ubuntu 8.10

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How To Formating Secondary Hard Drive

Formatting a Secondary Hard Drive

Step1

Right-Click on the “My Computer” icon either on your desktop or in the Start Menu and select “Manage.”

Step2

A new window titled “Computer Management” comes up. Select “Storage” from the left hand side by clicking it once, then select “Disk Management(local)” from the right side by double-clicking it.

Step3

Now in the lower part of the main frame (right side) of the window you should see a nice visual of all your hard drives. Each line is a different drive. Each box on a line (with a colored bar at the top and a size displayed in MB or GB) is a partition on the drive. Partitions are separations of space on a drive. Unless you are doing something specific that requires multiple partitions, you only want one partition per drive.

Step4

First you must delete any existing partitions on the drive you are going to format. Do this by right-clicking on the partition's box and selecting “Delete Partition...” Since you already know that you will be deleting everything on the drive, and have already backed everything up, you can safely say yes to any warning the computer presents you with.

Step5

If there are multiple partitions make sure you have saved everything off them since they might each have different drive letters (i.e. “D:” or “F:”). Then repeat the above step for each of them. If you only want to format one partition that is OK and you can continue to the next step without deleting the other partitions.

Step6

The box for the drive to be formatted should now have a black bar at the top of it and should say “Unallocated” under its size (see picture). Right click on it and select “New Partition...” The New Partition Wizard comes up.

Step7

In the New Partition Wizard click next. On the next page make sure “Primary Partition” is selected and click next. Now make the size equal to the maximum (it should already be set to it), and click next again. On the next page the computer will automatically choose the first available drive letter for the new drive. However, if you like you can choose another drive letter from the drop-down menu, and then click next.

Step8

Finally the New Partition Wizard asks if you would like to format the new partition and if so what format. Choose “NTFS” as it is faster and more secure. Leave the “Allocation unit size” as “Default.” In the “Volume label” field enter whatever name you want the drive to have. Simple is better. Avoid using spaces. Lastly, if the drive is brand new and has never been used before check the “Perform a quick format” box. If the drive has been used before leave this box unchecked. Leave the “Enable file and folder compression” box unchecked and click next. Then on the next page click finish.

Step9

The wizard will now spend a little while formatting the drive. On old or large drives this may take a while. Do not close the “Computer Management” window until it finishes. You will know it is done when the word under the size of the drive changes from “Formatting” to “Healthy” and the name and drive letter you chose for the new drive show up. After it is finished you can proceed to use your newly formatted drive.

Credit TO:www.ehow.com

How To Format Mac OS 9

Formatting with Drive Setup

Step1

Use the Drive Setup application with Mac OS 9 whether you're setting up a secondary drive or reformatting your system drive. The main difference is that if you are going to reformat your system drive, you must boot off a system CD because you will have to reinstall the Mac OS 9 (or whatever operating system you are going to use). If you are not formatting your system drive, skip the next step.

Step2

Insert the system CD into your CD drive and restart your computer to boot off of it. From the second the screen goes blank and starts to boot, you must hold the 'c' key down until you see the little happy Mac picture come up. On some older (pre-G3) Macs, you hold down the open-apple (aka Command) key down instead of 'c'.

Step3

Insert your Mac OS 9 System CD if you haven't already because you booted off of it. Open the CD and open the “Drive Setup” program, which is in the “Utilities” folder (also usually in a “Utilities” folder on your main hard drive).

Step4

Click on the drive you wish to format and press “Initialize...” after the Drive Setup window opens showing you a list of the drives installed on your computer.

Step5

Click Custom Setup at the bottom of the “Initializing will destroy all data on the following volumes:” window that pops up.

Step6

Select “1 Partition” from the “Partitioning Scheme:” drop down menu unless you are formatting the drive for some sort of special setup (such as a future installation of OSX). Select “Mac OS Extended” from the “Type:” menu. In the “Size:” field, enter the number from “Total Capacity:” (the computer may change the number to make it slightly smaller to properly fit). Now press “OK.”

Step7

Click “Initialize” when you are back at the “Initialize” window. The computer will format the drive and return to the “Drive Setup” window which should say “Formatting...” for a while and once finished display the message “Initialization was successful.”

