This is a very simple trick to do if you have done the same for the logon screen and the start button. There are 2 ways to do this trick that I know about one is doing it manually and the other is using a program called bootxp. I am going to tell you the manual way to do it, but if you want to know the other way just let me know, so I can do an update to the guide. Now once you have downloaded your ntoskrnl.exe file save it a general location so that you will have easy access to it, like my folder.
Once you have ntoskrnl.exe file in an easy access folder, restart your pc into safe mode. Once into safe mode go to the folder where your files are located.
Now that you are there copy the file that you want to change your boot screen too. Once you have copied that file, hit the window key + r or type %windir%\system32 in the run command, so that folder as follows.
Once there paste your new file into the folder and overwrite the existing folder.
Now that you have your new file in the folder restart your pc as you normally would and your new boot screen should appear. You can download this bootscreen here.
ALWAYS BACKUP EVERYTHING YOU EDIT OR DELETE. I'M NOT RESPONSIBLE IF YOU MESS YOUR COMPUTER UP BY DOING THIS HACK OR ANY TYPE OF HACK. DO IT AT YOUR OWN RISK.
Image and ntoskrnl.exe files provided by www.themexp.org
or
u can go to
code:
http://www.overclockersclub.com/guides/hackxpbootscreen.php
Friday, October 17, 2008
IP Addressing
The intent of this paper is to document the background
behind the current IP address assignments which I have offered to
coordinate. The proposed scheme has been reviewed by Phil Karn,
Bdale Garbee and (verbally with) Mike Chepponis, all of whom have
encouraged that it be used.
Phil's code does NOT currently support the subnetwork
aspects of the scheme but will do so in the future. There is no
real reason for any national coordination of these addresses
until actual networks or at least geographically coordinated
groups of experimenters are formed.
I have offered to issue and keep track of SUBNET addresses
and their "owners" who are presumably responsible *NETWORK*
implementors and managers.
The basic premise behind the proposed plan is that amateur
radio networks will be politically defined. The plan is based
upon the presumption that current voice networks serve as a
proper analog by which to predict general characteristics of the
as yet unconstructed digital networks. Political entities will
build networks; funded, controlled, maintained and used primarily
by their own members and guests.
Each of these separately managed networks should be viewed
as a subnetwork of AMPRNET (with the idea being to somehow
rationally partition the 044.xxx.xxx.xxx AMPRNET address space).
Each subnetwork within AMPRNET will maintain routing tables for
its own constituents. Each will provide its own hosts (TACs,
Gateways, i.e. the mechanism by which users with simple terminals
and AX25 level 2 boxes will access network resources), switches,
rules (network administration), security measures and quite
possibly its own link level protocols.
The natural limitations on span of control will probably
limit the service area of each of these networks. This is
another factor leading to the partitioning of the AMPRNET address
space with respect to separate subnetworks.
This partitioning of the address space will allow for
much simplified routing tables in each host. Internetworking
gateways will connect these independently controlled subnetworks.
Each gateway will maintain routing tables only for local hosts
and for gateways to other networks. Hosts and relay switches on
a given subnet will need to maintain routing information
regarding only members of that subnet and gateways to other
networks. The required routing tables should prove to be very
manageable and make any kind of geographically based hueristic
addressing schemes such as ZIP codes, area codes etc. moot.
1
I would also like to propose that we coordinate logical
network names and their corresponding addresses based on these
political network subdivisions. The concept of a naming
convention which maps directly into an IP address is purely for
the convenience of network developers and is not considered
necessary. There is, however, some good reasoning behind making
network and host names hierarchical and meaningful to end users.
It will considerably aid in bootstrapping the initial networks
and in being comprehensible to the non-network folks who will be
the primary users of these networks. The naming convention
proposed is of the form USERID@HOST.SUBNET[.AMPRNET.RES].
WESTNET, SBARCnet (Santa Barbara ARC) and GFRN-net represent
three hypothetical networks with which this writer could be
involved, perhaps as a provider of gateway and/or host services.
Each of these subnetwork entities could have a distinct
address and perhaps several internally administered host/user
addresses.
[NOTE: Throughout this paper, Host or Host/User represents
any host or any user running IP protocols that has direct
network access. Also, for the purposes of the following
example, WA6JPR is not a network address, rather it
represents a user-id on a local host. It is the writer's
opinion that the majority of packet users for the forseeable
future will be using simple TNCs connected to hosts via
AX.25 level 2 protocols.]
WA6JPR may be "a user" on hosts on more than one network
such that a station in Washington D.C.,logged onto an AMPRNET
host, may send internet traffic successfully to
WA6JPR@JPRHOST.WESTNET (this traffic would be routed to Westnet
via various AMPRNET gateways and subnetwork level relays and then
to a Santa Barbara host known internally by Westnet to be
reachable via the W6AMT-2 switch). Traffic could also be
directed to Wally@SBARC (presuming that the Santa Barbara
Amateur Radio Club maintains a message server host gatewayed to
the AMPRNET catenet).
Based upon the presumption of the AMPRNET/SUBNET/HOST
hierarchy, it would seem that we could easily decide how to
allocate the 044.xxx.xxx.xxx 24 bit IP address field such that
there are bits allocated for a sufficient number of individually
managed subnetworks while leaving a correspondingly adequate
number of assignable bits for the internal addressing needs of
each individual subnetwork.
Accordingly, the following is proposed as an initial
addressing scheme and methodology for address assignment. [Bit
numbering is per RFC-960 Pg.2]
2
Bit 8 to be 0 for USA stations and 1 for non-USA stations.
