Live USB stick for emergencies

I have a 1GB USB stick which is too small to fit any useful data but manages to run a custom Arch-iso. So I thought it would be a good idea to create a live stick for emergencies with tools I might be needing.

The problem is I don't know (yet) which tools might be useful until I really need them. Right now it fits intel graphics driver, LXDE, Chromium and ZFS tools. A partitioning tool would probably be handy.

There is ~400MB left, any ideas?

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gparted
ddrescue
clamav + clamtk (cant hurt)

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If you're trying to save space, Arch should already have fdisk and possibly gdisk installed. They're CLI programs though, so if you'd rather use a GUI, go for gparted, as @Th3Z0ne said.

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gparted is 6.6MB though - according to pacman

I'm transitioning soon, but still on Windows, what is the best tool to format and install the ISO booting from a USB Drive to a new build?

Do you mean what tool is the best for putting the ISO on to a USB drive? If so, my favourite is Rufus.

I had some error with that where it didn't detect drive.
I will delete and try a fresh install.
Thank-you.

I want Portable version, no?

Thanks for the suggestions!

Version 2.14 mentioned a fix regarding a similar issue I think. Rufus really does a good job for creating bootable drives.

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It doesn't really matter whether you go for the normal or the portable version. The portable version just means that Rufus will run from a single exe file, rather than going through the process of being installed on your PC.

rufus is 100% the way to go on windows
win32 disk imager is also a option but i have had it destroy a drive when windows just randomly ejected it

dd on linux is amazing too
unetbootin is kinda meh but is a option if dd fails


as for the OP question. Here is a good list of what you need

gparted | good partitioning tool
ddrescue | always a good thing to have
filesystem drivers | might need to mount ntfs, hfs+, etc
linux-headers | might need to make a kernel driver
all of the grub tools | incase grub poops out on you
networking drivers | might not have what you need already installed
adb | a good thing to have since it is small and you never know when you will need it

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A disk usage analyser may be handy to have.

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Good point. And definitely something that can retreive SMART data.

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hirens boot cd

http://www.hirensbootcd.org/download/

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This. Saved many a Computer with this.

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This installation will be on new build booting for the very first time, so do you still think I should use Rufus?
I'm still having an issue where the drives are not found, and this after a new download.

Unless you are not using an ISO file from the usual sources I can't imagine anything to go wrong.

If you say 'new build' I guess you are having a recent motherboard, right? Your bootable stick should show up after plugging it in and rebooting into BIOS/UEFI. Rufus allows you set up your stick for both variations, for a modern build however I recommend the option "GPT partition scheme for UEFI".

Never had any issues where ever I used it.

Me as well. I'm willing to bet it has a variant of every tool posted above (haven't read them), and has had every tool I've ever needed on it, at least to some extent.

Yes, it is a new mainboard, but I've already configured the stick for UEFI & BIOS. This should be fine, no?

As long as you set it to GPT as well, it should be fine. Just make sure to choose the UEFI option in the boot device menu in the UEFI.