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How-To: Make a Bootable USB Key

Norman Chan — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 09:00:00 -0500

A bootable USB key is a convenient way to install operating systems on netbooks without optical drives, or carrying around a Live OS with you at all times. It especially makes sense if you're installing software on a machine that otherwise has no need for an optical drive, such as a Windows Home Server. Here’s a definitive guide to making a bootable USB key with either Vista or Windows 7 in just 9 steps.

1. Find and right-click the Windows Command Prompt in your Start Menu and choose to run it as an Administrator.

2. At the prompt, enter diskpart to launch Microsoft’s disk management utility. The command line should now read “DISKPART>”.

3. Type list disk to show a list of all disk drives. If your USB key is plugged into your PC, it should be listed here, along with other physical drives. Note the USB key’s disk number – you can pick it out by looking at the disk capacity.

4. Type select disk #, with the USB key’s disk number in place of #.

5. Type clean for the utility to clean the disk, which DiskPart will confirm.

6. Create a new bootable partition by entering create partition primary.

7. Choose this partition with select partition 1, and then mark it as active by typing active.

8. Format the key by inputting format fs=fat32. This should take a few minutes, and DiskPart will display a progress percentage.

9. Lastly, type assign to give this USB key a drive letter. Close the DiskPart program using exit.

You can now copy your OS’s installation files from the original DVD onto the key. We also recommend copying your hardware drivers onto the same key so the OS installation wizard can find them.

Study Finds Windows 7 isn't Faster to Boot than Vista

Paul Lilly — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 08:06:16 -0500

Uh oh, Windows 7 might not trump Vista across the board after all. According to PC tune-up software company Iolo Technologies, the OS of the hour takes longer to boot than Vista in most cases, no matter what you might have heard.

Iolo claims its lab unit found that a new machine installed with Windows 7 takes a minute and 34 seconds to fully load. Vista, on the other hand, takes a minute and 6 seconds, the company said. This isn't a straight boot time into Windows, says Iolo, who records how long it takes each OS to boot into a usable state where "CPU cycles are no longer significantly high and a true idle state is achieved."

Further crashing the Windows 7 party, Iolo says the situation becomes more dramatic over time. On a three-month old machine, Windows 7 took 2 minutes and 34 seconds to boot in Iolo's lab, or a minute longer than when first installed.

Lenovo Boasts Fastest Windows 7 Boot Time

Paul Lilly — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 08:24:11 -0500

If this were the Old West, Lenovo would be the gritty cowboy boasting the fastest draw in town. Challengers, both new and old, would step up and challenge the gunslinger to a shoot out, and at some point, Lenovo would likely fall.

In the modern era, Lenovo doesn't have to worry about catching a bullet between its eyes, but it will have to back up its claim of having the fastest Windows 7 boot-up and shutdown times. According to Lenovo, its ThinkPad notebooks and ThinkCentre desktop PCs for businesses load Windows 7 up to 56 percent faster compared to booting XP or Vista.

The company also said its IdeaPad and IdeaCentre consumer PCs certified for "Windows 7 Lenovo Enhanced Experience" will load 33 percent faster and shutdown 50 percent faster than hardware that's not certified, even if using identical components. How is this possible? Through BIOS tweaks, Windows 7optimizations, special onboard hardware drives, and a rewritten power manager, Lenovo says.

LiveCD Lockdown: Five of our Favorite, Installation-free Collections!

David Murphy — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 13:30:00 -0500

The beauty of a Live CD is that it gives you a chance to access your computer or a batch of alternate applications without actually having to load up your operating system. You only need to pop the CD into your optical drive and boot it up from your BIOS -- this self-contained environment runs independent of anything that's located on your drive partitions, even though you can still perform a variety of tasks that manipulate the data on your drives.

For example, you can test our new Linux distributions using a Live CD, saving you the time and hassle of blanking an entire partition just to see if it's the right distribution for you. You can also manipulate the partitions of your drives using a Live CD, expanding and creating volumes to create alternate locations for new operating systems, files, or whatever it is you'd use a separate volume for. Live CDs are great for troubleshooting your system (or saving your data) when your primary operating system won't boot, and they can also be used to break into Windows installations that you've lost the password for.

USB Disk Storage Format (and friends)

What it does: We'll start our Live CD list with a fun utility. USB Disk Storage Format isn't a Live CD, but it does allow you to transform a boring ol' USB key into a bootable environment. It's a great match for those who don't have an optical drive (?!) or want the added convenience not having to burn a new disc every time you need to run, say, BIOS updates.

Once you've downloaded USB Disk Storage Format, pick up a batch of DOS files named "HPUSBFW_BOOTFILES.zip." We've linked them here, but in case the link goes away, you should be able to Google search for these. Run USB Disk Storage Format and select a FAT32 filesystem for the format, then check the "Create a DOS bootable disc" box. Select the folder containing the files from the aforementioned archive, then run the program! You now have a bootable USB that you can use to do things like flash your BIOS or, depending on the instructions of particular Live CDs, transform these discs into USB-based tools.

