I think everyone has faced something like this: installed Windows properly, installed software and configure everything nicely, tune every setting and registry nicely… and one step wrong by installing some stupid software or take a step wrong in registry tuning, BSOD and restart!

BSOD stands for Blue Screen Of Dead! What a good name; and now you have no choice but to re-install again. After two long hours of installation and setup, guest what? BSOD again and you must be sitting there cursing Bill Gates or yourself!

 

You can totally avoid that if you plan your installation properly. What I suggest you can do is separate Operating System (O.S.) and data. You can partition your hard disk into 3 logical drives: C - for Vista, D - for general data, E - for documents only!

Why didn’t I combine D+E into 1 drive? Because I want to disable Vista restore the system on all drives but the documents, because I want my documents to have multiple versions. This is not just applied to Business and Ultimate, because Home edition with some tweak will be able to use this feature too!

Now you start to install Vista on C, before installing any software, you perform a hard disk image backup on C, using either this 2 software:

1. Paragon Drive Backup
2. Acronis TrueImage

I would only recommend you to use a free software call Seagate DiscWizard (Powered by Acronis) if you are using the hard disk from Seagate or Maxtor, because this program will not work on other brand hard drive. I know there are some other free and paid solution, but I highly recommend this because you need a "Quick" restore plan!

Use the software to create a backup drive image into D, then continue your installation and configuration. After some big software installation, such as Microsoft Office or Adobe Master Collection, you should perform the backup with different name. Keep multiple backup, you will not know when and what went wrong during the installation.

Safe guard your image copy of clean Vista installation and the latest installation, and any installation that is marked as milestone by you.

With such Quick Restore plan in place, you can safely test your configuration and tweak, anything goes wrong, you just press the restore button!

Next step you will be trying different types of settings. Some requires hardware investment, some just to tune your registry. 

The component in your computer that has the greatest chance of failure is the one with the most moving parts. Undoubtedly, this is your hard disk drive. They do fail periodically and it is for this reason that backing up your data is so important. Sometimes the disk drive will give you warnings like making noises or reporting errors but other times it will fail with no warning at all. Usually when your PC does not boot up, it is more than likely a disk drive failure. At that point, you have two choices: replace the hard drive yourself or take it to a PC repair shop and have them do it.

Understand that the PC repair shop can really only replace your hard drive and restore Windows. It will be up to you to recover your software like Microsoft Office and your data files unless of course you hire a PC technician to do that too (at an additional fee). But all of this is something you can do provided you have some basic understanding of what you are doing.

Okay, so let’s say your PC will not boot. It is important that before going out to buy a new drive that you check some of the basics. First, is there even power getting into the computer? Do you hear the fan running? Usually, the PC will attempt to boot up and you will hear the disk drive attempt to engage. You will also see messages on the monitor that indicate an attempt was made to boot the disk however it failed.

If you cannot tell that power is getting to your disk drive or you suspect an internal loose connection, take off the cover to the PC and check that the ribbon cables to the back of the drive are seated securely. If everything seems okay then you are probably going to need to replace the drive. Go to your local PC parts supplier or superstore and buy a new hard drive.

So when you buy the drive, you are more than likely going to get instructions on how to remove it and mount the new one. It is basically removing the cables, the mounting screws for the drive, and then removing the drive itself. Once you see the setup it is usually pretty straightforward. But one very important thing to remember is to ground yourself when working inside the case. To do this, buy a grounding wrist strap at your compute parts store and clip it to the casing. You do not want to risk static electricity damaging the motherboard or processing chip.

When the drive boots up, you are going to be required to partition it. This usually requires running a system program called FDISK. The instruction manual that comes with your new drive should give you these instructions. But here is where the work really begins. Now you have to restore Windows, your software, and all of your data. Make sure you have located your Windows install CDs, your software install CDs, and any backups of your data files. Of course if you did not backup your data files, you are out of luck. Just learn from your mistake and make sure you backup files in the future.

One thing about replacing disk drives, there is a lot of information that can be found on the internet. Give it a try and you may just save some money. 

Now that many of us know how to use the XP Recovery Console Microsoft’s most recent OS does not contain one. Not to panic we have a detailed article tha will help you all thorugh out how to use these fantastic new features in Vista.