Step8

Reinstall your operating system, now that your drive is fully formatted, if you booted off your system disk and reformatted your system drive.

Credit To: www.ehow.com

How to Format a Computer with Windows 95, 98, or ME

To reinstall Windows, you will need a Startup Diskette and a Windows Installation CD. 

Download the Startup Diskette Creator

Note: We recommend using the Startup Diskette available on this page. Other Windows Startup Diskettes may not work with the following steps.

1. Once you have your Startup Diskette, insert it into the floppy drive and restart your computer.
   
   
2. Select option #1 - Start the computer with CD-ROM support.
   
   
3. After a minute or so, you will see "A:>_".
   
   
4. Type "fdisk" and press Enter.
   
   
5. If asked to enable large disk support, select Y for Yes. (Note: Some versions of Windows 95 may not be compatible with large disk support. Select N here if it does not support the FAT32 file system.)
   
   
6. Select Option #1 - Create DOS partition or Logical DOS Drive.
   
   
7. Select Option #1 - Create Primary DOS Partition.
   
   
8. The drive integrity will be verified.
   
   
9. Unless you are planning to make multiple partitions, select Y when asked if you want to use the maximum available size for the partition and to make the partition active.
   
   
10. The drive integrity will be verified again.
    
    
11. When completed press the Esc key to exit fdisk.
    
    
12. Without removing the floppy disk, press the reset button on the computer or press the keys Ctrl then Alt then Delete and release them together. This will restart the computer.
    
    
13. Again, select the option to Start the computer with CD-ROM support.
    
    
14. When you see A:>, directly above it is a message about your CD-ROM drive. It will tell you the letter assigned to your CD-ROM drive, take note of it. 
    
    
15. At the A:>, type "format C:" and press Enter.
    
    
16. Press the Y key then the enter key when asked if you want to proceed with the format.
    
    
17. The format will probably take some time, so be patient.
    
    
18. You will be asked to choose a Volume Label, which is a name for your hard drive. It has no effect on the operation of your computer, you may choose any name you like.

credit to: www.whitecanyon.com

How Does an Anti-Virus Software Work? - The Inside Story

We all know about anti-virus software these days. I guess you have read my comparative study on anti-virus software too. If in case you haven't, here it is. While writing on that article I realized I have been rather superficial on the most important part of an anti-virus column and that is not WHAT cures the disease. Its about HOW they do it. Today let's find out how they actually work.

After a lot of study, I came to know about mainly four different algorithms used by today's anti-virus software to detect viruses:

1. Generic Scanning Technique
2. Integrity Checking Technique
3. Heuristic Search Scanning
4. Interception technique

None of them are individually perfect. However in combination they often prove to be a formidable opponent to any current viruses, trojans and more. Moreover some of the techniques also protect your computer against future viruses.

1. Generic Scanning Technique

Most of the old viruses and some new viruses and trojans have a recognizable pattern or signature (sequence of bytes) which anti-virus software looks for. Anti-virus software has a library of signature against which it matches the applications, boot sectors and other possible locations of infection. If it can detect a match it will then signal the end-user with the virus details and location where it was found. Anti-virus software's update these signatures at regular intervals. Unfortunately mutating and polymorphic viruses evade simple signature detection by continuously changing their code. They are detected by advanced techniques discussed below.

Advantages

Signature detection is simple and fast. Anti-virus software can look for virus signature in large number of files in a very short period of time. This is what makes it a popular option with anti-virus vendors.

Disadvantages

Virus creators today mostly code polymorphic viruses which changes the code, while retaining the functionality, thereby evading signature detection algorithm. There are virus toolkits available for free which allows even a script-kiddie to code a polymorphic virus with minimal expertise. This can be a useful technique only in conjunction with other techniques but not alone. It is in some ways similar to comment spam detection or email spam detection using keyword matching for typical spam words like viagra.

2. Integrity Checking Technique

Some anti-virus softwares can maintain a log file about important files under Windows. The integrity information of those files are stored in their database and are recorded by check-summing. If a virus tries to modify a system file, the anti-virus software at once notifies the user by this technique.

