INSTALL A NEW HARD-DISK

Running out of hard disk space, yet also want to keep all the files that are currently on the system in perfect order? Install an extra hard disk, and see your available space rise!

Firstly, make backups of your existing system files. You may never know when these may come in handy. If your current hard disk may go down the pan, you'll be glad to have something to start with again. Also, if you want to use all your data that is on this drive, back it up anyway; ready to be transferred to the new drive. Also, create a system disk for your PC. This can be created by going to Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs, and then the "System Disk" tab. The instructions should be there for you. "WHEN I INSTALLED MY EXTRA HDD I DDNT FOLLOW ANY OF THE ABOVE MENTIONED....INSTEAD JUST OPEANED THE CABINET AND LOOKED FOR THE WIRES AND CONNECTED THEM ...ANY ONE CAN TELL WHERE THE CORRECT WIRE GOES ..... THE MAIN THING IS TO MAKE SURE THAT THE BROAD THIN GRAY WIRE OR DATA CABLE SLOT WITH THE WORD 'P2' IS CONNECTED TO THE EXTRA HDD"

Once you are prepared on the software side, turn off your PC and open the case to your PC (Please take proper precautions at this point. Anti-static wristbands and other such devices should be used. If you don't have these, just make sure you are properly earthed, and know what you are going to do. Oh, and please turn off the PC properly. I don't want you dying on me, literally!). The hard disk is the metal box shaped thing that is either the size of the floppy drive or it could be the size of the CD-Rom drive. It should be easy to spot, because it might even say "Hard Disk" on it. At this point, look and see where you can put the new drive, and how you are going to connect it up. If there is no hard drive in there, then don't worry; I'll explain how to connect it up as well.

Look at the end of the HDD. It should have a load of sockets and pins for you to play around with. At one point, you should be able to see some pins with some jumpers attached, and a sticker on another side telling you what configuration of jumper positions means what to the computer. If you are attaching it to the same IDE cable as your existing drive, then set it to "Slave", otherwise, select "Master" and fit it as close to the start of the cable as possible (The start of the cable being where it's connected to the motherboard). This cable is an "IDE" cable, and can only be fitted two ways to the drive itself. Look for an indication as to which side pin number 1 is (Look for stickers again!) and insert the IDE cable in that socket and pins, with the red side as close to pin 1 as possible. Then, just fit it into the computer, as you would do any other drive (For the thickies, which means attaching it to the case using the mounting screws that should come with the PC. Before you do this though, note down the extra information on the top of the drive, usually the number of cylinders, heads, sectors, and any other information. Next, connect one of the power cables to the HDD (These are the 4 cable collections with connectors attached, which leads from the power supply unit), and close the PC case.

Next, you will have to mess with CMOS. Turn on the PC, and hit whatever key you are told to at the bootup to get to the CMOS menus. When in there, choose the relevant section (We can't say exactly, because there are many different CMOS set-ups around) and select "IDE Auto-detection". If the hard disk does not appear on it, then you will have to enter the information manually. Use the notes you collected from the top of the hard disk earlier to tell the computer what the hard disk is.

IMPORTANT:
Afterwards, insert the system disk("THE BACKUP DISK THAT CAN BE CREATED BY RIGHT CLICKING A DRIVE4R AND SELECTING FORMAT AND THEN THE CREATE BACKUP DISK OPT") prepared earlier and "Save" your editing of the CMOS and exit. The system disk should work instead of the original hard disk (Or if you are installing from scratch, then it will boot from the A: anyway).
Type "fdisk" at the dos prompt. This runs a program called, surprisingly, FDISK. Tell the computer which drive ie the harddisk is the new one (Please choose the correct one at this point. Make a mistake, and you really could be using those backups!), and then tell it what partitions you want (Don't worry about it, as there are full instructions while you are running the program). Once this is done, you can reset your PC (Except if this drive is being installed from scratch and is on it's own. If this is the case, then you can format the drive by typing "format c:" This will format the drive for you, but what's really good is if you type "format c: /s" instead, as this installs some important files at the same time. Then, just follow the instructions to install whatever OS you are going to use.)
If you are adding this drive as a second HDD, Go into Windows (Or any other OS, but the instructions may be different!) and then format from "My Computer" like you would a floppy disk. There you go: A newly installed hard disk, with minimum effort!....and dont take the risk of formatting any of the drives u know!!!! if in doubt contact me here or don't do at all........."SOD will not be held responsible for any data lost in this process"

