On Fri, 2006-01-06 at 11:48 +0200, Ioannis Vranos wrote:

> 
> Some other rescue CDs that may be of use:
> 
> http://www.sysresccd.org
> 
> http://www.lnx-bbc.org
> 
> http://cdlinux.berlios.de
> 
I always carry a Knoppix CD with me.
Knoppix has very good hardware detection, and I can usually get a system
booted with this and look at partitions, filesystems, re-run Lilo etc.

Another very good tool is Stresslinux.
This is a bootable CD distribution, you can use it on a USB stick which
I do, or you can PXE boot it.

http://www.stresslinux.org
Stresslinux has lots of tools for motherboard diagnostics, cpuburn,
bonnie++, smartmon, memtest