The best part of this technique is, even if a system file gets corrupt (weirdly as it does sometimes without the initiative of Mr. virus) suddenly and tries to change and modify the boot sectors or say registry, the integrity of the files will be violated and the anti-virus will warn the user about that too.

Advantages

• The integrity checking technique perhaps is the most foolproof of them all, as it can determine if a file has been damaged by a virus or not.

Disadvantages

• The problem with this is, not many softwares can implement such precise and perfect technique. A data loss or a damage due to corruption can not be distinguished with a case where the file is damaged by a virus. But, there is a boon in the bane. Not any harmful activities within your computer gets unnoticed.

3. Heuristic Scanning

Heuristic Scanning follows the behavioral pattern of a virus and has different set of rule for different viruses. If any file is observed to be following that set of particular activities then it infers that the particular file is infected. The most advanced part of Heuristic Scanning is that it can work against highly randomized polymorphic viruses too. Heuristic scanning technique has the potential to detect any future virus with ease. F-Secure Anti-virus quite successfully implements this technique.

Advantages

• The advantage of this scanning is that, its very it has the prospect of being the only algorithm of all the anti-virus softwares in the future because it can lead us to very accurate virus detection if properly coded.
• It doesn't need anti-viruses to download weekly virus database because it can detect viruses from behavioral pattern from the set of rules.

Disadvantages:

• Te disadvantages of heuristic search techniques are that they are very complex to implement.
• And again, a virus coder can make a virus that will not obey the set of rules a heuristic scanner hopes it will. Then the virus will be infecting without being noticed.
• Again, chances of false alarms are more with heuristic search techniques.

4. Interception Technique

This is the newest technique which continuously monitors your files for suspicious activities.

Imagine if a virus is hidden in a CD-ROM. Then how on earth would other anti-viruses come to know about it? But interceptors watches all external drives, data devices as well as internet download or even file download from email. That is why it provides real-time protection to your computer. When a virus comes from a DVD or a pen drive, be rest assured that an anti-virus software that has implemented interception technique will detect it immediately and warn you about it. Most of them will prevent you from running infected programs too.

The key feature of an interceptor is that it has to be very fast to avoid degrading user experience. But most of the modern day anti-virus software implementing the technique do it fairly well like for example Nod 32. NAV was at one time known to slow down your computer due to sluggish performance in interception. I heard it has improved over the years.

Advantages

• Gives your computer a Real Time Protection.
• Any chance of a virus coming from an external drive (CD ROM, pen drive etc) is done away with.

Disadvantage

• Interceptors can be very easily disabled if it is not very fast to react against threats and most of the viruses do so with perfection.
• It is a nuisance for a fast and busy user as it keeps coming with logs and warning messages on trivial issues and that too very frequently.

Take home thoughts…

Thanks for reading so far. The two most important take home lessons are:

1. A single anti-virus software may not offer full protection. You may be better protected with two (but not more) anti-virus software as your bases will be better covered. However their interception techniques may conflict. So you may be better off using the real-time scanning of only one of them.
2. Update Keep the virus database file regularly, if possible daily. Many of today's of anti-virus software will do that automatically for you.

As you have reached the heart of the matter, you may want to take a look at this as well. A detailed free Windows anti-virus software here.

Credit to: http://blog.taragana.com 

How to Format a Computer with Windows XP

1. To format a computer with Windows XP or 2000, insert Windows CD and restart your computer.
   
   
2. Your computer should automatically boot from the CD to the Windows Setup Main Menu.
   
   
3. At the Welcome to Setup page, press ENTER.
   
   
4. Press F8 to accept the Windows XP Licensing Agreement.
   
   
5. If an existing Windows XP installation is detected, you are prompted to repair it. To bypass the repair, press ESC.
   
   
6. Use the ARROW keys to select the partition or the unpartitioned space where you want to create a new partition. Press D to delete an existing partition, or press C to create a new partition.
   
   
7. Type the size in megabytes (MB) that you want to use for the new partition, and then press ENTER, or just press ENTER to create the partition with the maximum size.
   
   
8. Select the format option that you want to use for the partition (Recommended: NTFS), and then press ENTER.
   
   
9. After the Windows Setup program formats the partition, follow the instructions that appear on the screen to continue installing Windows.