[[Question] - System Restore Essentials]

I just created an unattended install DVD with all my programs on it. When windows has problems or I screw it up, just pop in the disk and an hour later I've got my original build again.

that's a waste of time if you're installing everything all over again.

someone in this thread mentioned true image. that creates a disk image of your OS with all apps installed. that's much faster... like minutes (not hours).

i personally use norton ghost. i have never experienced a problem with it and prefer it over true image.

[[Question] - How to clean the pagin file once ?]

Your acronis image does not use any more space for the pagefile. It's created as a zero-byte file within the archive. You'll never need to worry about the pagefile or hibernation file when it comes to Acronis True Image.

Interesting.

What about Norton Ghost? Does it also exclude the pagefile?

What if you delete the pagefile after creating the image using Ghost Explorer?

[rescue cd]

I finally integrated my NIC card driver (Yukon Marvell) to the WinXP CD. I also integrated drivers for the RAID HDD. However, my HDD is still not recognized. I was able to browse the internet because the NIC card driver loaded correctly.

There are tutorials on how to integrate drivers. nLite can do this for you with certain drivers. Otherwise look at any forums/topics that deal with Bâshrat the Sneaky.

And yes... I changed my avatar. Naruto (my new favorite anime show) is getting really interesting.

[partition magic + EZ Drive = no HDD]

I agree with Andromeda. I have been using Partition Magic for quite some time and it has not messed up on me yet. I've resized my OS partition without a problem.

To me, I don't think it's a technicians tool. Very simple to understand.

I also agree that you shouldn't use it from within Windows to resize the OS partition. Whenever I have tried to do it from within windows, it has warned me that it cannot lock the drive.

I ALWAYS BACKUP THE OS BEFORE I MAKE ANY CHANGES!!

Get the latest version from Symantec and make boot disks from it. Works great. I actually combined the two floppies into one (yes it all fits).

About your SATA problem: Windows installation does not natively support SATA drives. Therefore, you'll have to press F6 to install SATA drivers in order to install Windows XP.

Look for the SATA drivers provided with your BIOS.

[Acrobat 7 Font Problem]

sfc /scannow works with Windows 2000 as well.

Were you ever able to view the file in AR7 on that particular computer? I'm wondering if there's a conflict with the font installation, perhaps from other software being installed (i.e. Any office-like program that would install fonts as well).

The problems seems independent of the OS and independent of whether you use Acrobat Reader 7 or Acrobat 7. I can uninstall both and install Acrobat Reader 6 and view the file correctly.

Your comment about any conflict with font installation leads me to believe there SEEMS to be a conflict with some PostScript Type 1 fonts. The problems starts after having installed a certain group of my PS fonts and using them in Office. There might be a delay (not right after installation but maybe couple of days after). Still can't figure out what the trigger is.

[auto shutdown software?]

Is there a program where i can set the time and when that time comes, it will automatically shut down the comp?

Would you believe I read in PC Magazine (or PC World) that Win XP has a built in undocumented program called Shutdown!!??

I have the article at home, but you may want to try searching these magazine sites and the program. That article explains how to use it.

[How to change the CD icon that appears for a CD]

Guys, I think his question is being misinterpreted. His question is, say you put one CD in and your CD icon comes up, then you change the CD. However, the new icon for the new CD does not show up. The old CD's icon remains.

I've has similar issues when switching CDs. The icon remains stuck.

I think your only option is to reboot. The icon will reset itself. Other than that, refresh does not refresh the icon.

Maybe someone else has a clue.

autorun.inf

change, the line that says "icon=...."

[rescue cd]

I see! I will try that. Although I don't know how yet, I'm sure there's probably a tutorial here somewhere on this site.

You changed your Avatar, no?

The thing about the UBCD and hardware is that anything that Windows doesn't detect on its own won't show up in UBCD. If you need to install third party drivers for your NIC (from ASUS) to get it to work, then you'll need to integrate those drivers into the source for your UBCD. Same goes for the RAID controller.

[rescue cd]

No, I have standard PATA hard drive connected to the RAID port. (I have two RAID and two IDE; have CD/DVD ROMs on the IDE ports and hard drive on RAID port).

The NIC is built into the motherboard. It's a Marvel Yuvok 1 gbit that's on ASUS P5gdc mobo.

No specific error message, other than no NIC found and my hdd simply don't show up in explorer.

Yup, Ghost has it's own recovery CD, but was wondering how I can make use of the UBCD. So far, it just takes a long time to load. Once it loads, since I can't load NIC card, I can't browse internet... or do nothing.

On my second machine, the NIC is found but same for HDD--it's on a RAID port so it's not recognized... at least I can get on internet from that machine!!

1) Do you have SATA hard drives? Standard PATA hard drives should be visible in the file manager (A43 - I can't remember which is on UBCD).

