PC Tips : How to Format USB Drive with NTFS File System

The advantage of NTFS file system is more security options and fast. Normally USB drive capacity is very small enough that NTFS is not recommended. But, nowadays USB drives are coming with larger capacity also. So we can format USB drive with NTFS to have more security options.

NTFS enabled USB Drives are write-able only on one PC and becomes read only on all other PCs. Hence, we can read and write on our own PC and transfer files to elsewhere without any fear of virus.

In XP, only FAT and FAT32 file systems are available in format options, use the below steps to format in NTFS File System.

a. Insert USB drive in your PC
b. Goto Device Manager
c. Select Disk Drives and expand
d. Right Click on USB drive and select Properties
e. Goto policies tab and select Optimize for performance and press OK
f. Open My Computer, Click on USB Drive and select Format Opton

Now you can have NTFS option there.

PC Tips : How To Make Bootable Pendrive using Makebootable

When critical windows problem comes, we need bootable CD to repair windows, instead of CD we can use our pendrive as bootable, for that we can use MakeBootable software. MakeBootable is a freeware and it helps to convert pen drive into a bootable media,

But only problem is pendrive will work only with FAT file system, hence take backup of your pendrive before start.

After convert your pen drive bootable, change your BIOS to select USB Device as First Boot device to boot from pendrive.

Download here

PC Tips : How to Create ISO Image from your CD?

Do you have an Important CDs ? just convert that CD contents into ISO image and save it in harddisk which will help in emergency. ISO image is the common CD Image format, most popular CD Burning programs can burn ISO images into recordable CDs. The full contents of the CD can be saved in ISO image file.

Steps to create ISO image :

Download undisker tool from here and rut it
Insert source CD into your CDRW Drive
Select Capture CDROM option and give your destination filename
Choose ISO as file format and press Save Button

Then your CD contents will be saved as ISO image in your harddisk.

PC Tips : How to change the physical path of "My Documents" folder?

By default, My Documents folder will be available in %userprofile% folder only,

Ex.: C:\Documents and Settings\"User Name"\My Documents

If you want to change the physical location / path of My Documents folder, just follow the below steps :

* Create new a folder in different drive / different location
* Apply folder permissions
* Then, In My Computer view, from Common Tasks pane on left side, right-click on
My Documents and select Properties
* And, in Target Tab, type the target folder path and click apply

Try and give your feedback.

PC Tips : How To Access The Data Inside Crashed HDD? : PC Tips

Many of my friends when their Operating System (OS) crash, they just format the PC because they thought that they cannot access the data inside the Hard Disk. But even, if our OS crash, we can still access our data inside the crashed HDD. I hope most of you have seen the blue screen of death when your Operating System crash.

We can access the data by using Portable LiveCD like Portable XP / Linux Live CD. My preference is SLAX Linux Live CD.

Just boot your computer with newly burned bootcd (SLAX). After successful boot you can be able to see your hard drive contents from the folder view. No need to mount the partitions, because it is already mounted. Just use a pendrive to backup your importat data.

Otherwise, use the below method :

Just remove your crashed HDD from the your PC and connect that with other Xp based PC's secondary slot, check with bios for HDD detection and boot it. After booting you can see your HDD in My Computer view as D: or E:

Just use a pendrive to backup your importat data.

PC Tips : How to Backup your browser Favorites / Bookmarks? : PC Tips

While surfing , we used to bookmark some useful sites for future reference. But if our system has a problem and need to be formatted, we will loose our favorites/bookmark links. It is better for us to backup our browser bookmarks. The process of backup bookmarks / favorites is really simple:

Internet Explorer

Open My Computer and goto to C:\Documents and Settings\yourusername\ and find the "Favorites" folder

Note: Before this just click on Tools > Folder Options > Show Hidden Files & Folders to view hidden files / folders.

Just copy this folder to your backup location.


Firefox

Goto Bookmarks then Organize Bookmarks from Firefox browser window then from the File menu select Export.

Choose the location to save the bookmarks.html file then click save.