Having all the drivers, diagnostic, and repair tools you might need when you respond to a support call can force you to drag around a sack of floppy disks. Fortunately, you can minimise this inconvenience with a little planning and the help of a number of different storage products now available. Of course, the first big question you have to ask yourself is exactly how many resource files you actually need to respond to most user calls. If your network is fairly homogeneous, where all the workstations have pretty much the same hardware and software combinations, then the list of software tools you need on hand is fairly manageable. If not, the tool bag gets bigger. This was apparent in responses to our article "Software for every support pro's toolkit." Some TechRepublic members suggested only a few tools were needed; others said they practically need a cart to carry around everything. After you determine the optimum size for your bag of tricks--and assuming that it's less than a few hundred Megabyte--you might also consider compiling all the critical stuff on media that you can keep with you at all times. Some of the available options include:

• Business-card-sized CD-Rs that fit in wallets.
• Mini CD-Rs that fit in a pocket.
• Flash memory devices that fit on a key chain.

Let's take a quick look at tips from support pros on downsizing your tool bag and some gadgets that can cut down on trips back to your floppy disk carousel. Cut the excess baggage The venerable floppy disk has remained a mainstay for most support techs because it can hold a minimal boot disk configuration and a couple of useful utilities. TechRepublic support tech Ted Laun, for example, has a collection of Microsoft TCP/IP boot disks for every NIC in the company, along with NTFSDOS.exe and XCOPY.exe. "If a user's machine will not boot, I simply move all the critical data to a network share and then attach to our image server and pull down a fresh image," Laun said. After ghosting the machine, he returns the user's data from the network share and then he's off to another issue--once he collects the floppy that he needs. Laun could make his life even easier by combining his method with that of member Jason Jystad. Jystad supports a variety of machines, and he used to carry about 15 floppies and 25 or so CDs. He's reduced that to a manageable two floppies and 10 CDs by carefully selecting the utilities he uses and by creating a number of floppy images on one CD that he can then create onto a floppy if needed.