The Purpose of this article is to teach you how to do vista repairs when you have startup problems or you can’t use the vista system restore option. There are two ways to use these options but it will all come down to whether you have a Windows Vista install disk or if Vista was pre-installed on your OS you might have a ghost image on your hard drive.

If you have the windows vista repair disk: (This should be your backup copy of Vista if you have one)PLEASE NOTE: This Vista install CD can be run from within Vista. Just launch the CD once Vista has loaded up and

go to install, go > Install Now > Upgrade.

A- Boot up using the Vista install disc

B- You should see a display saying: "Windows is loading files"

C- Wait for few minutes you will get a language option. Select your language and press next.

C- On the install display click: "Repair your computer"

E- Windows will search and find your copy of Vista on the machine

F- Select the appropriate Vista copy and click next

G- You will now see the following options:

* Startup repair - This automatically fixes problems which are stopping Windows from starting

* System Restore - This will Restore Windows to an earlier point in time

* Windows Complete PC Restore - This will restore your entire Personal Computer - programs, system settings and files - from a back up that you have previously created (Available in Windows Vista Business, Enterprise and Ultimate editions only)

* Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool - This section checks your computer’s memory hardware for errors

* Command Prompt

H- Assuming you are using that option because you were not able to boot to Windows Vista select the system Restore option and then adjust the date you want to go back to. If your OS is fine you can always use the startup repair option.

For those that have Pre-Installed and OEM versions: (please check with your manufacturer first. They may have replaced these tools with their own.

A- Turn your computer on and start pressing the F8 key. If you see the Windows Vista Logo, that means you have gone a step too far therefore you need to reboot and try again.

B- You may now get an advanced options screen. Select the "Repair your computer option" and hit enter.

C- Select your language and press next.

D- Write your user name and password and then next.

E- The recovery options should now appear.

F- Most of the time just using the system restore to set your computer back ought to solve your issue. If that is not the case try the Startup repair option. 

In Information Technology, backup is the term used for making copies of data and keep them in a safe place. Because if we loss those data in some event then we could restore the original with the backup. These additional copies of data are called “backups”. 

There are primarily two purposes when we can use backups. The first is, when there is some disaster like: hard disk crashing…and we have to restore the original data…its full recovery. The second is when some files have been deleted or corrupted accidentally and we have to restore those files.

Data backup will provide a strong support, when system turns vulnerable. Moreover, it helps the users to retrieve the data without troubles. 

I was frequently facing corrupted or "dirty" Windows problems every 1 or 2 months, and every re-installation takes me about 1 hour! Therefore, I decided to make a backup plan or something to speed up the process. Then I came across some hard disk imaging software, and indeed it helps a lot!

I plan my pre-installation and separate O.S. (Operating System) from my regular data, organize them into 2 logical drives, C: the O.S. Drive and D: the data drive. I use drive imaging software to backup my O.S. drive into d: the data drive, and I tried to backup entire O.S. drive every time I need to install some software or do a major tweak to my Windows.
If anything will go wrong, I just re-install my Windows in 10 minutes. There are 2 software around that meets this criterion very well:

1. Paragon Drive Backup (Inexpensive solution, I am using it!)
2. Acronis TrueImage (Although my favorite, but a bit pricey.)

I know since Windows XP, you can use restore point to do some backup and restore, but sorry to inform you that this is not guaranteed to recover your O.S. completely, it just saved your registry and some Windows settings, if you ever did caught into trouble, restore point will help you recover some settings but not totally. So restore point is useless to me and constantly taking my Windows valuable resources!

What Windows did is constantly monitoring for any settings changes, and save duplicates of files and data into the reserve area, this not just delay my Windows but also creates waste on my hard disk because ineffective to recover !

Disk imaging software is like taking a snapshot on the hard drive, every setting and programs are saved, you can be absolutely sure everything will be restored to the time you backup!

In Windows Vista, I would recommend you to move your documents to a totally separate drive, let’s say E: for example. You would store your normal email and other database data on D, so every time a restore needed, you won’t have to manually backup them and restore again. When you store your documents on E, keep restore point service on and allow Vista to create multiple versions of your documents (New features in Vista) every time you save the documents.

Configuration in this way will ensure your email and database access with no delay, but allow versioning on your precious documents, and at the same time speed up your C: drive O.S. You can restore your O.S. in 10 minutes without the needs to perform a manual backup on your documents, data and emails.

 

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