Formating USB Pen / Flash Drive with NTFS : A Guide

By default windows allows to format pen drive with fat or fat32 file system which can not store files larger than 4 GB. But nowadays we have larger USB drives as well as transfer files more than 4GB such as DVD or dual layer DVD image. NTFS does not have such issues, more reliable and can store files larger than 4 GB.

Follow the procedure stated below to format your pen drive with NTFS. Make sure you take backup of all your files before proceeding.

Plug in your pen drive.
Right click on My Computer.

Click on Properties > Hardware > Device Manager.

Expand Disk Drives & Click on your Pen Drive Name.

Now Right click on your pen drive name & select Properties.

Go to Polocies Tab & Select Optimize for Performance.

Click OK. Close device Manager.

Now open My Computer & Select Your USB / Pen Drive. Right click on it & select Format. Click on File system box. You see the NTFS option.
Now select NTFS & fromat your pen drive.

You can also convert your pen drive’s fat file system to ntfs as you use to convert fat partion to nfts.
Open command prompt and type the following command and press Enter Key.
convert x: /fs:ntfs
x is the drive letter of your USB Drive

Recover / Reset Windows XP Administrator Password

Somtimes we forget our windows password. We don't have any way other than to install everything fresh, or do we have a few methods to recover or reset. Yes we do, follow the three process explained below ...

Process 1:
Whenever we install Windows, it automatically creates an account “Administrator” by default and sets its password to blank. So Start your system and press ctrl+alt+del keys together twice when you see Windows Welcome screen or Login screen, and it’ll show Classic Login box. Once the Logon box is displayed type Administrator in Username and leaving the Password field blank press Enter. You should be able to log in to Windows.
Now reset your account password from Start -> Control Panel -> User Accounts.

Process 2 :
Windows XP and next versions also allow another process to recover/reset forgotten password by using “Reset Disk“. always create a Password Reset Disk while installing windows or later in a convenient time. You can use that disk to reset the password. Please visit following links to know more ...

How to create and use a password reset disk for a computer in a domain in Windows XP

How to Log On to Windows XP If You Forget Your Password or Your Password Expires

If the two process mentioned above doesnot work the try the next process. It is a bit lengthy process but wothwhile if you can recover/reset your password without a complete fresh install.

Process 3:
If the above mentioned tricks doesnt work, then try following trick which is actually a loophole in Windows XP Setup and a big security hole:
1. Boot using Windows XP Setup CD and continue.
2. Accept and press “R” to run the repair when it asks to repair your existing Windows installation,
3. Setup will start repairing your Windows and will start copying files, etc. After a few minutes setup will restart your system.
4. Now it will start doing other tasks and will show a small progressbar with a few details in left side.
5. When it shows “Installing devices“, press Shift+F10 keys together in your keyboard.
6. It will open a Command Prompt window. Now type nusrmgr.cpl and press Enter.
7. It will open the same “User Accounts” window which you see in Control Panel. You can reset your password now.

Seagate releases 1.5 TB Hard Disk Drive

The 7200.4, as the name suggests, targets the high-performance end of the magnetic drive market, and ships with 16MB of cache. As for the 7200.11, it'll slot in at the top of that product family. The main difference between the new 1.5TB drive and the 1TB ST31000340AS already available is their platter density. Both disks are four-platter designs, but the 1TB drive uses four 250GB platters, while the new 1.5TB is apparently using four 375GB platters. 375GB seems a bit odd for a platter size, Samsung's new 1TB Speedpoint F1 drives now use three 333GB platters instead of the original 4x250GB configuration the drive first shipped with. The Seagate Barracude 7200.11 will spin at 7,200RPM, and connects via the SATA I interface to achieve 3Gb/s transfer rate as well as a sustained data rate of up to 120MB/s.which is why Seagate has other choices for the budget conscious in the form of 1TB, 750GB, 640GB, 500GB, 320GB, and 160GB varieties, accompanied by cache options of 32MB and 16MB.

Well, the Barracuda hard drive will target desktop users, so where does that leave us notebook totters? Thankfully Seagate engineers also have this group in mind, introducing a couple of 2.5 500GB hard drives under the Momentus line. These will be available in 5,400RPM and 7,200RPM variations, accompanied by 8MB of cache and 16MB of cache respectively. Both drives will feature free-fall sensor technology to prevent data damage when dropped by parking the heads off the disk whenever it detects any changes in acceleration equal to the force of gravity, all within 3/10ths of a second.

Increase Battery Life of Your Laptop PC !!

