ISO to Backup and Restore Your Hard Drive

Do you ever calculate the times you have performed operating systems installations? Well, personally, I cannot remember the actual times I have installed Windows for both work and personal. Let me give some rough figures.

Windows 3.11 - 5 times

Windows 95 - 5 times

ISO to Backup and Restore Your Hard Drive

Windows 98 - 50 times

Windows Me - 5 times

Windows 2000 - 5 times

Linux Red Hat - 3 times

Windows XP Pro - 100 times

Windows Server 2003 - 3 times

Windows Vista - 8 times

Honestly, I never enjoy going through the process of installing any of the operating systems. For those who know me, I will most probably be looking at the progress bar during the installation as if I am very interested. However, I am actually very frustrated and hoping that the progress bar could go as fast as it could be.

Attended Installation

Well, some of you may know that the normal installation through the OS CD or DVD (such as looking at the progress bar and clicking several next buttons) is called attended installation and it is possible that you create your own unattended installation using deployment tools. However, I will not be covering the Windows unattended installation.

Unattended Installation

Most companies use Imaging (ISO) to create a duplicate copy of installed operating system so that they can easily install the exact copy of operating system with their corporate settings to every new machine by extracting the ISO.

ISO Images

- ISO is an archive or a duplicate or backup copy of whatever files that you wish to store

In other words, I create ISO images to backup my entire operating system hard drive data.

Hiren BooCD and Norton Ghost to create ISOs

I use Hiren BootCD, the all in one Dos Bootable CD. One of the software included is Norton Ghost, which can be used to create hard disk images known as ISOs.

ImgBurn

ImgBurn is a Windows program and it's free. You can install it and create ISO images or burn the images into CDs and DVDs.

ImgBurn VS Hiren BootCD

The difference between the two is that ImgBurn needs to be installed as a Windows program and undeniably, a good and easy tool to create ISO images. However, if your hard disk is corrupted, you won't be able to use ImgBurn unless you have dual booting. Thus, you need to use HirenBootCD and Norton Ghost to extract your ISO images to the corrupted hard disk.

The Idea

Simple:

1. Complete an attended installation or manual installation from CD or DVD on one machine

2. Install all the necessary programs that you need such as Microsoft Office, Adobe Acrobat Reader and the likes

3. Perform operating system updates

After performing the steps above, boot your computer from Hiren BootCD and you will come to a screen for you to select the types of software that are bundled. Choose Norton Ghost from the list and from there, you can create an image out of your partition drive.

The ISO file can be stored in your hard disk for easy access but not in the same drive where you install your operating system. If your computer fails to load or startup properly, you can then pop in Hiren BootCD, boot from the CD and restore the ISO file.

The Practice

My own practice is to have at least two partitions, namely C and D.

- C drive will be the drive where I install my operating system and programs

- D drive will be my document drive

- A copy of ISO created from the C drive will be kept in D drive

Benefit

When operating system is corrupted, none of my document files will be affected when I extract ISO into the C drive. Extracting ISO to C drive will overwrite every data in C drive without any warning. However, after extracting the ISO, you will get the same settings and operating system as of the time when you create the ISO.

What's more? You do not have to go through the process of keying the product key, selecting the time zone, installing the drivers and commonly used programs.

ISO to Backup and Restore Your Hard Drive
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ISO to Backup and Restore Your Hard Drive

Do you ever calculate the times you have performed operating systems installations? Well, personally, I cannot remember the actual times I have installed Windows for both work and personal. Let me give some rough figures.

Windows 3.11 - 5 times

Windows 95 - 5 times

ISO to Backup and Restore Your Hard Drive

Windows 98 - 50 times

Windows Me - 5 times

Windows 2000 - 5 times

Linux Red Hat - 3 times

Windows XP Pro - 100 times

Windows Server 2003 - 3 times

Windows Vista - 8 times

Honestly, I never enjoy going through the process of installing any of the operating systems. For those who know me, I will most probably be looking at the progress bar during the installation as if I am very interested. However, I am actually very frustrated and hoping that the progress bar could go as fast as it could be.

Attended Installation

Well, some of you may know that the normal installation through the OS CD or DVD (such as looking at the progress bar and clicking several next buttons) is called attended installation and it is possible that you create your own unattended installation using deployment tools. However, I will not be covering the Windows unattended installation.

Unattended Installation

Most companies use Imaging (ISO) to create a duplicate copy of installed operating system so that they can easily install the exact copy of operating system with their corporate settings to every new machine by extracting the ISO.

