This tutorial describes using FDISK to remove all data and partitions on a driveWarning: Using Fdisk as described here will erase all information from the harddrive. The Basics of Fdisk: Primary partitions are the only one that are bootable. They're always the C: drive when active. Normally you can only have one (more with some special tricks etc.) Extended partitions are needed when you want more than one partition. You can only have ONE Extended partition. Logical Drives come into the Extended partition. They are handy since you know that you can only have one Primary and one Extended so you can get more than only two partitions. They would be your D:, E:, etc. drives. First you need to reboot your system with the Boot Disk inserted. 1.At the A: prompt start "FDISK." 2.If asked to use Large Disc support say Yes. 3.The first screen looks like this: Create Dos Partition or Logical Drive Set Active Partition Delete Partitions or Logical DOS Drives Display Partition Information Change cu... Read More

 Most copy commands give the new files and directories the same secuity information as the parent directory. Here is how to preserve the ownership and ACL information.You are in an NFTS environment and moving folders and files around like crazy. Then you notice that the Access Control List (ACL) information for those folders is not what you expected. Typical copy commands do not preserve the ownership and ACL infomation. To preserve this information you must copy with the XCOPY command. XCOPY /O will preserve this information correctly.... Read More

 removing a dual boot can be dangerous, and does not guarentee that windows will forget about the 2nd boot sector, but this will remove the boot option screen and or allow the removal of an OS. Enjoy.-right click on my computer, select properties -move to the advanced tab -under 'startup and recovery' select settings -in the new dialog box you have a couple of options: -if you wish to leave DOS on the machine, but not see the option screen you can simply set the 'time to display list of operating systems:' to 0 as winXP should now be ur default OS -if the removal of dos is your goal, then click edit -first save a copy of the notepad file which opens 'boot.ini' just incase you make a mistake -now there will be a lines similar to: [boot loader] timeout=30 default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS [operating systems] multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn *There will also be a line for dos here under [operating... Read More

 Works with Windows 2000, XP, Server 2003, all SP levels.Ever have those drivers or devices that just won't go away even though you're sure you've uninstalled them? Or, say you replace your old 100Mbps network card with a faster Gbps adapter. But, you can't re-assign it the same IP address because your system insists there is still an adapter installed with that same IP address and you forgot to remove the driver before removing the old card (which is now in your little brother's pc)? To get rid of that unwanted driver, device, or service: 1) Open the "Start" menu and choose "Run..." 2) Type in "cmd" (without the quotes) and click "ok". 3) At the cmd prompt, type in "set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1" (without the quotes) and press enter. (Note that nothing seems to happen--this is ok. We are actually setting an environment variable which is going to help us to see hidden devices) 4) On the next cmd prompt line, type in "devmgmt.msc" (without the quotes) and press enter. This will la... Read More

 This common error message can pain you unless you know the fix.When you try to run hard drive setup program and have both a disc overlay installed and LBA mode enabled in bios, you will see the following error message: Incompatible BIOS translation detected Disc overlay programs, such as ONTRACK, overcome weaknesses in past bios settings to allow larger hard drives to be recognized by the system. LBA (Logical Block Address) in your bios attempts to do the same thing. Therefore, having both LBA and a disc overlay both enable at once will typically give you the error. To correct it, either remove the disc overlay or disable LBA. Frequently the problem is that the disc overlay is actually corrupted. If that is the case, it may not be possible to remove it first. Disable LBA and then reinstall your hard drive utilities. After the disc overlay is repaired, you can usually remove it and then re-enable your LBA. (If you are reading this recipe, I am sorry. This is not a good error message to ... Read More

 Windows Genuine Advantage is now a required install. If you need to change your product key without an installation to make WGA happy, these steps will walk you through it. This uses Microsoft-supported software. This is how I explore "You May Be a Victim of Software Counterfeiting" errors. Many of our users at work have been receiving the You May Be a Victim of Software Counterfeiting error. Basically what happened was that the notebooks were mailed with invalid product keys. Surprisingly for many people, the Certificate of Authenticity (COA) or supplied valid product key may not be the actual one in use on their desktop computer or laptop. These numbers can be found on your XP software box or on a COA sticker on your system. First, compare the product key on your XP installation to your valid xp product key or COA number using WGA Diagnostic Tool. If the numbers are different, you can usually change your number to a valid one by using Microsoft's Key Update Tool.... Read More

 After reinstalling XP, often you will be asked to reactivate your software. The tip keeps the user from having to reactivate.After you have activated your XP software for the first time, you never need to do so again. Each time you reinstall XP, keep a copy of your wpa.dbl file. This file can be found in your \windows\system32 folder. After reinstallation replace the wpa.dbl back into the windows\system32 directory and forget about reactivation. Further information about the structure and uses of this file is discussed in this article: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,1151566,00.asp... Read More

