Maintaining Reference Information
Create a technical reference library for all hardware and software documentation. This library can also include other documentation related to your computers that you want to have in a central location. The types of information for this library are:
- Vendor documentation, including manuals, receipts, warranties, proofs of purchase, and the like.
- Insurance policy and any claims.
- Information about any kits, tools, and add-ons that you have installed.
- All internal documentation that you have generated, including policies, procedures, training guides, and the like.
- Hardware configuration information for each of the computers, including, but not limited to, the following:
- Their location, cabling, intermediary devices, and external connections.
- Computer type, model number, serial number, motherboard, and CPU.
- Computer BIOS manufacturer and revision level (x86-based computers) or firmware revision level (RISC-based computers).
- CMOS information for x86-based computers.
- Firmware information on RISC-based computers.
- For each component, information such as IRQ, DMA addresses, and I/O port.
- Amount of RAM, parity or non-parity.
- Information about the video display and the video card.
- Complete configuration of the disk subsystem, including the makes, models, and serial numbers of all disks and controllers, and their type (such as SCSI or EIDE).
- Configuration information for other storage media, such as tape, optical disk, or removable disk.
- Types and configuration of network cards.
- Configuration information about any other adapters, such as multiport adapters.
- Software configuration information and backups for each computer, including:
- Disk map, describing location and size of each partition and logical drive.
- Backups of each Master Boot Record and Partition Boot Sector.
- Windows NT startup floppy disk.
- Windows NT versions installed and the partitions on which they are installed.
- User information, including which users are allocated disk space and what utilities and application programs they are using.
- Backups of the system configuration files, including the Registry.
- Which application programs are installed on which volumes.
- Licensing information.
- Phone List
- Notification plan of who to contact for which kinds of problems or emergencies, and how to notify them.
- Administrators.
- Vendor and consultant support.
- Management.
- Critical Users.