Dr. T's: My Computer Won't Boot!

COMPUTER TIP OF THE WEEK
from Dr T -- RTemlak4dds@aol.com

=: Your Computer Won't Boot! :=

One morning, you turn on your computer... and find it doesn't boot beyond the first few screens! Disaster! You have an error message saying your boot files are corrupted! Catastrophe! As you stare at the monitor, your mind races... what, if anything can you do or try?

I've been online and working with computers for the past 14 yrs. At least 75 % of my operating system reinstalls have been caused by a failure of properly operating boot files. To be perfectly honest, until last Sunday, the only option I thought I had, was to reinstall the operating system. That is no longer the case. Whether the following will work every time for you, is unknown. There may be other causes for the failure to boot, but this is the first thing to try if you have this problem.

The following is for Win XP and earlier versions of Windows.

Make sure that your computer boot sequence is DVD drive before the hard drive. You may have to go into the BIOS to change the sequence. Insert your Win XP CD in the drive.

1. When Press any key to boot from CD appears... press any key.
2. The screen will now say Installing Windows files.
3. Setup is starting Windows.
4. Welcome to Setup.
5. There will be three selections at this point. Choose: To repair Windows XP installation using Recovery Console, Press R.
6. Which Windows installation would you like to log onto? Type in the number (In my computer, C:\Windows is 1)
7. Press Enter after typing 1.
8. Type Administrator password -- I have none -- and press Enter. If you have password -- type it in and press Enter.
9. You should now see the command prompt - C:\Windows\ ____
10. Type in FIXBOOT. C:\Windows\ FIXBOOT (press Enter after typing it in).
11. The Target partition is C: Are you sure you want to write a new boot sector to the partition? Type in Y and press Enter.

All done! Remove the Win XP CD from the drive. Push the restart button. It should now reboot without any trouble... unless something else was causing the problem. The above should be the first thing to try if you fail to boot.

[Source: Dr. T & the Win XP CD]

New Freeware

DEAD LINKS - chklnks.exe

Did you ever use the uninstall program to remove software and then find that the name was still there in your programs list? With all this amazing technology available, WHY is this still happening?

Well solution one may be a little known Microsoft freeware originally distributed with Microsoft's Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools found here. The program is called chklnks.exe. You will need to download the whole file and then RUN it to extract the tools. For most newbies it is a good idea to create a folder on your desktop called DOWNLOADS and download the rktools.exe to it.

Then find the rktools.exe file, highlight it, right-click it and click on OPEN in the menu that comes up. The file will then install where it wants to.

OR to make things easier follow this instruction: To start the installation immediately, click Open or Run this program from its current location.

Here are Microsoft's Instructions:

[Instructions

1. If the Beta version of Resouce Kit Tools is installed, it needs to be removed first.
2. Click the Download button on this page to start the download. Do one of the following:


• To start the installation immediately, click Open or Run this program from its current location
• To copy the download to your computer for installation at a later time, click Saveor Save this program to disk.
3. To install the Resource Kit tools, run the rktools.exe package. After you accept the End User License Agreement (EULA), all necessary files are installed to the %Program Files%\Windows Resource Kits\Tools folder.
4. Prior to starting and using the Resource Kit tools, please be sure to read the readme.htm file, which is located in the %Program Files%\Windows Resource Kits\Tools folder.]

System Requirements

• Supported Operating Systems: Windows Server 2003; Windows XP

• 30 MB of free disk space
• Windows XP
• Windows XP SP1
• Windows Server 2003 family

Note: The Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools are not supported on 64-bit platforms.

Ditto - Tracks your clipboard history

Click the link above and your will be taken to Sourceforge to download or you could use my favorite uncluttered download spot, Snapfiles.com to download DITTO.

Facebook risky business?; Windows 7 upgrade confusion; BlackBerry Curve hands-on [TECH UPDATE]

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