[Note. This is not meant to imply a geographic basis for
assignments. It is meant to provide a very quick means for
segregating FCC controlled participants from non-FCC stations.]
Bits 9 - 18 to represent politically separate subnetworks within
AMPRNET. These bits are to be assigned in an inverse binary
sequence (see example below) beginning with the *MOST
SIGNIFICANT* bit first.
Bits 19 - 23 to be unassigned and reserved for future allocation
as network addresses, to network administrations for internally
assigned host and/or user addresses, to a combination of the
above or to a completely new intermediate class of addresses.
Bits 24 - 31 to be used within politically separate AMPRNET
subnetworks for individual hosts, switches, workstations etc. as
determined by local network administration. It would be
recommended that these bits be assigned in binary sequence with
the *LEAST SIGNIFICANT* bits being assigned first.
The resulting network addresses would be as follows:
AMPRNET
||
|| SUBNET----+
|| | |
|| | | HOST--+
|| | | | |
44:0...127:000:0...255------- 32,768 addresses assignable
44:0...127:001:0...255--+
| +- 1,015,808 addresses reserved
44:0...127:031:0...255--+
44:0...127:032:0...255------- 32,768 addresses assignable
44:0...127:033:0...255--+
| +- 1,015,808 addresses reserved
44:0...127:063:0...255--+
44:0...127:064:0...255------- 32,768 addresses assignable
44:0...127:065:0...255--+
| +- 1,015,808 addresses reserved
44:0...127:095:0...255--+
44:0...127:096:0...255------- 32,768 addresses assignable
44:0...127:097:0...255--+
| +- 1,015,808 addresses reserved
44:0...127:127:0...255--+
44:0...127:128:0...255------- 32,768 addresses assignable
44:0...127:129:0...255--+
| +- 1,015,808 addresses reserved
44:0...127:159:0...255--+
44:0...127:160:0...255------- 32,768 addresses assignable
44:0...127:161:0...255--+
| +- 1,015,808 addresses reserved
44:0...127:191:0...255--+
44:0...127:192:0...255------- 32,768 addresses assignable
3
44:0...127:193:0...255--+
| +- 1,015,808 addresses reserved
44:0...127:223:0...255--+
44:0...127:224:0...255------- 32,768 addresses assignable
44:0...127:225:0...255--+
| +- 1,015,808 addresses reserved
44:0...127:255:0...255--+
44:128:xxx:xxx----------+
| +- 8,388,608 addresses assignable (non USA)
44:255:xxx:xxx----------+
The above allocation and assignment scheme allows network
(subnet) and intranet (host/user) addresses to begin to be
immediately assigned to experimenters while retaining the largest
possible contiguous block of unassigned bits whose assignments
can be defined in the future with little or no impact on
previously allocated addresses. The USER @ HOSTNAME .
SUBNET/ADMINISTRATION naming scheme represents a human-friendly
network naming convention which maps easily into numerical
network addresses. I believe that the above approach is in
general conformance with the requirements of RFC-950, "Internet
Standard Subnetting Procedure."
The numbering scheme as initially proposed allows for up to
1024 AMPRNET subnetworks of up to 256 hosts in the USA while
retaining five bits for future expansion. That's 262,144
individual AMPRNET addressable entities. If the proposed method
of address assignment is followed and we run out of Host/User
addresses before we run out of network addresses, we can simply
pick up the least significant reserved bit and assign more
Host/User addresses. Conversely, if network addresses are more
popular we could easily expand by taking the most significant
reserved bit and allocating it for network addressing.
If it should become clear that every user on a network needs his
or her own IP address, each network could allocate user blocks in
256 user increments from the least significant reserved bits.
Possible combinations are 1024 networks each with up to 8192
individually addressable units or 2048 networks each with 4096
hosts/users (8,388,608 individually addressable entities).
The writer presumes that 8 million plus addresses ought to
last the US amateur population for some time to come. All we need
to do to avoid painting ourselves in a corner is to assign them
in a logical sequence rather than randomly.
4
The following table serves as an example of the "high bit
first" network address assignment table and some actual and
requested initial networking assignments.
"this" 44.000.000.xxx ;special case
KARNnet 44.064.000.xxx ;network admin: KA9Q
BDALEnet 44.032.000.xxx ;network admin: N3EUA
DCnet1 44.096.000.xxx ;network admin: WB6RQN
SOCALnet1 44.016.000.xxx ;network admin: WB5EKU
DCnet2 44.080.000.xxx ;network admin: WB6RQN
SOCALnet2 44.048.000.xxx ;network admin: WA6JPR
PITTNET 44.112.000.xxx ;network admin: N3CVL
next 44.008.000.xxx
next 44.072.000.xxx
.
.
.
last 44.063.000.xxx
"all" 44.127.000.xxx ;special case
behind the current IP address assignments which I have offered to
coordinate. The proposed scheme has been reviewed by Phil Karn,
Bdale Garbee and (verbally with) Mike Chepponis, all of whom have
encouraged that it be used.
Phil's code does NOT currently support the subnetwork
aspects of the scheme but will do so in the future. There is no
real reason for any national coordination of these addresses
until actual networks or at least geographically coordinated
groups of experimenters are formed.
I have offered to issue and keep track of SUBNET addresses
and their "owners" who are presumably responsible *NETWORK*
implementors and managers.
