It's a hard life when you're the family PC expert. Visit any relative at Christmas and you've barely time to get through the door before they're telling you about the PC crashes, the unreadable CD, the forgotten password, and all the other computer problems they've saved up since your last visit.

There's no way to stop this, unfortunately, but you can at least solve their issues quickly by building the perfect portable troubleshooting toolkit, a collection of problem-solving utilities that you can take anywhere. It's easy. Just grab one USB flash drive (any cheap 4GB model will do), add our selection of free tools and you're ready to tackle just about anything.

Get Antivirus help

When a family member's PC is behaving strangely then it's wise to check for malware, especially if they've no antivirus software. Get your USB toolkit started with portable copies of ClamWin and McAfee Avert Stinger and you'll be equipped to deal with the most common threats.

Next, install Google Pack and copy the Norton Security Scan folder from the Program Files folder to your USB drive. You should then be able to launch the program (nss.exe) from any Windows XP or Vista PC.

Explore software problems

If the faulty PC doesn't have a virus then maybe there's a problem with the software it's running. Use AutoRuns to find out what's launched when the PC boots, then turn to Process Explorer to discover exactly what's running now.

Restore hard drive data

Your relatives are panicking as they've deleted something important, but fortunately you're here to save the day. With a copy of Recuva (grab the portable version) you'll be able to restore data from hard drives, memory cards and MP3 players, and its deep scan mode can recover files where other undelete tools will fail.

Get to grips with file formats

You'll often hear inexperienced PC users complain that they've received an important file, but can't view it. Why? They don't have the necessary software, usually, so every troubleshooting toolkit needs applications that will help you read and work with common file formats.

Add OpenOffice.org Portable to your toolkit and you'll be equipped to deal with Word documents, spreadsheets, presentations and more - very handy.

SoftMaker Office is a better solution if you need to run on old PCs (it even works with Windows 95).

Grab a copy of the PDF-XChange Viewer and you'll be able to view PDF files, too.

Get Unstoppable Copier

When a friend complains that he can't read some files from a few ancient CDs then there may be nothing you can do. But it's worth trying Unstoppable Copier, just in case. This excellent data recovery tool that will grab every readable sector of your files and do its best to put the pieces together.

Sort out the browser

When diagnosing a complicated PC problem you'll probably want to look for help online. But what if it's the browser that isn't working? Add the portable versions of Firefox and Thunderbird to your USB toolkit and you'll be covered.

Recover passwords

Your most clueless friends have lost several product keys and forgotten all their passwords, and of course it's up to you to make everything right. That's why your USB toolkit needs WinKeyFinder or Vista Key Finder to recover Windows and Office product keys, along with IE PassView and Password Fox to recover the user names and passwords stored by IE and Firefox.