do need it it’s awfully nice to have it.

Do yourself a favor and skip the USB drive - they are ridiculously slow compared to a compact external SSD. I found a cheap m.2 enclosure on Amazon and put an old SSD in it and the speed difference is breathtaking.

My SSD has a bunch of Linux distros grouped into folders along with Windows 10 & 11, every macOS from 10.13 to present, along with Rescuezilla, Hiren’s and a few others I can’t remember at the moment.

Rescuezilla was my #1 go-to during my days of distro hopping. Makes it super easy to try out a distro on bare metal instead of a VM.

What’s on my USB stick you ask… A bunch of random shit I haven’t touched for 8 years so I have no idea what it is and it’s probably outdated, but I’d be damned if that usb stick is not In my keychain because “I might need it one day”

I work in a PC repair shop and I run my tool stick on this way. By the way, you can just put a folder in your Ventoy and store non-iso files so you can have portable apps and so on.

• Acronis (can clone to reduced size drives unlike clonezilla which can only clone to equal or bigger)
• MemTest86 & MemTest86+ (+ is the FOSS one. Recommend both because sometimes one won’t work)
• Don’t forget that you can put other stuff in a Ventoy, not just .isos. I have shitlods of utilities in a folder beside all the .isos.
• Tons more but I just woke up for work. I will make this list much longer when I get there of I can remember to

Edit: ADHD did ADHD things. Here’s some more stuff. A lot of it is Windows-centric because that’s what we specialize in. ISOs:

• PC Unlocker (Windows password remover, paid)
• Gandalf’s Windows Preboot (similar to Hirans, but modern. Paid.)

Utilities:

• CrystalDiskInfo (SMART checks and more on SSDs)
• CrystalDiskMark (SSD benchmark)
• FastCopy (Windows copy utility. Free)
• HDTunePro (v5.00 specifically. After this, license binds to a single machine. HDD SMART checks, benchmark, secure erase, sector scans, and more.)
• OCCT (CPU, GPU, Memory, PSU, and other checks and stress tests. Top-tier tool.)
• F6 Drivers (drivers for NVMe detection on some laptops)
• Spacesniffer (visual representation of disk utilization. Similar to WinDirStat, but looks nicer/runs quicker imo. Free.)

Arch Linu, Kubuntu, Supergrub, Tails, Kali, Windows

Looking at my Ventoy stick i have multiple folders for different OS:

Arch_Based:

• CachyOS
• Garuda

Debian_Based:

• Debian Bookworm
• Mint
• Zorin OS

Fedora_Based:

• Fedora Silverblue
• Nobara

GamingBox

• Bazzite
• ChimeraOS

ServerOS:

• Ubuntu Server
• TrueNAS Scale

Windows:

• Tiny10
• Tiny11

Tools:

• Avira Rescue System
• SuperGrub2
• UBCD

Back to the days I was fixing a lot of computers of friends and relatives, my Swiss army knife of Linux was https://www.system-rescue.org/

Very lightweight but with a full set of recovery tools. I’ve tried it recently and I still find it up to the expectations.

I’ve also used a fair amount of https://clonezilla.org/ to (re)store images of freshly installed OSes (mostly windows XP and 7 to give you an idea of the timeframe) for people who I know would have messed up faster.

Removed by mod

I keep an iodd mini with all the current and past repair isos. Then I have a folder.i keep the tooling income.upmwoth for various repair or automation stuff. I got a batch script (need to move to winger) to auto install all my standard day one software. On mobile otherwise I would pull up the list and throw it in here. If you are curious let me know and I’ll reply with the list when I get time.

Ventoy with Arch and Rescue bootable images. And a portable cross platform encryption tool just in case.

Inside Ventoy: SystemRescue, Clonezilla, Debian netinstall, Ubuntu netinstall, Tails, GParted live, FreeBSD bootonly, Supergrub 2, Windows Server 2019 evaluation, Windows 11 22H2.

I don’t keep a Swiss army knife set of distros anymore. I put tumbleweed on a USB. It’s rolling so I update it when I plug it in, then do what I need to do.

I used to have a USB with Ubuntu LTS and whatever the newest Ubuntu was. Then another would get something else that I needed/wanted. I always ended up wiping the drive and adding the newest release every single time. I was always out of date by the time I needed one of them for boot repair or something. This was also a time when persistence… Wasn’t very persistent. With tumbleweed I can install whatever I need and it’s there next time. I’m sure you can do the same with any other rolling release, but tumbleweed is in my opinion on par stability-wise with incremental distros. It’s my first grab whenever I need to check a PC. If I need another distro or boot USB, I can make it from this one with a second USB. I suppose the only thing I can’t do is make a bootable USB if the computer I’m on can’t access the Internet

• Win10
• Win11
• Fedora
• Fedora Server
• Hirens

I’m an arch user, and also have a small proxmox based homelab. I always have a live Ubuntu around, the latest desktop version available. Good for troubleshooting. Also, latest proxmox, opnsense, pfsense, debian.

Additionally, I have a small USB drive on my keychain with both USB C and USB A, where I keep some encrypted backups of important stuff, and I can access that from both my laptop and my phone.

It’s like…maybe like an eagle or something?