Partition A New Hard Drive

As digital media becomes more and more popular, our computers are needing more and more hard drive space. With the price of, frankly, huge capacity hard drives continuously hitting new lows, it’s now not just computer enthusiasts who are adding new drives to their new computers.

While it is relatively simple, particularly with SATA hard drives, to add a new drive - it is not immediately obvious to everyone how to start using a new drive. You have the hard drive connected correctly, it is recognized in the system BIOS, but it is missing from ‘My Computer’.
That is because it has not been formatted.

The word ‘partition’ is usually associated with one physical drive being split into more than one logical drive - but actually, EVERY hard drive needs a partition - even if it is the full size of the disc.

Windows has its own tool for this job - called ‘Disk Management’. Unlike ‘My Computer’, it shows every drive connected to the system - formatted/partitioned or not.

Access it by Right clicking on ‘My Computer’, and selecting ‘Manage’. In the left-hand pane, select ‘Disk Management’ Now, in the right-hand pane, you will see your Hard Drives and Optical Drives - hopefully including the new drive which will show up as ‘unallocated space’.

New disks appear as Not Initialized. Microsoft state that if you start Disk Management after adding a disk, the Initialize Disk Wizard appears so you can initialize the disk. If for any reason it does not, you can initialize it manually. Just right-click on the new disks ‘label’ (the gray box to the right of the black bar that denotes the unallocated space), and select ‘Initialize’.When done, you can begin to format the drive.

Here are the instructions to create a single partition the full size of your new driveRight-click unallocated space on the basic disk you want to format, and then click New Partition.

In the New Partition Wizard, click Next, Select ‘Primary Partition’, click Next. DO NOT create a dynamic disk here unless you know what you are doing, and specifically want one. Once created, there’s no going back without wiping the drive.

Specify the full size of the disk in the ‘Partition size in MB’ box and then click Next. Assign a drive letter to the drive, click Next to format the partition, click ‘Format this partition with the following settings’, type a name for the drive in the ‘Volume Label’ box if you want to, and choose ‘NTFS’ in the ‘File System’ box. Do not change the ‘allocation size’, or enable compression in the options.

I would also suggest not performing a ‘quick format’ on a brand new drive. The full format checks the full surface of the disk.

Now go and grab something to eat/drink, as on a large drive this could take a while.

If you want to create more than one partition on the disc, the steps are similar, apart from the size of the partition you will be creating.

To create a second partition on the disc, select the remaining unallocated space and repeat the steps.

You might also want to look at Microsoft’s own Knowledge-base article on the subject http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309000

eCards and Postcards from Friends

From: BlueMountain.Com ufp@btconnect.com

Subject: You’ve received a postcard from a School mate!

Hi. School mate has sent you a postcard.
See your card as often as you wish during the next 15 days.

SEEING YOUR CARD

If your email software creates links to Web pages, click on your
card’s direct www address below while you are connected to the Internet:

http://**.***.***.**/?e3ca036e47840d8e117868911e6c3

Or copy and paste it into your browser’s “Location” box (where Internet
addresses go).

We hope you enjoy your awesome card.

Wishing you the best,
Webmaster,

BlueMountain.Com

At present there are millions of these being mass mailed on a daily basis, from ’schoolmates’, ‘friends’, ‘family members’, ‘your mate’ and many more.

Ensure that your Anti-Virus is up to date, and all system security patches have been downloaded.

NO Greeting Card company will ever ask you to DOWNLOAD anything, ecards are viewed online through a link in an email, but the links contained in these ‘cards’ prompt you to download.

In this particular case, if you click the link you are PROMPTED to DOWNLOAD or informed that your DOWNLOAD will start shortly.

It is important that you just delete these mails, many contain a Trojan Script…..but they will not zero your drive or boot sector as the rumours are saying.

As with all emails, if you don’t know the sender DELETE it.

How to ruin your PC

Fighting off Viruses

Lavasoft Ad-Aware 2007 Free Edition

Lavasoft believe that every individual, regardless of
economic status or geographic location, should have the
power to control their individual privacy and security.
Lavasoft is the original anti-spyware company, and they are
still delivering the best protection today. After all, over
300 million computer users around the world can’t be wrong!

With the ability to scan your RAM, Registry, hard drives,
and external storage devices for known data-mining,
advertising, and tracking components, Ad-Aware 2007 easily
can clean your system, allowing you to maintain a higher
degree of privacy while you surf the Web.

Ad-Aware 2007 includes a redesigned engine, improved code
sequence identification, incremental definition updates,
one-click Web-history cleanup, multiple browser support,
and other new features.

One of the first applications built to find and remove
adware and spyware, Ad-Aware 2007 maintains Lavasoft’s
excellent reputation.

The interface features two skins and six tabs in the. The
first two, Status and Scan, initiate file scans for adware.
After scanning is complete, the program presents a results
summary, followed by a line-item list from which you can
select which components to remove. There is also an option
to create a system restore point. Right-clicking an
individual entry gives some information about suspected
adware.

