I just passed the CHFI and wanted to write out a couple general thoughts before I forgot them.

Study references:
The Official CHFI Study Guide from Syngress.
I took the 1 week class at New Horizons.  They loaded me up with 4 books.

Opinion on study guides and class:
If you have any security experience and understand it, I would go with the Syngress Study guide.  My company paid for the class (and I am very grateful for that.  It is a good company!), but you can pass without it.  Although the class did reinforce some major concepts and the discussions help out in the real world.  Overall I am glad I took it.   

The test:
The test isnt too hard.  But there is so much information it is difficult to understand how in depth it will be.  There will be questions that make no sense and that didn’t show up in any reference books.  Some are very “in depth” while some are surface and basic concept.  I found that the ones I didn’t recognize were easy to guess or logically eliminate the wrong answers.

What I liked about the experience:
I think it is a good balance of technical information (what certain logs mean, how to use certain tools) and administrative information(Chain of custody, laws etc). 

What I didn’t like:
The Syngress book and in the books handed out in class had so many factual, grammatical and logic errors it was almost difficult to read.  Even the sample tests that come with the book had errors.  The other thing that bothered me was the concentration on tools.  It seems like it should be more concept based with a couple tools.  Every reference book was page after page of tools.  I think the tools should be a side item.  It is great that they include them, but you should not be required to memorize a million shareware and pay tools when they change all the time. 

First off, congrats on passing the test and earning the certification! Well done.

Thanks for the feedback on the course/courseware/study guide. I actually have the Sybex study guide sitting on my shelf at home but haven't gotten around to reading it. Maybe I'll glance at it this weekend. That's a little disappointing to hear that there are a lot of errors with it. I've thought other Sybex books have been decent in the past.

BillV