Download it here!

Backtrack

What it does: This Live CD is geared toward extreme vulnerability testing. It's a Linux distribution that comes packed with a variety of security-themed applications and utilities. You can use the included tools to brute-force your way past stubborn passwords, including those of the Windows operating system itself. You can also spoof a wireless access point and force nearby Windows machines to connect to you instead of the real wireless provider. Or if you're feeling a bit more white hat, you can use the included applications to scan and detect a wide variety of nearby wireless networks. But that's just a small sampling of the functionality available in Backtrack -- with more than 300 security-themed utilities to choose from, odds are good that you'll find just what you're looking for.

Download it here!

Memtest86+

What it does: Is your computer acting strangely lately? Try running this Live CD; it performs a comprehensive series of stability tests on your computer memory. You'll never know if one of your sticks has officially gone bad unless you put it through the ringers, after all! This Live CD is easy to use and quite comprehensive in its ability to run both standard and advanced RAM tests.

Download it here!

Live.linuX-gamers.net

What it does: So you don't think Linux is a gaming platform, eh? This Live CD is going to try and prove you wrong, as it contains thirteen different Linux-based games for you to try out. Here's a short list of what you'll be checking out:

Glest -- real-time strategy
Nexuiz -- first-person shooter
Teeworlds -- side-scrolling shooter
Warzone2100 -- real-time strategy
World of Padman -- comic-style first-person shooter

Download it here!

Ophcrack

What it does: Unlike Backtrack, which gives you a wealth of security-themed applications, Ophcrack is a Live CD that's designed for one purpose: breaking through Windows passwords. We're going to assume you'll be using this to get into your own password-locked system that you forgot the code to. Ophcrack works on either XP or Vista installations, and even offers pretty real-time graphs to show the progress of its tables-based, brute-force cracking method.

Download it here!

Super-bonus: GParted

What it does: Ok, we know we usually dish out five free applications for these weekly roundups, but we just couldn't let GParted stay off our list. It's that good. This Live CD is the ideal tool for manipulating your drive's partitions. It's faster, easier to use, and offers more functionality than any partitioning utility you'll find as part of the Windows operating system. Create, shrink, expand, merge, and otherwise futz with your hard drives in more ways than you ever thought possible. This Live CD is the perfect opening step toward creating a dual- or triple-boot setup for your PC. We can't recommend it enough!

Download it here:

How To: Recover Your Lost Windows User Account Password

Josh Kampschmidt — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 15:00:00 -0600

More likely than not, you’ve been asked in the past to help fix one of your friend’s or relative’s computers. Most of the time, the problems you’ve been brought in to remedy are basic malware or virus infections that you can address by grabbing the appropriate diagnostic and software removal tools stored in your trusty USB toolkit. But once in a while, you’ll be faced with a novice struck with the most basic and frustrating of problems: forgetting their Windows administrator login password. With no way to get into the system, you can’t even perform basic maintenance, let alone a thorough tune-up. Formatting is always an option, but we consider that a last resort. (Plus, guess who’s going to have to help reinstall all the programs lost after a wipe?) But all hope is not lost. There are a few ways to actually retrieve a lost Windows account password. Read on, and we’ll show you the light.

This guide is split into two sections. If you want to get rid of the old user account password, use Offline NT Password and Registry Editor. If you want to find out what the password is without changing it, then you need to use Ophcrack. There are a lot of Windows password revealers and crackers available, but we’ve found that these two programs are the most effective.

Time = 1 hour, 15 minutes

What You Need:

Offline NT Password and Registry Editor
Free, http://home.eunet.no/pnordahl/ntpasswd/
Ophcrack
Free, http://ophcrack.sourceforge.net/
A ISO burning utility, IsoBurn
Free, http://isoburn.sourceforge.net/

Use Offline NT Password and Registry Editor

Offline NT Password and Registry Editor is one of the easiest password recovery tools to use. It allows you to reset a user account password, including the Administrator password. It is also a relatively small download.

To download Offline NT Password and Registry Editor, click here. Save the zip archive to your Desktop.

Extract the archive and you will get an ISO file. Burn the ISO to a CD using any CD Burning software, such as, CDBurnerXP or ISOBurn.

After you get the ISO successfully mounted, put the disk in the drive and restart your computer. Make sure you set your BIOS to boot from the CD drive. You can change your boot order by accessing the boot menu with F10 before the OS loads.

The program will begin loading off the disk. You will get a line that states “boot:” press Enter and the process will continue

When the loading process stops again, press the “1” key. This will allow the program to search for all probable NTFS partitions.