The third button offers real-time defenses but only in the
paid version. Web Update, the next button, controls
definition file updates. The fifth button, Tools and Plug-
ins, shows you which plug-ins are installed and controls
TrackSweep, the new browsing tracks cleaner. TrackSweep is
the only free function here. Smoothly integrated into the
application, it wipes the cache, cookies, and history, and
other traces left by browsing.

Settings is last, and provides access to auto-scans,
browsers, scanning, the interface, and log files. The
application does an excellent job of removing most malware
components. Despite the restrictions on the free edition,
this is a fully functional adware remover, and Ad-Aware
2007 should be part of your defence system.

More Key Features
User-Controlled Spyware Removal - Decide for yourself what
to delete from your system and what to keep.

Extensive Detection Database - Stay protected with regular
updates from the extensive library of identified and
analyzed spyware.

System Restore Point - Easily revert back to your clean
system to recover from a spyware attack.

Surf the Internet with peace of mind and let Ad-Aware
shield you from dangerous intruders and prying eyes.

Preserve your computer investment with regular scans to
identify and remove malicious applications that eat up
memory and steal bandwidth so your computer runs as
smoothly as the day you bought it.

At present it is not compatible with Windows Vista, which
can install the program, but it sometimes crashes or hangs
during scans. A Vista-compatible edition will be released
in August 2007.

Download it free from here:
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/products/ad_aware_free.php

Note: Ad-Aware 2007 Free is free of charge for personal
home use only. Commercial use is prohibited. For real-time
protection and advanced options, paid versions are
available from Lavasoft at www.lavasoft.com.

IObit SmartDefrag

One thing that is often overlooked is defragmenting your
hard drive(s).

This program eliminates that. Once installed, it will sit
in your System Tray and when your CPU drops to 20% or less
it will automatically start to defragment and optimise your
drive(s). You can also use the manual Defrag and set to to
Comprehensive.

It runs efficiently in the background with very little
processor usage.

The Most Efficient Defragmenter

The main cause of slow/unstable PC performance is disk
fragmentation. IObit SmartDefrag helps defrag your hard
drive most efficiently. With “Install it and forget it”
feature, it works automatically and quietly in the
background on your PC, keeping your hard disk running at
its speediest. Slow down, freeze-ups and crashes will be a
thing of the past. IObit SmartDefrag is 100% FREE for
personal, home and small business, and 100% safe from any
spyware, adware and virus. IObit SmartDefrag is designed
for Windows Vista, XP and 2000.

Simple to use
Install it and forget it.
The intuitive interface makes IObit SmartDefrag the ideal
utility even for complete dummies.

Efficient Defragment.
No more long time waiting. IObit SmartDefrag has the
fastest defragment engine in the world, especially designed
for modern large hard drives.

Optimize File System
It isn’t just a simple defragment, it also streamlines
your file system and makes your computer run at higher
speeds with more stability.

Always-on Working
IObit SmartDefrag works automatically and quietly in the
background, constantly keeps your computer fragment-free.

Free
IObit SmartDefrag is 100% freeware. You can get it and
update it at no cost whatsoever.

Download it here:
http://www.iobit.com/iobitsmartdefrag.html#

Any problems, try the Forum, FAQ or Contact Me.

Safe surfing everone

cotojo

Virus Protection from AVG - Tutorial included

Protecting your computer from a virus is getting harder and harder each day. While it may border on the paranoid, it goes without saying that you can’t leave your guard down for one second. Even corporate giant Microsoft has found its own systems compromised on more than one occasion.

Because new viruses erupt daily, it is important that you regularly update your antivirus software. Become familiar with the software’s real-time scan feature.

Make it a habit to always scan all new programs or files no matter from where they originate.
Perform regular backups in case your system is corrupted. It may be the only way to recover your data if infected.

I suspect a lot of people get virus infections because they download random files off the internet. Kazaa/eMule and other peer-to-peer are great places to download infected items. It is important that if you use such programs that you have one dedicated folder to download too, and before opening or running anything scan it first with an anti-virus program. I recommend that people who want to exchange files over the internet (including entire folders of files) do so using encrypted solutions (and only with friends or people they know). A great new application is GigaTribe, it encrypts all exchanges, no files size limits, and is free from any spyware/adware.
Their website is http://www.gigatribe.com

AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition is a free downloadable antivirus program that has received high marks for its reliability. In the past, free downloadable antivirus programs have been viewed skeptically because of issues relating to its reliability.

However, AVG from Grisoft, remains one of the best-known free anti-virus programs available. While AVG cannot be installed on a server operating system and there is no technical support, it still makes a good choice for many home computer users.The best part is that it is free for both Windows and Linux and it checks for updates on a regular basis.

I have been using AVG free Anti-Virus for many years and install it as first choice on other peoples machines.