 This recipe describes the mechanism for installing XP if you do not have bootable CD-ROM.Microsoft assumed that everybody that installed XP would have a bootable CD-ROM. Well, if you don't have any working drivers, previously you were in trouble. Now Microsoft has developed a mechanism to help you. The downloadable programs are designed to be placed on floppies. Once these floppies are booted and installed, they attempt to take control of your CD-ROM so that you can complete your XP installation. Install the service pack editions if you CD-ROM states that it already includes the service pack on your installation CD-ROM. These boot discs are not interchangable... so make sure you get the correct one. XP Home Floppy Install XP Home SP1 Floppy Install XP Home SP1a Floppy Install XP Pro Floppy Install XP Pro SP1 Floppy Install This recipe describes creating a boot floppy for an installation. If you need a boot floppy in XP for other reasons try the following recipe: Make a Boot Disc in 2k/... Read More

 In XP Home the backup utility is not easily installed although it is included on the CD. This describes how to install it.The Backup utility is not included in the default installation of Windows XP Home Edition. The Backup icon is not present on the Start menu in Windows XP Home Edition, nor is Backup listed in Add Remove Programs for Windows XP Home edition. In default installations of XP Home Edition the backup utility is not included. Likewise, it is not listed in the Add/Remove Programs section of windows. Luckily, the backup program is included on the XP Home CD. This is how to install it. 1. Click My Computer 2. Click on the CD-ROM containing your XP Home CD 3. Navigate to: \VALUEADD\MSFT\NTBACKUP 4. Double-click the Ntbackup.msi file 5. Once the wizard is complete, click Finish. Now you have XP's backup system installed.... Read More

 The common error appears when people are doing a repair install of windows. Here is how to get around it without waiting hours and hours.When doing a repair install, XP will often give the following error message: The procedure entry point GetIUMS could not be located Clicking OK does nothing but redisplay this window. Several people on the internet have noticed that if you click this box enough eventually the error will go away and you can continue. Other people have noticed that if you just leave the computer alone for a while, and then you come back and click on the box, the error will go away and you can continue installation. Here the quicker way: 1. Press Shift+F10 to open up a DOS box 2. Type taskmgr.exe and press ENTER from the command line 3. When the task mananger opens, select the Processes tab 4. Select the unregmp2.exe and end it 5. Click the Applications tab 6. Select the error window and click End Task 7. The window will close, you can exit your DOS box, and continue ins... Read More

 Windows comes with a DNS server, but it isn't installed by default. Here's how to install a DNS server on a Windows 2003 server.As an administrator on the system, click Start -> Control Panel -> Add or Remove Programs -> Add/Remove Windows Components. In the window that opens, click on the Networking Services line (careful not to uncheck the box to the left) and click Details. Find the line for Domain Name System (DNS), click the checkbox on its left, and Click OK. Click Next. If Windows asks for a CD-ROM, give it one. When it's done, click Finish.... Read More

 This is another install recipe for Windows XP. Requirements: Windows 98SE Boot Diskette w/smartdrv.exe, Windows XP saved to harddrive (have a seperate FAT32 partition where XP install files are saved).This recipe describes how to install windows xp from harddrive. 1. First, you need to copy your Windows XP Setup CD contents to your harddrive. NOTE! I recommend saving the xp install files/folders to a seperate partition than where your going to install xp to (ie. have setup files at d:\winxp\ and then install xp to c:\ drive) 2. Now, you will want to boot your pc with the windows 98 se bootdisk with smartdrv.exe on the floppy (increases data transfer speed by ten-fold in dos!). You do not need to boot with CD support since we're installing XP from the files on your harddrive (in my example, D:\winxp\) 3. Once you get to the command prompt, you can format the partition where you are installing xp if you want (ie in my example, the c:\ ) by typing: format driveletter: replace driveletter ... Read More

 Another handy recipe for those XP install geeks. This recipe explains how to 'slipstream' Service Pack 2 into your Windows XP Installation and then create a bootable Windows XP w/SP2 install cd. This is nice since the slipstreaming will update your XP installation files to have SP2 applied before you install! No more downloading or updating to SP2 on new installs.This recipe explains how to 'slipstream' the new Windows XP Service Pack 2 into your windows xp installation files (thus you will not need to update to SP2 after new XP installations. Requirements: -Windows XP Installation CD -Service Pack 2 (full "Network Install" file) -Windows 98SE Bootdisk or image of it -Smartdrv.exe Note: I'd recommend using easy folders to save the files and steps in. Step 1. Download the full Windows XP service pack 2 file. a. You can get it here. Download this file and save it to your harddrive (in this example, i will save it to C:\SP2 ) Step 2: Copying your XP Installation CD to your Harddrive a. Ne... Read More