When the program asks what the registry directory pathway is, press Enter. This will keep the default \Windows\System32\config directory.

You will now see a list of registry entries. For our purpose, you do not need to worry about anything, just press Enter. This tells the program we want to reset the password and loads the appropriate registry hive.

Now that the hive is loaded, press Enter on your keyboard to edit user data and passwords.

You will now see a list of all the user accounts present on the system. Find the user account you want to change and type the appropriate name. Make sure you enter the username EXACTLY as it appears and hit Enter.

Be careful when the program asks you what task you want to perform. You do not want to set a new password right now. This could cause serious problems when trying to boot a Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7 operating system. Instead, press “1” to clear the password.

The program will give you a Password cleared message, indicating that the password removal was successful.

Now type an exclamation mark to return to the main menu. Press “q” to quit the program. On Step 4, make sure you save the changes; otherwise, the password will be left unchanged. To save the changes, type “y”.

When the program asks if you want to do a new run, press “n” since the password is already removed at this point.

To close the program and return to Windows, press Ctrl-Alt-Del. The computer will restart and the password should have been removed from the account.

Ophcrack the password

Ophcrack is a simple GUI-based utility that runs from a CD. The main reason we are using this utility is that it does not automatically remove the password, but instead shows you the password. Ophcrack uses a highly optimized version of rainbow tables, making it very efficient at discovering passwords. In fact, it can recover over 99% of alphanumeric passwords within minutes.

There are three different versions of Ophcrack. We are going to use the Live CD version of Ophcrack, because we are assuming that you do not have another user account to run the program. It has two different versions of the Live CD, one for Vista/Windows 7 and one for Windows XP.

Click here to download the Windows XP Live CD or click here to download the Windows Vista/Window 7 Live CD. Save the appropriate file to your Desktop and burn it to disc.

Once you get the CD burned, put the disk in your drive and boot from the disk. You may have to change the boot order so you can boot from the CD.

Ophcrack will begin loading and eventually present you with three options, graphic mode, VESA mode and text mode. We are going to use graphic mode since it is the simplest option, so highlight Ophcrack graphic mode and press Enter.

Ophcrack will start displaying a lot of text; don’t worry about what it says.

When Ophcrack starts, it will load the files it needs to run into RAM.

Once it is fully loaded into RAM, it will automatically start looking for passwords.

You will find the password under the LM Pwd 1 or NT Pwd sections on the progress tab. Once the program finds the password, feel free to click Stop. Make sure you write down the password since the program will not change the password. When you are finished, click on the Exit button.

To restart the computer, press any key. When it asks if you want to shutdown, press “y” and the computer will restart and eject the CD. Take out the CD and boot Windows

You should now have the user account password. Sure, reformatting would have fixed the problem, but it is just as simple to recover the user account password. Now you know how to recover that user account password for your friend or significant other in case they have data on their computer they cannot afford to lose. You might want to write down their password for them on a post-it note, so you don’t have to perform this task again!

Six Essential Steps to Diagnosing and Curing a Slow Startup

Josh Kampschmidt — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 15:00:00 -0600

So your computer is taking too long to boot, after being bogged down by dozens of startup applications you’ve downloaded over the years. You might want to just format, but that’s the coward’s way out. If you spend a little time tuning up your boot applications you may avoid the time it takes to wipe and restore your system altogether. Don’t give in to clutterware -- follow our guide to the essential methods of troubleshooting your PC’s start up sequence and freeing Windows of unnecessary resource hogs.

Check Startup programs with msconfig

One of the greatest utilities included with all modern versions of Windows is the Microsoft Configuration Editor. To launch the editor, click the Windows Key and R; in the box that pops up, type msconfig.

Click on the Startup tab. You will get a list of all the programs that are starting up when your computer boots.

Look through the list of startup programs. Find any programs that you do not want to start up and uncheck them. Popular culprits include nagging auto-update tools from Microsoft, Adoble, and Apple. System tray utilities, like Nvidia control panel, are also often booted from this list. Narrow this list down until it only includes essential startup programs, like anti-virus software and hardware drivers.

Click on Apply and then click Ok. You will receive a message requesting you to restart, do so now. If your computer boots fast, no further action is required.

Check Startup services with msconfig

Msconfig also does a good job at managing system services at boot up. Most of the services included in the list are Microsoft services that you do not want to disable. Even though this might speed up your computer, it would disable key services that your computer needs to run properly.

Open msconfig again as you did in the previous step and click on the Services tab. You will get a huge list of services. You do not want to disable all of these services. Instead, check the box that says "Hide All Microsoft Services".

You should now have a smaller list of services. Click the Disable All button followed by the Apply button. Then, comb through the list and enable the services that are essential to your boot, such as anti-virus, video and network services. Restart your computer. Come back to this guide after the reboot.