2) What NIC do you have? Any NIC that is detected by the Windows that you used to build UBCD should be operational.

3) Did you get a specific error message? Also, doesn't Norton Ghost have its own recovery CD?

[rescue cd]

I ended up making the UBCD to give it a shot.

This is a very nice boot CD in that I can surf the net and acess the network machines on PCs that I can install the NIC card.

However, several problems I faced: 1) I don't know how to see my hard drives (can you or can you not see your hard drives?).

2) If your NIC card is not supported, how do you install that card? Seems the drivers don't work.

3) I couldn't run Norton Ghost.

Considering these I don't have a reason to use other than that the interface is nice.

[Acrobat 7 Font Problem]

No, I haven't tried that. I'll try it. Does the sfc /scannow work with Win 2000. Same problem occurs there, too.

Have you done the usual troubleshooting procedures? (i.e. run sfc /scannow)

The problem doesn't happen with any other apps that use those fonts either?

I'm assuming that you're using the latest Acrobat - 7.05.

Arial, Tahoma are all system fonts.... when I open with Acrobat Reader 6 or Acrobat 6, the file displays correctly but it happens wth Acrobat Reader 7 and Acrobat 7 both. The issue is not missing fonts.

Thanks for reply though.

please check your map %systemroot%\Fonts and look if there exist Arial, Tahoma and which ones Adobe Reader give a error about. i have for example 73 fonts installed.

[Did Microsoft forget their alphabets?]

I still need the floppy--USB drives or no USB drives. Reason is simple... say you want to modify your Ghost Boot Disk or Win 98 Boot Disk. You want to edit your config.sys and autoexec.bat files. I'm pretty sure everyone knows how to put them on CD but for small changes and testing, it takes a h*ll of a lot longer to change burn, reboot, test... then modifying your instantly rewritable floppy which you can do in DOS mode.

Oh! and I've never been able to run Ghost from USB. Says I don't have enough memory available. Not sure why since I can run it from floppy!!!! Anyone have any ideas why. If I can run Ghost from USB, I might as well throw the towel for floppies!

When I built my latest computer, I utterly refused to include a floppy drive. Here we are in the 21st Century and people still use floppy disks?? They don't store very much data (1.32Mb) they're unreliable and easily damaged. You don't have to boot from them anymore, so why have one? They haven't changed for at least 15 years, imagine if other components hadn't changed in 15 years, where would we be?

Long live USB memory!

[rescue cd]

That's what I use VMware for...

I've never tried VMware. I've tried MS Virtual Machine and abandoned it. Maybe it does have some utility that I've never explored.

Everyone has their own methods. I just think that a backup solution shouldn't be used to solve malware problems. It's like using a hammer to put in a screw. It'll work, but it's not what the hammer was meant for.

Yeah, I guess you're right. Everyone has their own methods. You're absolutely right about losing customizations made after image creation. Certain programs do let you back up customizations. My favorite is True Launch Bar which lets you do just that. I'm able to check my Hotmail on Outlook so they are all backed up on Hotmail. My configuration isn't too complex or I don't change settings enough that I'll lose a whole lot by reverting to a previous state.

Anyways, my favorite rescue disk will be the ghost floppy until floppies disappear from the face of the earth. LOL.

[rescue cd]

Yup! I do restore using Ghost every now and then, not because of spyware (I've never had a problem) but because of testing beta programs and other programs.... when my system gets littered with programs, I return it back to a previous state with my minimal applications.

But I've never had to restore due to hardware problems.

The UBCD is a backup recovery method. It's very useful to clean off systems that are infected with spyware, since you don't run into the problem of files being loaded from the hard drive.

Let me ask, then, do you have to update the spyware signature to clean your hard drive? If so, then do you have to make a new CD every time you update the spyware signature?

In my opinion, I rather have a spyware-clean image and restore that than end up trying to clean an infected PC because you never know if it's 100% cleaned, right? That's just an opinion.

[rescue cd]

How many people actually use all the tools that are loaded on those CD's? Those CD's are loaded with just about everything, but in my opinion, I don't use anything except Norton Ghost on a routine basis and PowerQuest Partition Magic once is a blue moon.

If you have to use these CD's routinely, then something wrong with your PC, no?

Even for a worst case scenario, I rely on Norton Ghost and that's it.... if my hard drive crashed, I have backup of everything... and the OS image is stored elsewhere.

Hey guys, BartPE is old news. The "Ultimate BootCD 4 Windows" (UBCD4WIN) is the now way to go these days...

http://www.ubcd4win.com/

It totally blows BartPE away. It includes Firefox, virus scanners, adware removal tools, vnc, remote desktop, password recovery/reset, cd burning software and much more. I think it also includes the Ghost plugin (if you own a copy of Ghost). When you build the CD, I'd recommend installing the additonal driver pack.