The basic premise behind the proposed plan is that amateur
radio networks will be politically defined. The plan is based
upon the presumption that current voice networks serve as a
proper analog by which to predict general characteristics of the
as yet unconstructed digital networks. Political entities will
build networks; funded, controlled, maintained and used primarily
by their own members and guests.
Each of these separately managed networks should be viewed
as a subnetwork of AMPRNET (with the idea being to somehow
rationally partition the 044.xxx.xxx.xxx AMPRNET address space).
Each subnetwork within AMPRNET will maintain routing tables for
its own constituents. Each will provide its own hosts (TACs,
Gateways, i.e. the mechanism by which users with simple terminals
and AX25 level 2 boxes will access network resources), switches,
rules (network administration), security measures and quite
possibly its own link level protocols.
The natural limitations on span of control will probably
limit the service area of each of these networks. This is
another factor leading to the partitioning of the AMPRNET address
space with respect to separate subnetworks.
This partitioning of the address space will allow for
much simplified routing tables in each host. Internetworking
gateways will connect these independently controlled subnetworks.
Each gateway will maintain routing tables only for local hosts
and for gateways to other networks. Hosts and relay switches on
a given subnet will need to maintain routing information
regarding only members of that subnet and gateways to other
networks. The required routing tables should prove to be very
manageable and make any kind of geographically based hueristic
addressing schemes such as ZIP codes, area codes etc. moot.
1
I would also like to propose that we coordinate logical
network names and their corresponding addresses based on these
political network subdivisions. The concept of a naming
convention which maps directly into an IP address is purely for
the convenience of network developers and is not considered
necessary. There is, however, some good reasoning behind making
network and host names hierarchical and meaningful to end users.
It will considerably aid in bootstrapping the initial networks
and in being comprehensible to the non-network folks who will be
the primary users of these networks. The naming convention
proposed is of the form USERID@HOST.SUBNET[.AMPRNET.RES].
WESTNET, SBARCnet (Santa Barbara ARC) and GFRN-net represent
three hypothetical networks with which this writer could be
involved, perhaps as a provider of gateway and/or host services.
Each of these subnetwork entities could have a distinct
address and perhaps several internally administered host/user
addresses.
[NOTE: Throughout this paper, Host or Host/User represents
any host or any user running IP protocols that has direct
network access. Also, for the purposes of the following
example, WA6JPR is not a network address, rather it
represents a user-id on a local host. It is the writer's
opinion that the majority of packet users for the forseeable
future will be using simple TNCs connected to hosts via
AX.25 level 2 protocols.]
WA6JPR may be "a user" on hosts on more than one network
such that a station in Washington D.C.,logged onto an AMPRNET
host, may send internet traffic successfully to
WA6JPR@JPRHOST.WESTNET (this traffic would be routed to Westnet
via various AMPRNET gateways and subnetwork level relays and then
to a Santa Barbara host known internally by Westnet to be
reachable via the W6AMT-2 switch). Traffic could also be
directed to Wally@SBARC (presuming that the Santa Barbara
Amateur Radio Club maintains a message server host gatewayed to
the AMPRNET catenet).
Based upon the presumption of the AMPRNET/SUBNET/HOST
hierarchy, it would seem that we could easily decide how to
allocate the 044.xxx.xxx.xxx 24 bit IP address field such that
there are bits allocated for a sufficient number of individually
managed subnetworks while leaving a correspondingly adequate
number of assignable bits for the internal addressing needs of
each individual subnetwork.
Accordingly, the following is proposed as an initial
addressing scheme and methodology for address assignment. [Bit
numbering is per RFC-960 Pg.2]
2
Bit 8 to be 0 for USA stations and 1 for non-USA stations.
[Note. This is not meant to imply a geographic basis for
assignments. It is meant to provide a very quick means for
segregating FCC controlled participants from non-FCC stations.]
Bits 9 - 18 to represent politically separate subnetworks within
AMPRNET. These bits are to be assigned in an inverse binary
sequence (see example below) beginning with the *MOST
SIGNIFICANT* bit first.
Bits 19 - 23 to be unassigned and reserved for future allocation
as network addresses, to network administrations for internally
assigned host and/or user addresses, to a combination of the
above or to a completely new intermediate class of addresses.
Bits 24 - 31 to be used within politically separate AMPRNET
subnetworks for individual hosts, switches, workstations etc. as
determined by local network administration. It would be
recommended that these bits be assigned in binary sequence with
the *LEAST SIGNIFICANT* bits being assigned first.
The resulting network addresses would be as follows:
AMPRNET
||
|| SUBNET----+
|| | |
|| | | HOST--+
|| | | | |
44:0...127:000:0...255------- 32,768 addresses assignable
44:0...127:001:0...255--+
| +- 1,015,808 addresses reserved
44:0...127:031:0...255--+
44:0...127:032:0...255------- 32,768 addresses assignable
44:0...127:033:0...255--+
| +- 1,015,808 addresses reserved
44:0...127:063:0...255--+
44:0...127:064:0...255------- 32,768 addresses assignable
44:0...127:065:0...255--+
| +- 1,015,808 addresses reserved
44:0...127:095:0...255--+
44:0...127:096:0...255------- 32,768 addresses assignable
44:0...127:097:0...255--+
| +- 1,015,808 addresses reserved
44:0...127:127:0...255--+
44:0...127:128:0...255------- 32,768 addresses assignable
44:0...127:129:0...255--+
| +- 1,015,808 addresses reserved
44:0...127:159:0...255--+
44:0...127:160:0...255------- 32,768 addresses assignable
44:0...127:161:0...255--+
| +- 1,015,808 addresses reserved
44:0...127:191:0...255--+
44:0...127:192:0...255------- 32,768 addresses assignable
3
44:0...127:193:0...255--+
| +- 1,015,808 addresses reserved
44:0...127:223:0...255--+
44:0...127:224:0...255------- 32,768 addresses assignable
44:0...127:225:0...255--+
| +- 1,015,808 addresses reserved
44:0...127:255:0...255--+
44:128:xxx:xxx----------+
| +- 8,388,608 addresses assignable (non USA)
44:255:xxx:xxx----------+
The above allocation and assignment scheme allows network
(subnet) and intranet (host/user) addresses to begin to be
immediately assigned to experimenters while retaining the largest
possible contiguous block of unassigned bits whose assignments
can be defined in the future with little or no impact on
previously allocated addresses. The USER @ HOSTNAME .
