X

Five great apps to handle emergency recoveries

With this combination of apps in your toolkit, you should be able to tackle just about any software crisis you encounter in the field.
By Jack Wallen, Contributing Writer
6359499.jpg
1 of 11 Jack Wallen/ZDNET

I have put together this list of five tools that have a place in the perfect emergency toolkit. Each tool serves a different purpose. Together, they make up a kit that I think will make your life a heck of a lot easier.

Note: If you'd prefer to view this information as a blog post, check out this entry in our Five Apps blog.

Photo: iStockphoto.com/pagadesign

6359500.png
2 of 11 Jack Wallen/ZDNET

ComboFix is the Mac Daddy of virus and malware removal tool. After a successful run of ComboFix, you should have cleaned (if applicable) malware, rootkits, Trojans, worms, and viruses.

6359501.png
3 of 11 Jack Wallen/ZDNET

You can't just install ComboFix on a machine and let it work in the background. ComboFix must be added to the machine, run on the machine, and removed from the machine. And while this tool is running, don't let anyone use the machine it's cleaning. ComboFix can cause panic on a PC if things go south.

6359502.png
4 of 11 Jack Wallen/ZDNET

KNOPPIX is a live Linux distribution that can fit on a flash drive. With it, you can boot into a full-blown Linux distribution that contains many helpful tools.

6359503.png
5 of 11 Jack Wallen/ZDNET

KNOPPIX lets you recover data from an unbootable drive, troubleshoot various aspects of a non-booting Windows drive, remove corrupt files, and much more. Many people don't realize just how valuable it is to have a full-blown, bootable Linux distribution with more than 2 GB of software ready and waiting.

6359504.png
6 of 11 Jack Wallen/ZDNET

Being able to secure shell into a remote machine at all times is invaluable. The use of the simple RDP protocol is fine for some, but it's not nearly as secure as it should be. If you want your remote logins to be secure, add a little ssh goodness to your toolkit. PuTTY gives you just that.

6359505.png
7 of 11 Jack Wallen/ZDNET

PuTTY lets you connect to any remote machine running a secure shell daemon (so long as you have the credentials to get through).

6359506.png
8 of 11 Jack Wallen/ZDNET

When Windows blue screens, it spits out a core dump that contains a lot of valuable  information. BlueScreenView scans the dump files and displays information about the BSOD crashes in table format, making troubleshooting much easier.

6359507.png
9 of 11 Jack Wallen/ZDNET

There is one catch here. I am a fan of the CCleaner tool. By default, CCleaner is set up to remove all those memory dump files. So if you use CCleaner, be sure you uncheck the option to delete those files. Otherwise, a tool like BlueScreenView will be of no use.

6359508.png
10 of 11 Jack Wallen/ZDNET

Roadkil's Unstoppable Copier does one thing and it does it well: It copies data from broken drives. And it's good at it. But UC isn't just for getting data off broken drives. You can also use it as a daily backup (using the Batch Mode function).

6359509.png
11 of 11 Jack Wallen/ZDNET

UC works by attempting to recover any readable piece of a file and then tries to put the pieces together. It's pretty amazing how well it works.

Related Galleries

Holiday wallpaper for your phone: Christmas, Hanukkah, New Year's, and winter scenes
Holiday lights in Central Park background

Related Galleries

Holiday wallpaper for your phone: Christmas, Hanukkah, New Year's, and winter scenes

21 Photos
Winter backgrounds for your next virtual meeting
Wooden lodge in pine forest with heavy snow reflection on Lake O'hara at Yoho national park

Related Galleries

Winter backgrounds for your next virtual meeting

21 Photos
Holiday backgrounds for Zoom: Christmas cheer, New Year's Eve, Hanukkah and winter scenes
3D Rendering Christmas interior

Related Galleries

Holiday backgrounds for Zoom: Christmas cheer, New Year's Eve, Hanukkah and winter scenes

21 Photos
Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Kia EV6: Electric vehicle extravaganza
img-8825

Related Galleries

Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Kia EV6: Electric vehicle extravaganza

26 Photos
A weekend with Google's Chrome OS Flex
img-9792-2

Related Galleries

A weekend with Google's Chrome OS Flex

22 Photos
Cybersecurity flaws, customer experiences, smartphone losses, and more: ZDNet's research roundup
shutterstock-1024665187.jpg

Related Galleries

Cybersecurity flaws, customer experiences, smartphone losses, and more: ZDNet's research roundup

8 Photos
Inside a fake $20 '16TB external M.2 SSD'
Full of promises!

Related Galleries

Inside a fake $20 '16TB external M.2 SSD'

8 Photos