It shouldn't happen to an IT consultant

Most of the utilities I turn to to fix sick PCs are free. Even more conveniently some of my favourite are bundled on The Ultimate Boot CD (UBCD) for Windows.

It’s an offshoot of the also useful DOS/Linux UBCD (which I’ll explore here shortly). While not on the whole open source, it is stuffed full of collaborative generosity.

UBCD 4 Win includes many more useful apps than I can do justice to in a reasonable number of words, and admittedly a minority of less than useful and some non-working ones. Here are the five I return to time and time again.

Space Monger by Sixty-Five Software reveals where all your disk space went via a clever graphical representation. UBCD includes the free version under Programs/File Management/Explorers

Kevin Solway’s excellent Disk Investigator on the Programs/File Management/Recovery menu. It’s a simple hex editor / viewer that makes searching for and recovering otherwise lost text a doddle. Ideal for rescuing the contents of Word files.

‘Tom’s’ Ez-PC-Fix (On UBCDs 4 Win’s desktop) Is an incredibly useful non-specific malware remover that, id desired, acts on every user’s settings at once, for example emptying every temp folder (a favourite malware hideout) in just three clicks.

Vadim Druzhim’s NTPWEdit under Programs/Password Tools
Removes Windows Login passwords while Christophe Greniers Find CMOS PWD reveals most BIOS passwords.

As a certain proverb doesn’t quite go, writing a bootable CD in time can save nine gigabytes later, or erm something.

Hiring an excellent IT consultant is worth spending time on, The worst I’ve taken over from included one deliberately sabotaging machines he charged to fix, another stole RAM and optical drives from PCs. Though criminal acts are rare, by far the greater risk is hiring a well meaning under-skilled expert who will sell you kit you don’t need. Unlike other professionals, there’s no regulatory body ensuring we are competent. Put t as much effort into the process as you would when recruiting permanent staff. Getting it wrong can cripple your business.

1. Seek recommendations from other businesses like yours. Yellow Pages is a goldmine of advice when you ask nicely.

2. Qualifications are very desirable, but several years actual experience is vital.

3. I’m not a fan of standard references, who can’t find a friend who will say the right thing? Query what sort of organisations they’ve done work for, ask for a couple of examples that will give a reference over the phone.

4. Avoid buying kit from the the people who recommend and support it. Watch out for those who start out by pitching an over specified server running unnecessarily complex and unfriendly software along with and a costly maintenance contract to look after it. Oh OK I’ll say it: Avoid Windows Small Business Server.

5. An interview will help you gauge their understanding of the needs of your business. A rough idea of their technical skills can be gauged by imposing the following short multiple choice test. Unless you are looking to take out a maintenance contract It’s reasonable you pay their standard rate to attending your interview and test. It’s not an approach a consultant will expect (it’s never happened to me). By all means blame this blog entry.

A Short PC Support Test

1. Windows stops dead mid way through booting, what is the most reasonable first step that may fix it?
a) Boot to a Windows CD in order to run chkdsk via the recovery console.
b) Try to boot to safe mode and if successful defragment.
c) Try to boot into safe mode and use disk management to set C: as an active disk.
d) Boot to a Windows CD in order to run msconfig via the recovery console.

2. A user complains their screen is expectantly covered in rows of rectangular coloured blobs. What is the most likely culprit?
a) The monitor is being asked to display a mode it does not support.
b) The monitor has failed.
c) The graphics card has suffered a hardware failure.
d) Windows plug and play decided to install the wrong graphics driver.

3. To set up a PC network share as drive letter, which option on the tools menu within XP or Vista’s Windows Explorer, would you use?
a) File sharing preferences...
b) Connect to shared
c) Map network drive
d) Share to drive letter

4. The local Static IP address 192.168.1.100 is used by a PC on Local Area Network. What is the likely reason?
a) The Windows File and Printer sharing wizard has been run.
b) A Firewall rule in the router is sending traffic to that machine.
c) The address has been to set to match that PCs Netmask settings.
d) The address was randomly chosen by The Windows IP stack.

5. What does this address: 127.0.0.1 refer to?
a) The address clients call when contacting a DHCP server.
b) The telnet address used by most routers.
c) The address used by routers to talk to other routers.
d) The machine itself, it is the loopback address.

6. What is xcopy?
a) An enhanced version of the command line/DOS copy command.
b) A tool to connect to a Unix / Linux file system.
c) A small application used to securely wipe a storage device.
d) A command that quickly halts the actions of the copy command.

7. Shared files and printers on a on XP PC are no longer available to other network users, which of these are likely causes?

a)
i. The current user is not logged in using an administrator account.
or
ii. The Microsoft QoS packet scheduler is not enabled.

b)
i. The guest account is disabled.
or
ii. Windows firewall has 'Do not allow exceptions' selected.

c)
i. The shared directories' attributes are set to read only.
or
ii. DNS settings are wrong.

d)
i. A shared directory has too many files in it.
or
ii. Another PC or device on the LAN is causing packet loss.


Answers

1. Answer is A. A fail here is very worrying, this should be the most common thing somebody fixing PCs does.

2. Answers is C. It is a fault condition an experienced consultant gets to see occasionally. Getting this right suggests some understanding of how PCs and displays actually work.

3. Answers is C. Basic stuff, they really should know this.

4. Answer is B.
5. Answer is D.
Get questions 4 or 5 wrong and I wouldn’t let you tinker with my network.

6. Answer is A. I’d be reassured if they get this right. Knowledge of the command line is not only very useful, it suggests they have poked about under the hood or like me have been using PCs before the Graphical User Interface offered the option to ignore DOS.