SUBNET/ADMINISTRATION naming scheme represents a human-friendly
network naming convention which maps easily into numerical
network addresses. I believe that the above approach is in
general conformance with the requirements of RFC-950, "Internet
Standard Subnetting Procedure."
The numbering scheme as initially proposed allows for up to
1024 AMPRNET subnetworks of up to 256 hosts in the USA while
retaining five bits for future expansion. That's 262,144
individual AMPRNET addressable entities. If the proposed method
of address assignment is followed and we run out of Host/User
addresses before we run out of network addresses, we can simply
pick up the least significant reserved bit and assign more
Host/User addresses. Conversely, if network addresses are more
popular we could easily expand by taking the most significant
reserved bit and allocating it for network addressing.
If it should become clear that every user on a network needs his
or her own IP address, each network could allocate user blocks in
256 user increments from the least significant reserved bits.
Possible combinations are 1024 networks each with up to 8192
individually addressable units or 2048 networks each with 4096
hosts/users (8,388,608 individually addressable entities).
The writer presumes that 8 million plus addresses ought to
last the US amateur population for some time to come. All we need
to do to avoid painting ourselves in a corner is to assign them
in a logical sequence rather than randomly.
4
The following table serves as an example of the "high bit
first" network address assignment table and some actual and
requested initial networking assignments.
"this" 44.000.000.xxx ;special case
KARNnet 44.064.000.xxx ;network admin: KA9Q
BDALEnet 44.032.000.xxx ;network admin: N3EUA
DCnet1 44.096.000.xxx ;network admin: WB6RQN
SOCALnet1 44.016.000.xxx ;network admin: WB5EKU
DCnet2 44.080.000.xxx ;network admin: WB6RQN
SOCALnet2 44.048.000.xxx ;network admin: WA6JPR
PITTNET 44.112.000.xxx ;network admin: N3CVL
next 44.008.000.xxx
next 44.072.000.xxx
.
.
.
last 44.063.000.xxx
"all" 44.127.000.xxx ;special case
Monday, October 13, 2008
Hard drive Gone Bad
The most common problems originate
from corruption of the master boot record, FAT, or directory.
Those are soft problems which can usually be taken care of
with a combination of tools like Fdisk /mbr to refresh the
master boot record followed by a reboot and Norton disk doctor
or Spinneret.
The most common hardware problems are a bad controller, a bad
drive motor, or a bad head mechanism.
1. Can the BIOS see and identify the hard drive correctly? If
it can't, then the hard drives onboard controller is bad.
2. Does the drive spin and maintain a constant velocity? If it
does, that's good news. The motor is functioning.
3. If the drive surges and dies, the most likely cause is a
bad controller (assuming the drive is cool). A gate allowing
the current to drive the motor may not be staying open. The
drive needs a new controller.
4. Do you hear a lot of head clatter when the machine is
turned on and initialized (but before the system attempts to
access the hard drive). Head clatter would indicate that the
spindle bearings are sloppy or worn badly. Maybe even lose and
flopping around inside.
5. There is always the possibility that the controller you are
using in the machine has gone south.
1. If the drive spins, try booting to the A> prompt, run Fdisk
and check to see if Fdisk can see a partition on the hard
drive. If Fdisk can see the partition, that means that it can
access the drive and that the controller electronics are
functioning correctly. If there is no head clatter, it may be
just a matter of disk corruption which commonly occurs when a
surge hits you machine and overwhelms the power supply voltage
regulator. It commonly over whelms the system electronics
allowing an EM pulse to wipe out the master boot record, file
allocations table, and primary directory. Fdisk can fix the
master boot record and Norton Disk Doctor can restore the FAT
and Directory from the secondaries.
2. The drive spins but Fdisk can't see it. Try the drive in
another system and repeat the test to confirm that Fdisk can't
read through the drives onboard controller. If it sees it in
another system, then your machines hard drive interface is
bad. You can try an upgraded or replacement controller card
like a Promise or CMD Technologies (there are others) in you
machine after disabling the integrated controller in the BIOS,
but if the integrated controller went south, it may just be
symptomatic of further failures and you'd be wise to replace
the motherboard. Trying the drive in another machine also
eliminates the variable that your machines 12 volt power
output being bad
3. If you get head clatter but a constant velocity on the
drive motor (no surging), you might try sticking the hard
drive in the freezer for about 12 hours. This is an old trick
from back in the days of the MFM/ESDI driver era. This can
cause the drive components to shrink enough to make the track
marker align with the tracks. We don't see that kind of
platter spindle wear much anymore, but back in the old days,
the balancing and bearings weren't as good. Still, under the
right circumstances, it might help. It would depend on how old
the drive is and how many hours of wear have occurred. You
have to be quick to get your info off the drive when it works.