ISO Images

- ISO is an archive or a duplicate or backup copy of whatever files that you wish to store

In other words, I create ISO images to backup my entire operating system hard drive data.

Hiren BooCD and Norton Ghost to create ISOs

I use Hiren BootCD, the all in one Dos Bootable CD. One of the software included is Norton Ghost, which can be used to create hard disk images known as ISOs.

ImgBurn

ImgBurn is a Windows program and it's free. You can install it and create ISO images or burn the images into CDs and DVDs.

ImgBurn VS Hiren BootCD

The difference between the two is that ImgBurn needs to be installed as a Windows program and undeniably, a good and easy tool to create ISO images. However, if your hard disk is corrupted, you won't be able to use ImgBurn unless you have dual booting. Thus, you need to use HirenBootCD and Norton Ghost to extract your ISO images to the corrupted hard disk.

The Idea

Simple:

1. Complete an attended installation or manual installation from CD or DVD on one machine

2. Install all the necessary programs that you need such as Microsoft Office, Adobe Acrobat Reader and the likes

3. Perform operating system updates

After performing the steps above, boot your computer from Hiren BootCD and you will come to a screen for you to select the types of software that are bundled. Choose Norton Ghost from the list and from there, you can create an image out of your partition drive.

The ISO file can be stored in your hard disk for easy access but not in the same drive where you install your operating system. If your computer fails to load or startup properly, you can then pop in Hiren BootCD, boot from the CD and restore the ISO file.

The Practice

My own practice is to have at least two partitions, namely C and D.

- C drive will be the drive where I install my operating system and programs

- D drive will be my document drive

- A copy of ISO created from the C drive will be kept in D drive

Benefit

When operating system is corrupted, none of my document files will be affected when I extract ISO into the C drive. Extracting ISO to C drive will overwrite every data in C drive without any warning. However, after extracting the ISO, you will get the same settings and operating system as of the time when you create the ISO.

What's more? You do not have to go through the process of keying the product key, selecting the time zone, installing the drivers and commonly used programs.

ISO to Backup and Restore Your Hard Drive
Check For The New Release in Health, Fitness & Dieting Category of Books NOW!
Check What Are The Top Cooking Books in Last 90 Days Best Cheap Deal!
Check For Cookbooks Best Sellers 2012 Discount OFFER!
Check for Top 100 Most Popular Books People Are Buying Daily Price Update!
Check For 100 New Release & BestSeller Books For Your Collection

Please visit My Ideas 4 You and ISO to Backup and Restore Hard Drive

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How To Set Up A TV Satellite Dish And Sky Digibox To Watch English Channels Such As BBC And ITV

Hardware Requirements:

I am assuming that you have the necessary equipment as detailed in my previous article about 'How to get the equipment to watch English TV in Europe'.

You need:

How To Set Up A TV Satellite Dish And Sky Digibox To Watch English Channels Such As BBC And ITV

A TV (preferably one with a SCART socket)
An ex-rental Sky Digibox that has already been used in the UK
A dish of the appropriate size (see my earlier article and astra2d.com for a size guide) with LNB
Co-ax cable
A Sky viewing card or Freeview card
Necessary fixings to mount the dish
Mounting the dish

The satellite we are looking for is Astra 2D 28.2E. This located at 28.2 degrees East of South. Let me tell you why setting up the angle and elevation is very important and has to be done very carefully. Astra 2D is in a geostationary orbit, which means it appears to be stationary when seen from the rotating earth.. The normal height for a geostationary satellite is 36,000Km and the satellite is only 8m tall and just over 2m diameter, it actually looks like a tin of baked beans with the lid open! So the alignment of the dish has to be done very accurately.

I cannot help you too much with the exact angles you need as they vary depending on your location. Here in the Southern French Alps a compass bearing of 150 degrees with an elevation of 34 degrees are the figures required. In Bucharest in Romania a bearing of 177 degrees and an elevation of 39 degrees would be required. Looking on the internet, particularly on ex pat web sites for your area, will normally reveal the magic numbers.

So mount your dish where you like, it does not need to be on the roof as it does not work like an aerial. It just needs a clear path between it and the satellite, no trees or buildings. The steepness of the angle surprises a lot of people, in the type of dish where the LNB is supported on an arm attached to the bottom of the dish, the 'beam' angle we are interested in is roughly parallel to that arm. Set the elevation to the correct value and leave the bracket slightly loose so that you can turn the dish from side to side. Using a compass, point the dish at a compass bearing you have (150 in my case). You will not get it right first time, but the closer you are, the less danger of finding the wrong satellite there is.

