Repair the master boot record in Windows 98!
Has a hard disk crash caused you to lose everything on your drive?
There's still a chance that your data may have survived. A
corrupted or missing Windows 98 master boot record (MBR) is
typically the cause of this problem. If you know how to repair the
MBR, there's a good chance you can recover your data.
Before I begin
It's important to point out that the MBR isn't something that you
should just play around with for kicks. Tampering with the MBR on
a functional machine can often render the machine unusable.
Keep in mind that MBRs are unique. If you're rewriting one
manually, you should copy the information from a computer running
the same operating system on the same size hard disk, with the
same partition structure and file system.
Repairing a Windows 98 MBR
One way of making the repair is to find a disk editor program that
runs from a bootable floppy disk and manually rewrite the MBR. You
can use the MBR description in the previous section to get the job
done if you're using a FAT partition, or you can look up one of
the many MBR charts that are floating around on the Internet.
The easy way has more steps, but the steps are much simpler. Begin
by going to a functional computer that's running Windows 98 and
open an MS-DOS prompt window. Next, insert a blank floppy disk in
drive A and enter the following commands in the MS-DOS prompt
window:
C:
CD
FORMAT A: /Q /U /S
CDWINDOWSCOMMAND
COPY FDISK.* A:
COPY FORMAT.* A:
COPY SYS.* A:
EXIT
Once you've entered all the commands, remove the floppy disk from
the drive and place it in the drive of the computer that's not
functioning. Now, reboot the computer. The computer should boot
off the floppy and take you to an MS-DOS prompt. Now, enter this
command:
FDISK /MBR
The command will execute the FDISK command in a special access
mode. As you may know, FDISK normally creates or deletes hard disk
partitions. However, when run with the /MBR switch, the FDISK
command merely updates the MBR. In this particular case, the MBR
is updated based on the contents of the floppy disk.
Keep in mind that this technique is not guaranteed to work. If
your hard disk contains extremely critical data, take the drive to
a qualified data recovery specialist rather than attempting to
salvage the data yourself
Keep your screen saver in place with password-protection in
Windows ME!
Screen savers not only lengthen the lifespan of your monitor, but
they also stop nosy coworkers from checking out what you're
working on while you're away from your desk. That is, unless they
can get close enough to bump your mouse and then your screen saver
disappears and your work is exposed. Having a password-protected
screen saver can help you avoid this scenario.
First, right-click on the desktop and select Properties to open
the Display Properties dialog box. Select the Screen Saver tab,
and then select the Password Protected check box. Click the Change
button and enter a password twice. Click OK and you'll see a
dialog box telling you the password has been changed. Click OK two
more times. The next time your screen saver comes on and anyone
(including you) tries to get past it, you'll have to enter a
password before you can gain access to your work.
Extend the command prompt window in Windows XP!
Have you ever issued a command at a command prompt window that
sent a long listing of output faster than you could read it? One
example is the Driverquery command, which commonly produces over a
hundred lines of output.
Windows XP's default command prompt window buffers 300 lines of
text that you can scroll through. However, the lines after that
disappear off the screen and are gone forever. This can be
extremely frustrating, especially if you need to issue the command
several times and monitor the results.
Fortunately, you can increase the size of the buffer to view more
than 300 lines of text in a command prompt window. Here's how:
1. Launch a command prompt window.
2. Right-click the control icon in the upper left corner of the
window, choose Properties, and select the Layout tab.
3. In the Screen Buffer Size panel, type a larger number in the
Height text box and click OK.
4. When the Apply Properties To Shortcut dialog box appears,
choose the appropriate option and click OK.
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