Back then, the drives were much smaller, so there wasn't so
much to copy. So, go after the important data first.
4. The drive doesn't spin. Either the onboard controller is
bad or the motor is bad (assuming you did try the drive in
another machine). It's time to hit the net and local
independent shops to see if you can locate another drive of
the same make and model that's good. Since the drive is
probably an older drive and no longer in distribution, your
best bet is to find an identical used drive. If you know
someone with the same make and model, you might be wise to try
and persuade them to sell you their drive with an offer of
providing them with a free upgraded drive. If you can locate
an identical drive, start with the controller replacement ...
this is the simplest and least invasive. If swapping the
controller doesn't produce the desire result, you can tear
into the drive and swap the motors. While you have both drive
opened up to accomplish this, scrutinize the platters, heads
and armatures. You might even hook the drive up and power it
from a system with both drives attached. This way, you could
see anything that deviates between the actions of both drives
when they are initialized. Swapping patters is unlikely to
produce any positive result. They are a balanced system like
the tires on your car and I suspect that the balance will be
different for each drive as will other variables.
5. There's always Ontrack Corp. who will attempt to recoup
your info starting at $500 and going up from there. They don't
fix and return the drive either.
If the info is all that important to you, I would seek some
professional and experience technician in your locality who
makes his living from servicing and building computer systems
... not just selling them. If you have had much experience
salvaging information from bad hard drives, your likelihood of
success is low. In the case of soft corruption, all utilities
have their eccentricities. Often times, Norton Disk Doctor
will go too far (if you let it). It's wise to just let those
utilities small steps and then have a look at the drive and
see if you can copy it off. Norton will go so far as to rename
directories and files, and even delete them or break them up
into fragments which are useless.
_________________
from corruption of the master boot record, FAT, or directory.
Those are soft problems which can usually be taken care of
with a combination of tools like Fdisk /mbr to refresh the
master boot record followed by a reboot and Norton disk doctor
or Spinneret.
The most common hardware problems are a bad controller, a bad
drive motor, or a bad head mechanism.
1. Can the BIOS see and identify the hard drive correctly? If
it can't, then the hard drives onboard controller is bad.
2. Does the drive spin and maintain a constant velocity? If it
does, that's good news. The motor is functioning.
3. If the drive surges and dies, the most likely cause is a
bad controller (assuming the drive is cool). A gate allowing
the current to drive the motor may not be staying open. The
drive needs a new controller.
4. Do you hear a lot of head clatter when the machine is
turned on and initialized (but before the system attempts to
access the hard drive). Head clatter would indicate that the
spindle bearings are sloppy or worn badly. Maybe even lose and
flopping around inside.
5. There is always the possibility that the controller you are
using in the machine has gone south.
1. If the drive spins, try booting to the A> prompt, run Fdisk
and check to see if Fdisk can see a partition on the hard
drive. If Fdisk can see the partition, that means that it can
access the drive and that the controller electronics are
functioning correctly. If there is no head clatter, it may be
just a matter of disk corruption which commonly occurs when a
surge hits you machine and overwhelms the power supply voltage
regulator. It commonly over whelms the system electronics
allowing an EM pulse to wipe out the master boot record, file
allocations table, and primary directory. Fdisk can fix the
master boot record and Norton Disk Doctor can restore the FAT
and Directory from the secondaries.
2. The drive spins but Fdisk can't see it. Try the drive in
another system and repeat the test to confirm that Fdisk can't
read through the drives onboard controller. If it sees it in
another system, then your machines hard drive interface is
bad. You can try an upgraded or replacement controller card
like a Promise or CMD Technologies (there are others) in you
machine after disabling the integrated controller in the BIOS,
but if the integrated controller went south, it may just be
symptomatic of further failures and you'd be wise to replace
the motherboard. Trying the drive in another machine also
eliminates the variable that your machines 12 volt power
output being bad
3. If you get head clatter but a constant velocity on the
drive motor (no surging), you might try sticking the hard
drive in the freezer for about 12 hours. This is an old trick
from back in the days of the MFM/ESDI driver era. This can
cause the drive components to shrink enough to make the track
marker align with the tracks. We don't see that kind of
platter spindle wear much anymore, but back in the old days,
the balancing and bearings weren't as good. Still, under the
right circumstances, it might help. It would depend on how old
the drive is and how many hours of wear have occurred. You
have to be quick to get your info off the drive when it works.
Back then, the drives were much smaller, so there wasn't so
much to copy. So, go after the important data first.
4. The drive doesn't spin. Either the onboard controller is
bad or the motor is bad (assuming you did try the drive in
another machine). It's time to hit the net and local
independent shops to see if you can locate another drive of
the same make and model that's good. Since the drive is
probably an older drive and no longer in distribution, your
best bet is to find an identical used drive. If you know
someone with the same make and model, you might be wise to try
and persuade them to sell you their drive with an offer of
providing them with a free upgraded drive. If you can locate
an identical drive, start with the controller replacement ...
this is the simplest and least invasive. If swapping the
controller doesn't produce the desire result, you can tear
into the drive and swap the motors. While you have both drive
opened up to accomplish this, scrutinize the platters, heads
and armatures. You might even hook the drive up and power it
from a system with both drives attached. This way, you could
see anything that deviates between the actions of both drives
when they are initialized. Swapping patters is unlikely to
produce any positive result. They are a balanced system like
the tires on your car and I suspect that the balance will be
different for each drive as will other variables.