7. Answer is B. Windows File sharing failures are common. If the candidate doesn’t know this they not even Googling to find solutions to common problems. A fail in my book.

Few small businesses can afford to lose their net connection for any length of time. Second in importance only to choosing an Internet provider (or two, but more on that in a future post) is making sure you've got good kit and a disaster plan.

Choose a good router. Then buy two. In the event of a suspected failure, swapping the router out with an identically configured spare in the cupboard will quickly tell you if the problem is yours or your ISPs – and get you back on the air in minutes. I’ve had so much grief with (the often re-badged) Thomson routers supplied by most ISPs, I recommend sticking them in a cupboard until your ISP insists it’s connected for diagnostic purposes.

Get a basic Netgear box instead. Not all of Netgear’s products work so well but their big sellers are as thoroughly bug-fixed and reliable as a routers get and pretty easy to configure. For ADSL go for a: Netgear DG834G (around £38+VAT). Cable (Virgin) demands a Netgear WGR614 (around £30 + VAT).

As well as being reliable and good value, they have very useful separate DSL synchronisation and authentication indicators. The DG 834G works well with DSL 2, as currently supplied by Be Un limited and, eventually, everyone else. These are basic boxes made and sold on wafer-thin margins, so don’t expect more than a respectable WiFi range and basic technical support – and buy the best insurance possible, that second router in the cupboard.

Once you have your routers, a bit of care will keep things secure:

- Disable WiFi if it’s not being used.

- If it is, enable the strongest encryption: WPA2. Use a strong passphrase. Make a note of it.

- Ensure you are using a free wireless channel. Use NetStumbler to find one. Because WiFi occupies three wireless channels either side of the one chosen, all but channels 1, 6 and 11 should be avoided. Chances are, there won't be a free channel – so pick the one with the weakest signals.

- Change and record the router’s admin password. Write it on the router if need be.

Once you are happy everything’s perfect print out copies of the router's set-up pages. Use the routers ability to save the settings to a file, and keep that file safe. Make sure your back-up router has the same settings before you put it away – and remember to update it if you make changes. It's a crying shame that routers don't have an easy-to-use cloning function, or the equivalent of every application's "You've made changes. Do you want to save them?" option to ensure a fresh back-up, but they don't. Some people write a checklist of how to save their router settings, print it out and stick it to the top of the router itself – no guarantee, but a useful reminder. And if that seems a lot of hassle for something you can fix easily enough, imagine what'll happen if you're on the other side of the world when the office broadband goes down.

So at the least, leave an easy to follow ‘what to do when the net goes down' plan that is so simple even the most IT-phobic member of staff can power-cycle or swap out the router. Identify what the front panel lights mean, so your staff can talk to your ISP's technical support line. Call that line yourself and check that the ISP has your staff members on the list of people they’ll talk to, which also, by the way, means your staff will probably get access to your billing information as well. At least when they flee to the Bahamas on your credit card you’ll at least have the consolation of knowing you're still online to email the bank.

The security industry has plenty of standard responses for protecting your business data: encryption, access rights, physical tokens, restricting the ability to export the whole database. Blah blah blah. I bet few SMEs actually do a fraction of that - and even if you do, you've still got to have the data accessible to employees, otherwise it's useless. And if there's access, there's a chance to copy and a chance to steal. You need to be smart. So let me at least share an easy way to catch a disgruntled employee with your data on their USB stick.

Cartographers and lexicographers among others have traditionally inserted false data in maps and dictionaries to catch rivals lifting their work. The same trick works for customer databases too; liberally sprinkle the database with friends' and families' contact details, substituting their names with false ones. Brief said friends and family to appear interested in doing business with anybody contacting the fake names, and ask they gather as much evidence as possible

This plan is best avoided if your organisation routinely phones customers but ignoring the odd junk letter or email shouldn't prove much of a burden for your loved ones. If your friends' contact details would stand out in a customer list, for example if all your customers are ship yards, ask a few trusted customers to help out using slightly modified names (such as different middle names).

It's a bit sneaky, and you'll have to take care to avoid letting too many people in the company know what's going on, but if the worst comes to the worst and you do lose the crown jewels courtesy of a disgruntled employee, it can save an awful lot of time and money by persuading the miscreant to cough quickly.

I've had a run of half a dozen seemingly mortally wounded Windows XP machines to fix this week. All were easily repaired. Most reasonably technical users know of chkdsk, a Microsoft utility that repairs scrambled hard drives, fewer know how effectively it brings PCs back from the dead. More than 80% of the time this simple fix does the job.

One caveat, if you suspect your PC's disc is physically failing, because you can hear unusual noises such as it retrying reads, banging drive heads against the end-stop, screeching or grinding ignore this advice and take steps to recover the data (more on that in a future post). The longer a failing disc runs the less likely it is your files will survive. Unfortunately a lack of odd noises doesn't mean it is not doomed but well under five percent of non booting PCs are suffering from a physical failure so go with the odds and run chkdsk.

When Windows fails to start:

1. Insert any Windows XP CD in the drive (it need not to be the one supplied with the PC) and boot from it. To do so on most PCs hit F11 or F12 at the first (BIOS) screen to bring up a boot menu, select the CD/DVD drive from the list.

2. When prompted press any key to boot from the CD.

3. At the first screen, press R for the recovery console.

4. If asked to select your Windows installation (usually that means hitting 1 followed by enter, then if there is one, enter the administrator password.

5. Type chkdsk /p (and hit enter of course)

6. Once chkdsk has worked its witchcraft reboot and hope.

Good luck.