Get yours here:http://free.grisoft.com/doc/avg-anti-virus-free/lng/us/tpl/v5

Save the program to a folder which is easily accessible, I created one on my desktop and renamed it Downloads, this is where I download all of my utilities etc. so I have them in one easily accessible location.

Once installed AVG loads at startup and sits in your system tray.It will carry out a complete scan on a daily basis, but you can schedule it to do this at a time convenient to you. When it has completed its scan a small window will pop up with the results.

You also have the added benefit of real-time scanning as it runs in the backgound and will warn you if something you are downloading is infected.

You can also left click any folder or an item within a folder and scan it with AVG.

Important: Do NOT use more than one Anti-Virus programas it will give you false readings.

http://free.grisoft.com/doc/avg-anti-virus-free/lng/us/tpl/v5

Windows Media Player Tutorial - Click Here

CCleaner - clear your browsing history safely

I have covered this previously, but have added some new
information to this.

CCleaner is a freeware system optimization and privacy
tool. It removes unused files from your system - allowing
Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk
space by automatically cleaning the cache when run. It also
cleans traces of your online activities such as your
Internet history. It also only takes a few seconds to run
and remove these unwanted files from your pc.

There have been over 55 million downloads of this program

http://www.filehippo.com/download_ccleaner/

Internet Explorer
Temporary files, URL history, cookies, Autocomplete form
history, index.dat.

Firefox
Temporary files, URL history, cookies, download history.

Opera
Temporary files, URL history, cookies.

Windows
Recycle Bin, Recent Documents, Temporary files and Log
files.

Registry cleaner
Advanced features to remove unused and old entries,
including File Extensions, ActiveX Controls, ClassIDs,
ProgIDs, Uninstallers, Shared DLLs, Fonts, Help Files,
Application Paths, Icons, Invalid Shortcuts and more…
also comes with a comprehensive backup feature

Third-party applications
Removes temp files and recent file lists (MRUs) from many
apps including Media Player, eMule, Kazaa, Google Toolbar,
Netscape, MS Office, Nero, Adobe Acrobat, WinRAR, WinAce,
WinZip and many more…

This software does NOT contain any Spyware, Adware or
Viruses.

I set mine up as follows:
Click on the Cleaner Tab on the left and under Windows I
tick all boxes in Internet Explorer, Windows Explorer and
System. Under Advanced tick only the first 2 boxes. Then
click on the Applications tab and tick all.

Issues tab:
Unless you are competent at dealing with the registry then
leave this one alone and DO NOT run it.

If you wish to run the Issues to clean the Registry, carry
out the following first:

Backup your Registry. Go to Start, Run and type in regedit
click on OK and the Registry Editor will then open. Go to
the top Tabs and click on File, scroll down until you see
Export, left click it and this will open Export Registry File
window. Save this file to your desktop and in the File Name
box enter Registry Backup File.
Click on Save and it should now be on your desktop.
Verify the file is a good copy, in the Registry Editor
window click on File, select Import, in new panel where it
says ‘Look in’ select desktop and then click on your saved
file then click ‘Open’. Once it says it has been read in
successfully, you have a good backup.
Now if you find that some programs are no longer running
in the way that they should, restore your Registry as detailed
above. CCleaner will also create backup copies of your Registry
and I suggest that if you do choose to run the Registry Issues
untick all of the boxes and tick one box at a time and run each
one separately.

Tools tab:
Here you will find a list of Uninstall options to remove
programs from your pc, use with caution. I prefer to use
the Add/Remove function or the programs own uninstaller.

Startup:
Lists all programs that are set to run when you boot up,
if you are unsure about deleting any of these then leave it
as it is.

Options tab:
Settings - Choose your language, untick Run CCleaner when
the computer starts, tick the next 3 boxes, then look at
the Secure Deletion, tick the radio button ‘Secure file
deletion (Slower) and set it to NSA (7 passes)

Cookies - entirely up to the individual, but I don’t save
any cookies.

Custom - You can drag and drop files or folders into the
window or browse for them and on the next run they will be
securely deleted.

Advanced - Untick boxes 1-3 tick all others.

Finally click on the Cleaner tab on the left and you have
the option to Analyze or Run Cleaner. When you are
comfortable using this program you won’t use Analyze, but
initially do use it to see what can be deleted and the
approximate size of files to be deleted.

Important
This will remove any saved passwords and usernames that
you have, so make sure that you have a copy of them all
before proceeding to clean.

http://www.filehippo.com/download_ccleaner/

Windows Media Player tutorial:

http://www.a1-ebooks.co.uk/tutorials/CCleanerSetup.wmv

Open a text document, enter the URL, username and
password, save this to floppy, external drive or print it
off. Do NOT save this text file to your hard drive.

There is an excellent program for saving your passwords
etc available from http://www.roboform.com/
I will cover this in more detail another time.

As always, back-up your system or create a restore point
before making any changes.

To your safety and security online
cotojo