5. There's always Ontrack Corp. who will attempt to recoup
your info starting at $500 and going up from there. They don't
fix and return the drive either.
If the info is all that important to you, I would seek some
professional and experience technician in your locality who
makes his living from servicing and building computer systems
... not just selling them. If you have had much experience
salvaging information from bad hard drives, your likelihood of
success is low. In the case of soft corruption, all utilities
have their eccentricities. Often times, Norton Disk Doctor
will go too far (if you let it). It's wise to just let those
utilities small steps and then have a look at the drive and
see if you can copy it off. Norton will go so far as to rename
directories and files, and even delete them or break them up
into fragments which are useless.
_________________
Easily Find Serial Numbers,Search; On Google..
let's pretend you need a serial number for windows xp pro.
in the search bar type in just like this - "Windows XP Professional" 94FBR
the key is the 94FBR code.. it was included with many MS Office registration codes so this will help you dramatically reduce the amount of 'fake' porn sites that trick you.
or if you want to find the serial for winzip 8.1 - "Winzip 8.1" 94FBR
just try it out, it's very quick and it works nicely..
-----------------------------------------------------------
here is another trick that works fairly decent for finding mp3's on the web (which is hard to do normally, to say the least)
say you want to get, for example, a Garth Brooks song. type this in the search bar - "index of/" "garth brooks" .mp3 the ones you want to check out first are the ones that say "Index of/" in the title of the search result. this technique allows you to easily pull up web folders with direct downloads. it will look the same as if you were logging into a ftp url.. i'm sure you can be pretty flexible on how you type that in, so long as you include "index of/"
i'm sure you can use this for more than just mp3's (it's not perfect but it has worked for me on a few occasions)
always make sure to use the quotations where i placed them. they help pinpoint the correct search results more accurately. just try it out, also if you want to learn how to do more with google look up "google hacks"
in the search bar type in just like this - "Windows XP Professional" 94FBR
the key is the 94FBR code.. it was included with many MS Office registration codes so this will help you dramatically reduce the amount of 'fake' porn sites that trick you.
or if you want to find the serial for winzip 8.1 - "Winzip 8.1" 94FBR
just try it out, it's very quick and it works nicely..
-----------------------------------------------------------
here is another trick that works fairly decent for finding mp3's on the web (which is hard to do normally, to say the least)
say you want to get, for example, a Garth Brooks song. type this in the search bar - "index of/" "garth brooks" .mp3 the ones you want to check out first are the ones that say "Index of/" in the title of the search result. this technique allows you to easily pull up web folders with direct downloads. it will look the same as if you were logging into a ftp url.. i'm sure you can be pretty flexible on how you type that in, so long as you include "index of/"
i'm sure you can use this for more than just mp3's (it's not perfect but it has worked for me on a few occasions)
always make sure to use the quotations where i placed them. they help pinpoint the correct search results more accurately. just try it out, also if you want to learn how to do more with google look up "google hacks"
Directx Explained
DirectX explained
Ever wondered just what that enigmatic name means?
Gaming and multimedia applications are some of the most satisfying programs you can get for your PC, but getting them to run properly isn’t always as easy as it could be. First, the PC architecture was never designed as a gaming platform. Second, the wide-ranging nature of the PC means that one person’s machine can be different from another. While games consoles all contain the same hardware, PCs don’t: the massive range of difference can make gaming a headache.
To alleviate as much of the pain as possible, Microsoft needed to introduce a common standard which all games and multimedia applications could follow – a common interface between the OS and whatever hardware is installed in the PC, if you like. This common interface is DirectX, something which can be the source of much confusion.
DirectX is an interface designed to make certain programming tasks much easier, for both the game developer and the rest of us who just want to sit down and play the latest blockbuster. Before we can explain what DirectX is and how it works though, we need a little history lesson.
DirectX history
Any game needs to perform certain tasks again and again. It needs to watch for your input from mouse, joystick or keyboard, and it needs to be able to display screen images and play sounds or music. That’s pretty much any game at the most simplistic level.
Imagine how incredibly complex this was for programmers developing on the early pre-Windows PC architecture, then. Each programmer needed to develop their own way of reading the keyboard or detecting whether a joystick was even attached, let alone being used to play the game. Specific routines were needed even to display the simplest of images on the screen or play a simple sound.
Essentially, the game programmers were talking directly to your PC’s hardware at a fundamental level. When Microsoft introduced Windows, it was imperative for the stability and success of the PC platform that things were made easier for both the developer and the player. After all, who would bother writing games for a machine when they had to reinvent the wheel every time they began work on a new game? Microsoft’s idea was simple: stop programmers talking directly to the hardware, and build a common toolkit which they could use instead. DirectX was born.
How it works
At the most basic level, DirectX is an interface between the hardware in your PC and Windows itself, part of the Windows API or Application Programming Interface. Let’s look at a practical example. When a game developer wants to play a sound file, it’s simply a case of using the correct library function. When the game runs, this calls the DirectX API, which in turn plays the sound file. The developer doesn’t need to know what type of sound card he’s dealing with, what it’s capable of, or how to talk to it. Microsoft has provided DirectX, and the sound card manufacturer has provided a DirectX-capable driver. He asks for the sound to be played, and it is – whichever machine it runs on.
From our point of view as gamers, DirectX also makes things incredibly easy – at least in theory. You install a new sound card in place of your old one, and it comes with a DirectX driver. Next time you play your favourite game you can still hear sounds and music, and you haven’t had to make any complex configuration changes.