 4.0 in order to support an older application. With multibooting, you can choose which operating system to run or specify a default OS if no selection is made during the restart process.Some good info from Microsoft. A computer can be configured to let you choose between two or more operating systems each time you restart the computer. For example, you could set up a server to run Windows 2000 Server most of the time but allow it to sometimes run Windows NT Server. Before using the multibooting feature, consider the tradeoffs: each operating system uses valuable disk space, and file system compatibility can be complex if you want to run Windows 2000 on one partition and Windows NT Server 4.0 or an earlier OS on another partition. In addition, dynamic disk format introduced in Windows 2000 does not work with earlier operating systems. However, multibooting capabilities are a valuable feature providing the single-machine flexibility not only to run earlier operating systems but also exper... Read More

 Using the Recovery Console requires the Windows XP CD. After installation the Recovery Console runs from a local drive and the CD is not needed.Note: The Recovery console is installed into Boot.ini. When the PC is booted the choice to start recovery console is displayed. 1. Insert the Windows XP CD. 2. Click Start. 3. Click Run. 4. Type CMD. 5. Type D:(Replace D with the drive letter containing the Windows XP CD). 6. cd\i386 7. winnt32 /cmdcons 8. Follow the on screen instructions. mike... Read More

 Create a bootable CD-ROM that will install Windows XP unattended. Setup Manager on the Windows XP CD will be used to create an answer file When installing multiple PCs it is easier to set up an unattended installation and burn a bootable CD. Then to answer each prompt during a manual installation. 1. Extract Setup Manager(Setupmgr.*) from \Support\Tools\Deploy.Cab on your Windows XP CD. 2. Run Setupmgr.exe 3. Setup Manager will generate files based on your answers. 4. Create a directory for your modified Windows XP install. For example, C:\NEWXP 5. Copy your original Windows XP CD into this directory preserving the directory structure of the CD. 6. Copy the files generated by Setup Manager to C:\NEWXP. 7. Modify autorun.inf to run your unattended setup of Windows XP and not the default. 8. Burn bootable CD. mike... Read More

 This is a quick recipe from one of my other ones, this explains how to use the ever dreaded FDISK to setup a partition on a new harddrive or delete an existing harddrive before clean installing an os using the windows 98 se bootdisk. Requirements: Windows 98 Boot Disk, Harddrive. So you got a new harddrive and want to install an os on it or have a harddrive that you want to wipe clean and re-install your os on; but fear the dreaded FDISK dos app? below is a quick recipe to soothe those fears of FDISK away. Requirements: Windows 98 SE Bootdisk NOTE! Remember that deleting a partition is equal to formatting your harddrive. So if you want it, back it up to cd or dvd!!!! Step 1. Deleteing Existing Partitions (if you are not using a new harddrive and want to delete old one) a. To do this, we will need to change the BIOS/CMOS settings so your PC will boot to Floppy first. b. Insert the Windows 98 Bootdisk, reboot your PC c. It will bring up a Windows 98 Startup Menu screen, choose the first ... Read More

 Quick method to see if a system has been activated or not.Ever wonder about a system's activation state? This will pull up the activation window for you. 1. Click Start 2. Click Run 3. Type the following in the textbox and then hit OK: %SYSTEMROOT%\system32\oobe\msoobe.exe /A... Read More

 Service Pack 2 will cause some systems with the early version of the prescott chip to lock up.You install SP2 on your prescott. Everything goes great... until you reboot. And then it hangs. You can't safe boot, you can't restore, you can't do anything. You lock up every single time. If your bios does not update prescott's microcode to Revision 8 or better, you will see the error. You can test for it beforehand by checking what your microcode revision is with this intel utility: http://support.intel.com/support/processors/tools/frequencyid/sb/CS-007623.htm If you have a current locking system, here's the two things you can do: Disable Cache in Your Bios When your system is booting, enter your bios screen. Disable your Level 1 and Level 2 cache and save. Reboot the system and let it sit. Your system will be very. very slow at this point, but it will boot. Uninstall SP2 through the Add/Remove Program section of your control panel. See this recipe for further uninstall details. After you u... Read More

 This method costs about $20, but is guaranteed to work every time.- put the harddrive into desktop PC (buy laptop to IDE converter, suggested: www.tigerdirect.ca) -format the drive to FAT32 (you can always switch it to ntfs later, with a prog such as partition magic) - Copy I386 folder from WinXP cd onto the laptop harddrive - put smartdrv.exe in the root directory (speeds up dos transers) - install dos 7.10 on drive (free download, but I suggest putting your laptop harddrive in IDE 1 to be sure of it's detection on startup) - put the harddrive back in the laptop -When you turn on the laptop DOS should load, otherwise select it from the list - run smartdrv.exe (type C:\smartdrv.exe at command prompt) - run 16bit Windows XP installer (type C:\I386\winnt.exe) - now let the laptop sit! Even if it appears to stall, it will continue, some older harddrives do not spin very fast and need time to load (5-10min is not an unreasonable wait *with smartdrv.exe installed, expect longer without it! ... Read More