Weed out Culprits with Autoruns

Autoruns is an excellent program that shows exactly what is running on your computer at boot.

You can download Autoruns from the Microsoft TechNet website.

Extract the files to your Desktop. Double-click on the Autoruns application file. Read through the EULA agreement that appears and click Agree.

When the program opens, you will see a window with a bunch of different tabs. This shows everything that is starting at boot on your computer.

Under the Everything tab, which the program should have defaulted to, look through the entire list. You can safely ignore any of the Microsoft services. If you find one that you do not recognize, research the filename or service name.

Uncheck any of the entries that you do not want to start at boot and then close the program. Restart your computer. Come back to this guide if your computer still boots slower than expected.

Next: Cleaning up your Registry and using Event Viewer.

Clean up the Registry

Normally, registry entries do not affect the speed of the startup process. But if your registry isn’t organized to operate efficiently, it can cause slowdowns in your normal PC operation.

We are going to use Comodo Registry Cleaner to fix the registry.

Download the Comodo Registry Cleaner from the following link. Save the file to your Desktop.

Install the Comodo like any other program, and make sure to keep the default settings.

Click the Scan My Registry button and wait for the results. Click the Clean Registry button.

Restart your computer after the scan is completed.

Troubleshoot with Event Viewer

One of the best troubleshooting programs available is Event Viewer. This program keeps track of all errors that occur on your system.

Click the Windows Key and hit the R key. In the Run box, type eventvwr.msc

Expand the Windows Logs section of Event Viewer and click on Application.

This area will show you all the errors that your system has generated. Scroll through the list and look for red X's.
If you want more information on the error, double-click it.

The tricky part is figuring out what causes the error. If the error points to a device driver, one of your devices might be malfunctioning. If it points to a program, one of your programs might be malfunctioning. Research all the errors on Google that have occurred in the past day.

Check your Hardware

If your computer is still not starting up as fast as you would like, there are some possible causes.

Your computer needs a RAM or processor upgrade. More RAM and a better processor will help Windows boot faster.
Your computer is infected with malware. See our guide on removing malware.
One of your hardware devices is failing.

If the third cause seems likely, you might have some hardware that is getting ready to fail. The most likely hardware would be your RAM and hard drive. Both are easy to check.

Download the Ultimate Boot CD. Burn the ISO to a blank, writeable CD using IMGBurn or your favorite burning software.

Restart your computer and boot from the CD you just created. Run Memtest86+. Let it complete a full pass. If any errors are detected, you have RAM problems.

If the RAM comes back clean, run your hard drive manufacturer's diagnostic software on the hard drive. If it comes back with a problem, you have a hard drive problem.

Your computer should now be faster than when you first started. If your computer is not as fast as you would like, it may be time for an upgrade or just may be time for a clean install of Windows. If it has been a few years since your last format and reinstall, then it might be time to start fresh with a clean install of Windows.

Latest LG Netbook Features Splashtop Instant-on OS

Pulkit Chandna — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 18:41:29 -0600

LG offered the first glimpse of its X120 netbook at the Consumer Electronics Show. The X120 is only the second netbook to have Splashtop instant on technology – the first being Lenovo IdeaPad S10. LG apparently calls it "LG Smart On".

In case you are still unaware, Splashtop is an instant on OS that allows you to access the internet and a few other applications without having to endure agonizingly slow boot up times.

The X120 features a 10-inch WSVGA display besides a 1.66GHz Atom processor, 1GB memory, 160GB hard drive and Windows XP. Its price hasn’t been revealed as yet.

Image Credit: Engadget

Enjoy a 3-4 Second Boot with Asrock's New Instant Boot Feature

Paul Lilly — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 13:20:56 -0600

Power users have long dreamed of the day when hitting their PC's power button would result in an instantaneous boot. Technologies like SplashTop's Instant-On Linux-based OS have brought this concept closer to reality, but unlike the Instant-On OS, which works on a flash chip embedded on select motherboards giving users quick access to basic online tasks, Asrock's new Instant Boot feature promises super speedy boot times into Windows to the tune of just 3-4 seconds and has posted a video to prove it.

Impossible? Well, yes, but Asrock's creative approach puts a unique spin on shutting down and turning on your system. After installing the Instant Boot application on a compatible Asrock motherboard, shutting down your PC triggers a shutdown and reboot process that ultimately puts your system in a Hibernate or Standby state. The next time you hit the power button, you'll be up and running in as little as 3 seconds.

The obvious question is why not just put your system in Standby or Hibernate in the first place, and according to Asrock, Instant Boot's advantages include a less cluttered OS from a clean boot with no "accumulated garbage data," nor will you lose any data during a power outage. Whether or not Instant Boot becomes an instant hit is yet to be determined, but kudos to Asrock for thinking outside of the box.

Hit the jump and tell us what you think of this new technology.