Originally, DirectX began life as a simple toolkit: early hardware was limited and only the most basic graphical functions were required. As hardware and software has evolved in complexity, so has DirectX. It’s now much more than a graphical toolkit, and the term has come to encompass a massive selection of routines which deal with all sorts of hardware communication. For example, the DirectInput routines can deal with all sorts of input devices, from simple two-button mice to complex flight joysticks. Other parts include DirectSound for audio devices and DirectPlay provides a toolkit for online or multiplayer gaming.
DirectX versions
The current version of DirectX at time of writing is DirectX 9.0. This runs on all versions of Windows from Windows 98 up to and including Windows Server 2003 along with every revision in between. It doesn’t run on Windows 95 though: if you have a machine with Windows 95 installed, you’re stuck with the older and less capable 8.0a. Windows NT 4 also requires a specific version – in this case, it’s DirectX 3.0a.
With so many versions of DirectX available over the years, it becomes difficult to keep track of which version you need. In all but the most rare cases, all versions of DirectX are backwardly compatible – games which say they require DirectX 7 will happily run with more recent versions, but not with older copies. Many current titles explicitly state that they require DirectX 9, and won’t run without the latest version installed. This is because they make use of new features introduced with this version, although it has been known for lazy developers to specify the very latest version as a requirement when the game in question doesn’t use any of the new enhancements. Generally speaking though, if a title is version locked like this, you will need to upgrade before you can play. Improvements to the core DirectX code mean you may even see improvements in many titles when you upgrade to the latest build of DirectX. Downloading and installing DirectX need not be complex, either.
Upgrading DirectX
All available versions of Windows come with DirectX in one form or another as a core system component which cannot be removed, so you should always have at least a basic implementation of the system installed on your PC. However, many new games require the very latest version before they work properly, or even at all.
Generally, the best place to install the latest version of DirectX from is the dedicated section of the Microsoft Web site, which is found at www.microsoft.com/windows/directx. As we went to press, the most recent build available for general download was DirectX 9.0b. You can download either a simple installer which will in turn download the components your system requires as it installs, or download the complete distribution package in one go for later offline installation.
Another good source for DirectX is games themselves. If a game requires a specific version, it’ll be on the installation CD and may even be installed automatically by the game’s installer itself. You won’t find it on magazine cover discs though, thanks to Microsoft’s licensing terms.
Diagnosing problems
Diagnosing problems with a DirectX installation can be problematic, especially if you don’t know which one of the many components is causing your newly purchased game to fall over. Thankfully, Microsoft provides a useful utility called the DirectX Diagnostic Tool, although this isn’t made obvious. You won’t find this tool in the Start Menu with any version of Windows, and each tends to install it in a different place.
The easiest way to use it is to open the Start Menu’s Run dialog, type in dxdiag and then click OK. When the application first loads, it takes a few seconds to interrogate your DirectX installation and find any problems. First, the DirectX Files tab displays version information on each one of the files your installation uses. The Notes section at the bottom is worth checking, as missing or corrupted files will be flagged here.
The tabs marked Display, Sound, Music, Input and Network all relate to specific areas of DirectX, and all but the Input tab provide tools to test the correct functioning on your hardware. Finally, the More Help tab provides a useful way to start the DirectX Troubleshooter, Microsoft’s simple linear problem solving tool for many common DirectX issues.
Ever wondered just what that enigmatic name means?
Gaming and multimedia applications are some of the most satisfying programs you can get for your PC, but getting them to run properly isn’t always as easy as it could be. First, the PC architecture was never designed as a gaming platform. Second, the wide-ranging nature of the PC means that one person’s machine can be different from another. While games consoles all contain the same hardware, PCs don’t: the massive range of difference can make gaming a headache.
To alleviate as much of the pain as possible, Microsoft needed to introduce a common standard which all games and multimedia applications could follow – a common interface between the OS and whatever hardware is installed in the PC, if you like. This common interface is DirectX, something which can be the source of much confusion.
DirectX is an interface designed to make certain programming tasks much easier, for both the game developer and the rest of us who just want to sit down and play the latest blockbuster. Before we can explain what DirectX is and how it works though, we need a little history lesson.
DirectX history
Any game needs to perform certain tasks again and again. It needs to watch for your input from mouse, joystick or keyboard, and it needs to be able to display screen images and play sounds or music. That’s pretty much any game at the most simplistic level.
Imagine how incredibly complex this was for programmers developing on the early pre-Windows PC architecture, then. Each programmer needed to develop their own way of reading the keyboard or detecting whether a joystick was even attached, let alone being used to play the game. Specific routines were needed even to display the simplest of images on the screen or play a simple sound.
Essentially, the game programmers were talking directly to your PC’s hardware at a fundamental level. When Microsoft introduced Windows, it was imperative for the stability and success of the PC platform that things were made easier for both the developer and the player. After all, who would bother writing games for a machine when they had to reinvent the wheel every time they began work on a new game? Microsoft’s idea was simple: stop programmers talking directly to the hardware, and build a common toolkit which they could use instead. DirectX was born.
How it works
At the most basic level, DirectX is an interface between the hardware in your PC and Windows itself, part of the Windows API or Application Programming Interface. Let’s look at a practical example. When a game developer wants to play a sound file, it’s simply a case of using the correct library function. When the game runs, this calls the DirectX API, which in turn plays the sound file. The developer doesn’t need to know what type of sound card he’s dealing with, what it’s capable of, or how to talk to it. Microsoft has provided DirectX, and the sound card manufacturer has provided a DirectX-capable driver. He asks for the sound to be played, and it is – whichever machine it runs on.