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INSTALL XP FROM DOS:

If XP will not install from the CD or if you have a new drive with no operating system on
it yet try these:

Install Windows XP from the hard drive with Windows 98 already installed:

Boot Windows 98
Insert the XP CD into your CD reader
Explore Windows XP through My Computer
Copy i386 folder to C:\
Go into C:\i386 folder and double click on winnt32.exe to launch the setup from the hard drive

Install Windows XP from DOS (ie. no OS on a new hard drive):

Boot with a Windows 98 Start Up disk
Insert the Windows 98 CD into the CD reader
Run smartdrv.exe from the Win98 directory on the windows 98 CD (file caching)
Type cd.. to back up to the root directory
Insert Windows XP CD into the CD reader
Copy the i386 folder to C:\
Go into C:\i386 folder on C: and type winnt.exe to launch the setup from the hard drive.

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HOW TO MODIFY *.EXE FILES

learn how to change *.exe files, in 5 easy steps:

1) Don't try to modify a prog by editing his source in a dissasembler.Why?
Cause that's for programmers and assembly experts only.

try to view it in hex you'll only get tons of crap you don't understand.
First off, you need Resource Hacker(last version). It's a resource editor-
very easy to use, You can download it at h**p://www.users.on.net/johnson/resourcehacker/

2) Unzip the archive, and run ResHacker.exe. You can check out the help file too


3) You will see that the interface is simple and clean. Go to the menu FileOpen or press Ctrl+O to open a file. Browse your way to the file you would like to edit. You can edit *.exe, *.dll, *.ocx, *.scr and *.cpl files, but this tutorial is to teach you how to edit *.exe files, so open one.

4) In the left side of the screen a list of sections will appear.
The most common sections are
-String table;
-RCData;
-Dialog;
-Cursor group;
-Bitmap;
-WAV.
*Icon: You can wiew and change the icon(s) of the program by double-clicking the icon section,chossing the icon, right-clicking on it an pressing "replace resource". After that you can choose the icon you want to replace the original with.
*String table: a bunch of crap, useful sometimes, basic programming knowladge needed.
*RCData: Here the real hacking begins. Modify window titles, buttons, text, and lots more!
*Dialog:Here you can modify the messages or dialogs that appear in a program. Don't forget to press "Compile" when you're done!
*Cursor group: Change the mouse cursors used in the program just like you would change the icon.
*Bitmap: View or change images in the programs easy!
*WAV:Change the sounds in the prog. with your own.


5) In the RCData,Dialog,Menu and String table sections you can do a lot of changes. You can modify or translate the text change links, change buttons, etc.


TIP: To change a window title, search for something like: CAPTION "edit this".
TIP: After all operations press the "Compile Script" button, and when you're done editing save, your work @ FileSave(Save as).
TIP: When you save a file,the original file will be backed up by default and renamed to Name_original and the saved file will have the normal name of the changed prog.
TIP: Sometimes you may get a message like: "This program has a non-standard resource layout... it has probably been compressed with an .EXE compressor." That means that Resource Hacker can't modify it because of it's structure.

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HOW TO SPEED UP UR XP:

Services You Can Disable

There are quite a few services you can disable from starting automatically.
This would be to speed up your boot time and free resources.
They are only suggestions so I suggestion you read the description of each one when you run Services
and that you turn them off one at a time.

Some possibilities are:
Alerter
Application Management
Clipbook
Fast UserSwitching
Human Interface Devices
Indexing Service
Messenger
Net Logon
NetMeeting
QOS RSVP
Remote Desktop Help Session Manager
Remote Registry
Routing & Remote Access
SSDP Discovery Service
Universal Plug and Play Device Host
Web Client


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Cleaning the Prefetch Directory

WindowsXP has a new feature called Prefetch. This keeps a shortcut to recently used programs.
However it can fill up with old and obsolete programs.

To clean this periodically go to:

Star / Run / Prefetch
Press Ctrl-A to highlight all the shorcuts
Delete them

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