Before we buy a laptop / notebook, we must take into account the following factors which determine maximising the battery life of a laptop / notebook.

1. Screen size of the PC. Bigger the screen size less you get as backup from battery. Small size screens such as 13" or 12" give you better back as compared to 15" or 17" screens.
2. A 9 cell battery will provide you with more backup time than a standard 6 cell battery.
3. Opt for Splid State darh Disk Drives as they comsume less power compared to PATA / SATA Hard drives which has moving parts so consumes more power.

Gudelines for Obtaining Optimal Battery Backup

• Always use up to date device drivers as they will run your PC more smoothly using all the hardwares to their optimal performance. Older drivers may consume more power compared to new device drivers.
• The Operating System you choose is also an important factor while obtaining optimal performance from your PC. There will be clear notification ( you will see sticker / label written as designed for Windows XP / Vista etc) for a particular operating system on your laptop / notebook. That means that particular OS will give you optimal performance and better battery backup. Other OS may not have proper driver support to maximise the system performance resulting poor backup. So, use only certified OS for your PC. Remember to update your OS from time to time from their website.

• Use Certified hardware by manufacturer while upgrading the PC like RAM, HDD etc. Uncertified hardware will definitely consume more power.
• You may also tweak Windows Power Management properly according to your needs to get maximum battery life.

Create Single Click Shutdown and Reboot Shortcuts on the Desktop

Follow the steps to create Shortcut to Shutdown.

• Right click anywhere on the Desktop and navigate to NEW > SHORTCUT.
• Enter the following line in the Shortcut dialogue Box.

shutdown -s -t 03 -c "Bye Bye YourName"

• Click Next.
• Type the Name as Shutdown.
• Click Finish.

Now you can Shutdown your PC right from your Desktop.


Follow these steps to create Shortcut to Restart.

• Right click anywhere on the Desktop and navigate to NEW > SHORTCUT.
• Enter the following line in the Shortcut dialogue Box.

shutdown -r -t 01 -c "Rebooting your PC Mr. YourName"

• Click Next.
• Type the Name as Restart.
• Click Finish.

There are different switches for these purpose and you can do a lot more with the right kind of combination of the switches. The switches are describd below


-s
Shuts down the PC.

-l
Logs off the current user.

-t nn
Indicates the duration of delay, in seconds, before performing the action. ("nn" means the specified duration in seconds)

-c "messagetext"
Displays a message in the System Shutdown window. A maximum of 127 characters can be used. The message must be enclosed in quotation marks.

-f
Forces any running applications to shut down.

-r
Reboots the PC.

Changing Default Location of My Documents

Imaging a situation that all of a sudden your Windows crashed and u had to format and reinstall it. In the process you have lost all the valuable files stored in the My Documents folder. Don't you think it would be nice if we can change the default location of My Documents folder. Yes we can change the default location of "My Documents" from "C" Drive to any other partition of our Hard Disk.

Follow the lines below and your My Documents folder is moved to a different partition of your hard disk along with all your files.

• Right click on My Documents.
• In the context menu go to PROPERTIES and click.
• In the dilogue box click on MOVE and choose the location where you want to keep your files.
• Click OK and you are done.

Now even if you have to format your C drive your files will remain safe at a different location.

Add Move to & Copy to in the Right Click Context Menu

Open Registry Editor by clicking Start>Run

Then type REGEDIT and click OK

Navigate to the following key

• HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers
• Right click the ContextMenuHandlers key and choose New>Key.
• Name the new key as "Copy To" (do not include the quotes).
• Now select the "Copy To" key and in the right hand pane, double click "Default"
• Enter value data as {C2FBB630-2971-11d1-A18C-00C04FD75D13}

Repeat the above and create another new key named Move To.

• Now select the "Move To" key and in the right hand pane, double click default
• Enter value data as {C2FBB631-2971-11d1-A18C-00C04FD75D13}

Close the Registry Editor and Restart the PC


You can add the same options to the right click menu of all your folders.

Navigate to the following key
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shellex\ContextMenuHan dlers

• Right click ContextMenuHandlers and create a new key named Copy To.
• Now select the "Copy To" key and in the right hand pane, double click "Default"
• Enter value data as {C2FBB630-2971-11d1-A18C-00C04FD75D13}

Right click it again and create another new key named Move To.

• Now click on the right hand pane, add the same default values as you did for Files:
• Now select the "Move To" key and in the right hand pane, double click "Default"
• Enter value data as {C2FBB631-2971-11d1-A18C-00C04FD75D13}

Close the Registry Editor and restart the PC.