Hard drive and data protection skills - Part II

Your computer's hard drive is lost or infected, making the Windows operating system unable to boot. So do you have any tools that can help you get your data back quickly or help you speed up your hard drive?

Simple recovery

Windows Recovery Console (WRC) in Windows XP is really a very safe and easy to use tool. This is a tool that runs on a DOS-like environment, allowing you to copy file data, fix errors in the boot sector . without having to boot the operating system. For example, if your Windows cannot start, you can start WRC and use the boot error repair feature or use the 'fixmbr' command in the hope of fixing any errors that arise.

To start Recovery Console, insert the Windows XP installation CD into the CD drive and restart the computer - be sure that your computer can boot from the CD drive. When the Windows XP installer appears, press the R key to start the application. When you see "Windows NT Boot Console Command Interpreter" appear, press number 1 or any key that your operating system installation suggests and then press Enter, enter the Administrator login password.

WRC uses many of the same commands as in Command Prompt. You can use commands like attrib, cd, copy, del, dir, exit, md, ren, rd, set, and type similar to those in DOS.

However, the Recovery Console is for security purposes, so it does not usually allow you to have access to some folders on your hard drive. If you do not remove these restrictions first - it should be removed when your operating system is working normally - it will be difficult to copy or perform any tasks with these folders.

To remove these restrictions, perform the task after your operating system is still functioning properly. Go to Local Security Settings manager by going to Run and entering the command 'secpol.msc' or entering Start | Setting | Control Panel | Administrator Tools | Local Security Settings, then go to Security Settings | Local Policies | Security Options, double click on Recovery Console: Allow floppy copy and access to all drives and all folders and then select Enabled.

The next time you boot if Windows doesn't start, start WRC and enter the command line 'set AllowAllPaths = true' and press Enter.

Speed ​​up the hard drive and reduce the risk of failure

As the hard drive fills up, the operating system will "insert" new data files onto the hard drive anywhere there is space. Sometimes when there are files, it will be divided into many different small parts to match the amount of space left on the drive. If there are too many files broken down - also known as fragmentation - not only your hard drive but your operating system will be greatly slowed, but also increase the risk of data loss. .

The solution is that you can use the Disk Defragmenter operating system defragmentation tool by going to Start | All Programs | Accessories | System Tools then select the drive you want to 'clean up' and click Ok then wait.

However, there are some files that you cannot move during the cleanup of hard drive fragmentation. These files are still fragmented even after you have run Disk Defragmenter. Most of these data files are Master File Table (MFT) or SWAP (virtual RAM).

The only way to clean up SWAP files is to delete these files before using the Disk Defragmenter tool - but be careful that your system has at least 256MB of RAM to remove the file. SWAP message is gone.

To remove the SWAP file, go to Control Panel | System | Advanced tab | Performance Settings | Advanced tab | Change. In the Virtual Memory section, select 'No paging file' click on Set and then OK is done. Now do the job of cleaning up the hard drive fragmentation. After you've cleaned up, go back to the Virtual Memory section and set your virtual RAM parameters. Increasing virtual RAM can help your system accelerate. If there is a hard drive left, please set Initial size to 500Mb and Maximum size to 2048MB, not hard drives but even MP3 files will sound much better.

As for MFT files - system files are only available on NTFS-formatted drives - it cannot be moved. When your hard drive stores more and more data, MFT files also increase capacity and become fragmented. However, saying that doesn't mean you can't move them, a Registry editing trick will help you solve this problem. Go to Run and type regedit to open the Registry editor. After the Registry editor starts, look for the HKEY_ LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlFilesystem key and then double-click the NtfsMftZoneReservation key on the right-hand side and enter a value between 2 and 4 into it - the default value is 1 equivalent to 12.5 % of hard drive capacity for MFT files, 2-3 values ​​are between 25-37.5% and 4 is 50%. Close the Registry editor and restart your system.

Search for simplicity

Your hard drive will actually run much faster and more stable if there is plenty of space. You back up your data, encrypt and optimize your data, but there is still a lot to do.

The first is cleaning all unnecessary applications, cleaning up dangerous spyware, computer viruses .

Next is cleaning up unnecessary data files on hard drives. Go to Start | All Programs | Accessories | System Tools | Disk Clean-up to remove excess files, temporary files, .

Through this article, we just mention here the most basic aspects to help you speed up the system and protect your data and hard drive.

Part I: Hard drive and data protection skills - Part I