From our point of view as gamers, DirectX also makes things incredibly easy – at least in theory. You install a new sound card in place of your old one, and it comes with a DirectX driver. Next time you play your favourite game you can still hear sounds and music, and you haven’t had to make any complex configuration changes.
Originally, DirectX began life as a simple toolkit: early hardware was limited and only the most basic graphical functions were required. As hardware and software has evolved in complexity, so has DirectX. It’s now much more than a graphical toolkit, and the term has come to encompass a massive selection of routines which deal with all sorts of hardware communication. For example, the DirectInput routines can deal with all sorts of input devices, from simple two-button mice to complex flight joysticks. Other parts include DirectSound for audio devices and DirectPlay provides a toolkit for online or multiplayer gaming.
DirectX versions
The current version of DirectX at time of writing is DirectX 9.0. This runs on all versions of Windows from Windows 98 up to and including Windows Server 2003 along with every revision in between. It doesn’t run on Windows 95 though: if you have a machine with Windows 95 installed, you’re stuck with the older and less capable 8.0a. Windows NT 4 also requires a specific version – in this case, it’s DirectX 3.0a.
With so many versions of DirectX available over the years, it becomes difficult to keep track of which version you need. In all but the most rare cases, all versions of DirectX are backwardly compatible – games which say they require DirectX 7 will happily run with more recent versions, but not with older copies. Many current titles explicitly state that they require DirectX 9, and won’t run without the latest version installed. This is because they make use of new features introduced with this version, although it has been known for lazy developers to specify the very latest version as a requirement when the game in question doesn’t use any of the new enhancements. Generally speaking though, if a title is version locked like this, you will need to upgrade before you can play. Improvements to the core DirectX code mean you may even see improvements in many titles when you upgrade to the latest build of DirectX. Downloading and installing DirectX need not be complex, either.
Upgrading DirectX
All available versions of Windows come with DirectX in one form or another as a core system component which cannot be removed, so you should always have at least a basic implementation of the system installed on your PC. However, many new games require the very latest version before they work properly, or even at all.
Generally, the best place to install the latest version of DirectX from is the dedicated section of the Microsoft Web site, which is found at www.microsoft.com/windows/directx. As we went to press, the most recent build available for general download was DirectX 9.0b. You can download either a simple installer which will in turn download the components your system requires as it installs, or download the complete distribution package in one go for later offline installation.
Another good source for DirectX is games themselves. If a game requires a specific version, it’ll be on the installation CD and may even be installed automatically by the game’s installer itself. You won’t find it on magazine cover discs though, thanks to Microsoft’s licensing terms.
Diagnosing problems
Diagnosing problems with a DirectX installation can be problematic, especially if you don’t know which one of the many components is causing your newly purchased game to fall over. Thankfully, Microsoft provides a useful utility called the DirectX Diagnostic Tool, although this isn’t made obvious. You won’t find this tool in the Start Menu with any version of Windows, and each tends to install it in a different place.
The easiest way to use it is to open the Start Menu’s Run dialog, type in dxdiag and then click OK. When the application first loads, it takes a few seconds to interrogate your DirectX installation and find any problems. First, the DirectX Files tab displays version information on each one of the files your installation uses. The Notes section at the bottom is worth checking, as missing or corrupted files will be flagged here.
The tabs marked Display, Sound, Music, Input and Network all relate to specific areas of DirectX, and all but the Input tab provide tools to test the correct functioning on your hardware. Finally, the More Help tab provides a useful way to start the DirectX Troubleshooter, Microsoft’s simple linear problem solving tool for many common DirectX issues.
Change The Default Location For Installing Apps
As the size of hardrives increase, more people are using partitions to seperate and store groups of files.
XP uses the C:\Program Files directory as the default base directory into which new programs are installed. However, you can change the default installation drive and/ or directory by using a Registry hack.
Run the Registry Editor (regedit)and go to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion
Look for the value named ProgramFilesDir. by default,this value will be C:\Program Files. Edit the value to any valid drive or folder and XP will use that new location as the default installation directory for new programs.
XP uses the C:\Program Files directory as the default base directory into which new programs are installed. However, you can change the default installation drive and/ or directory by using a Registry hack.
Run the Registry Editor (regedit)and go to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion
Look for the value named ProgramFilesDir. by default,this value will be C:\Program Files. Edit the value to any valid drive or folder and XP will use that new location as the default installation directory for new programs.
Change The Storage Location Of 'my Documents', a bit safer for when your PC crashes...
I just found out about this today, and I use Windows XP for some time now, so i guess there are others out there who don't know about this yet.
But normally windows saves the "My Documents" folder on your C-drive. But when you right-click on it and go to properties, you can change the location where you want windows to save your Documents folder.
I have a partition set up with just windows on it, and all my things i want to keep are on different partitions/disks. So now I put My Documents on another partition than where I have windows installed. If windows screws up and you have to format your C-drive again, your documents will be spared at least...
But normally windows saves the "My Documents" folder on your C-drive. But when you right-click on it and go to properties, you can change the location where you want windows to save your Documents folder.
I have a partition set up with just windows on it, and all my things i want to keep are on different partitions/disks. So now I put My Documents on another partition than where I have windows installed. If windows screws up and you have to format your C-drive again, your documents will be spared at least...
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