| Article Information | Modified |
Upgrading to XP from 98 - use a separate hard drive or partition!
Whatever you decide to do when upgrading to windows xp, do not let the setup change the format of your hard drive or you may not be able to recover when xp crashes & fails to load. You would then be left with no option but to rerun the setup/install XP all over again.
I have learned through trial and error that when XP fails to boot with the error, "Could not find c:\windows\system32\config\system This file is needed to start windows" that you have to do your own scrambling for a backup (... more)
| 12/28/2006 |
The Notebook quick and easy fix
One of the easy fixes for notebook computer problems is to turn it off, remove AC power and battery, then press the power button/switch ten times or more.
This resets the electronics completely, and can resolve all sorts of transient problems, everything from not recognizing the hard drive to getting stuck in a startup loop once windows fails to load.
The specific details of how to remove the battery and AC power from your notebook should be available in the documentation supplied (... more)
| 9/7/2006 |
XP:Scandisk reloaded
While working the launch support for Microsoft Windows 95 (the biggest launch to that date for Microsoft) I found that many times having the system check the hard drive for errors resolved the problem. It was not something I heard other support folks recommending, and sure, sometimes the disk’s data was so corrupt that the system became non-bootable, but that was rare. Usually the scandisk found & fixed errors, and the problem was solved. This fix was especially applicable and effective if (... more)
| 7/20/2006 |