Archive: Tech Support Tools

SMART testing has been around for a while and isn't very well understood. I can't say that I'm an expert on it, but I've come to have several fairly well developed ideas in regards to it. First off, …

S.M.A.R.T. is a self monitoring and reporting tool built into every modern hard drive. Did you know that you can use an ubuntu linux boot cd to check that smart status and run SMART tests on your dri…

Many times I've used Ubuntu's livecd to test out an ailing system, but more than once I've wanted to add a utility, yes you can apt-get install from the live cd, but that assumes the system has a wor…