-John

[Bootable Ghost CD to deploy images - GUIDE]

Thanks it works fine now - the ghost files were spanned and were written incorrectly for some reason.

if you have a recent motherboard with updated bios, then they usually have an option to press F8 for BBS popup. This allows you to keep your floppy as your boot #1, hdd as #2. when booting, press F8 and it will let you choose which device to boot from--choose the CD/DVD-ROM drive. when it finishes, it won't ask you to boot from CD/DVD!!

I've now created a bootable DVD with Nero 6 Reloaded, with your boot image files/config.

One problem I find is that when I insert my bootable DVD (or bootable CD for that matter) and reboot the PC, it boots off the DVD with no chance to intervene. Ie, when I use a manufacturer's bootable CD normally you get the message:

Press any key to boot from CD...

The down side to this is that the PC boots off the DVD, restores the ghost image automatically, reboots automatically, and then boots off the DVD *AGAIN* and goes around in a loop, unless you are sitting at the PC to intervene.

I was really hoping that it would not boot off the DVD if I didn't sit there and press any key when prompted.

Is this something to do with the boot image/emulation specified in Nero?

Any ideas? Thanks.

Ooops, my reply was in the quote in the above post. Here is what I meant to say:

If you have a fairly recent motherboard with updated bios, then they usually have an option to press F8 for BBS popup. This allows you to keep your floppy as your boot #1, hdd as #2. When booting, press F8 and it will let you choose which device to boot from--choose the CD/DVD-ROM drive. When it finishes and computer restarts, it won't ask you to boot from CD/DVD because you haven't changed the bios settings!!

This F8 function is available for newer motherboards. I have an old computer that does not have that function.

One more thing I should add.

For Ghost 2003:

Ghost 2003 itself has CD-RW support--meaning that if you do not load CD-ROM drivers in config.sys file, then Ghost will show the CD-RW drives because of its support.... This means you can create a ghost image of your HDD and burn it directly on CD's.

HOWEVER

If you do load CD-ROM drivers from config.sys files, then ghost won't recognize your drive as a CD-RW. It will only recognize it as a CD-ROM drive.

A particularity of ghost is that if you do not load CD-ROm drivers from config.sys file and let Ghost 2003 load its internal CD-RW supports, you cannot restore images from your CD-ROM drive because Ghost recognized that the images were not burned from the program itself--but rather another program like Nero.

The reason why methods in this post work is because CD-ROM drivers are loaded from config.sys file.

Does that make sense?

[best archiving/compression program]

I'm curious...this may be off topic... but

How do you get that super compression with WinRar?

I've noticed then when I download certain files, they are compressed more than 60%. If I extract them and use WinRar's best compression, I don't get nearly as much compression as it originally was.

Anyone noticed that?

Are they using some other program that does RAR files?

[Stubborn file errors ...]

If you're hearing clicks, I would fear the worse. In my opinion, your hard drive is failing. I think when they kick the bucket, they all kick the bucket with clicks...

The clicks you hear are from the hard drive heads that reads the magnetic spindles (for lack of better term) of the hard drive. The heads are not moving properly as they should.

I would backup all my data so it's protected, buy a new hard drive and restore.

[Vista Games]

Games don't work in Windows 2000.

I get the following error:

the procedure entry point_vscwprintf cound not be located in the dynamic link library msvcrt.dll.

I'll have to try on win xp at home.

wonder if the msvcrt.dll needs to be the vista version for win 2000.

[MP3 software]

I personally prefer Soundforge 8.0. Adobe Audition looks too complicated for the tasks I perform.

Never head of Audacity... will give it a try.

SoundForge not free, however.

[Acrobat 7 Font Problem]

Anyone found a solution yet?

[Acrobat 7 Font Problem]

Oh! Yes. And I also search on Adobe's website for solution but found none there.

[Fax Program application]

I use the windows fax provided in windows xp (also in windows 2000).

It's simple to use, free, nothing to install.... may not accomplish what you want but all I need is basic faxing.

Hi,

We are looking at one Fax Program that can add attachments like WinFax, the problem is that WinFax is very strong program and need send Word and Excel documents in one Fax, the intention is add Word and Excel documents like attachments, one suggest or recommendation ?

Thank you,

[HELP ON the CREATING GHOST CD.]

The simplest way to do this is make the floppy that you want with all the drivers. Then use Easy CD Creator or Nero to create a bootable CD. When asked, point to the floppy as the source for your bootable CD.

It's simple as that.

I like to ask how create a ghost bootable disc? which will auto boot up from the CD n auto start up ghost program!. with the support drivers (like USB MOUSE or USB HDD) n also loading the normal ps/2 mouse driver.? Cos currently i using ghost 8. then i found out some notebook dun have the floppy drive so i can't use the floppy disc. cos i need to create image for all these desktop n laptop. HELP..

[Software to control another computer?]

RealVNC tested and trusted.

You can also use built in remote control in windows xp.