Getting it all working

Now, connect the dish to the box an the box to the TV and switch on the power.

Warning: The dish cable carries a small electric current, so never connect or disconnect it while the box is live; otherwise some of the electronic components could be damaged

Do not worry if the remote control does not react immediately - after switching on the power the Digibox can take several seconds before it will respond. On the remote control, press Services, then press 4, then 6. This will display a Signal Test screen. Ignore the Signal Strength and Signal Quality bars for the moment. You should however have something in the Signal Strength bar. (If you do not, you have a faulty connection on the way to the LNB).

Place the TV where it can be seen while manipulating the dish, move the dish until the zeros change to 0002 (Network ID) and 07d4 (Transport Stream). The change will be quite sudden so go carefully to avoid swinging the dish too far. The Lock Indicator will also change from 'Not locked' to 'OK'. The value of 07d4 is usually the case but you might encounter others, particularly if you are trying to get a signal in southern Europe. However the Network ID must be 0002, otherwise you are pointing at the wrong satellite.

Finishing off the setup

As soon as the Network ID and Transport Stream values change from zero, a digital signal is being received. Clamp the dish, then press the Backup button on the remote control 3 times to return to the normal screen. Now wait until the box has finished getting the program data.

If after aligning the dish, you get a signal but there is interference on sound or vision, it is almost certainly caused by the dish elevation or direction being slightly out of alignment. Move the dish very slightly and carefully and watch the Signal Quality bar on the Signal Test screen for the greatest value. Anything over about 50% should give good reception.

How To Set Up A TV Satellite Dish And Sky Digibox To Watch English Channels Such As BBC And ITV
Check For The New Release in Health, Fitness & Dieting Category of Books NOW!
Check What Are The Top Cooking Books in Last 90 Days Best Cheap Deal!
Check For Cookbooks Best Sellers 2012 Discount OFFER!
Check for Top 100 Most Popular Books People Are Buying Daily Price Update!
Check For 100 New Release & BestSeller Books For Your Collection

Rick Lomas lives in Serre Chevalier in the Southern French Alps.

There is a good source of information about satellite TV and mobile phones on his website http://www.ricklomas.com as well as ideas on how to make money online.

Rick is currently working on various websites selling mortgage payment protection insurance, as an affiliate for British Insurance.

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How to Fix Windows Vista Slow Startup and Shutdown

If you are an old Windows Vista user you might have noticed that the shutdown and startup processes takes more time than it used to be. Suddenly these processes are so slow that you can press shutdown at vista and wait a few minutes for the computer to shut itself down and the same goes to the startup process. It takes Windows Vista a few minutes to start itself instead of 1 minute as it was when you bought the computer.

This slowness happens almost to every computer that runs Windows for some time. You see, the cause to slow startup and shutdown time on Windows Vista is the registry. The Windows registry is the place where Windows Vista keeps its most valuable and critical information and keys. Whenever you make modifications to Windows like installing and uninstalling software, changes are made to the registry. Those changes make some errors and invalid entries in the Windows registry and that is the reason for Windows slow performance.

To fix this, all you need to do is clean the registry from errors and invalid entries, you have two ways of doing this:

How to Fix Windows Vista Slow Startup and Shutdown

1. Clean the registry manually - You can press Start->Run->regedit and Enter. You'll see the Registry Editor window opens. That is where you make all the modifications you need to the registry. Important - Making mistakes while editing the registry can cause some serious damage to your computer, starting from performance problems to a situation where your computer doesn't operate at all. So, if you don't really know what you are doing in the registry editor, I recommend you not to touch it at all.

2. Use a Registry Cleaner - The best and most efficient solution for you is to use a registry cleaner. A registry cleaner is simply a little piece of software which its purpose is to run over all of the registry entries and fix errors and invalid entries. So, if you don't want to clean your registry manually, I really recommend you to use a registry cleaner to solve the slow shutdown and startup of Windows Vista.

Warning - It is very important which registry cleaner you choose, there are lots of registry cleaners out there and some of them are good but some can damage your computer and are totally a scam. Oh and another tip, use the registry cleaner on a weekly basis, this way your computer will always be at its most optimized state.

How to Fix Windows Vista Slow Startup and Shutdown
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Check For 100 New Release & BestSeller Books For Your Collection

My name is Gray Stevens and I am a computer engineer for the last 10 years. I am a Windows operating system expert, and worked as a system engineer in a few big companies. Check here some of the best registry cleaners reviews.

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