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Even though hard drives come equipped with monitoring sensors, like SMART, the average user does not know how to check the “health” status of their hard drives. Sometimes people find out their hard drive is malfunctioning because they hear a clicking noise. By then it is too late, and recovering data is very difficult at that point.

Thankfully many companies have come out with software to monitor your hard drives. Most Linux distros already have this feature, but OSX and Windows do not come with hard drive monitoring software. The software I have been testing for the past two months on some of my clients computers is Acronis Disk Monitor. It warns you about potential hard drive failures and determines the health status of your hard drive based on SMART flags. best of all, it is FREE.

I recommend anyone to install it on their Windows machines (unfortunately its not for OSX). Try it out and report your experience here.

This week we received several computer that were acting slow. After further diagnosis of the problem we found they had the following symptoms in common. After installing Malwarebytes, the update fails. If you try to install an antivirus, the install wizard reports that Windows Installer is not running.

This other symptom may be unrelated, but the frequency of computers arriving with the same problem on the same day is higher than usual. These computer all have the dreaded BSOD (Blue Screen of Death). Simply running CHKDSK /r in windows recovery console allows the computer to enter Windows again, but then the symptoms described above are exibited.

At this point performing a Windows repair fixes the system. Running tools like COMBOFIX, WINSOCKFIX, and WINDOWS RESTORE do not fix the problem.

We will continue to conduct an investigation to confirm that these symptoms are the result of a virus. We will post any results here.

Intalling Windows on a computer with a SATA hard drive may require drivers and|or changing the SATA mode in the BIOS.

Senario 1: You insert the Windows CD and the hard drive is displayed, ready for installation.
In this case you have a good chance of having a sucessful installation. Sometimes you may get a blue screen after the installation, if this happens follow the steps on  senario 2.

Senario 2: Hard drive is not dectected.
In this case download the SATA/IDE driver for you motherboard. The driver is sometimes a standalone driver or it comes with the chipset drivers.

• For Vista and 7, place these drivers in a flash drive, insert the flash drive in the computer you will install Windows on, and when you get to the formatting options screen select Load Driver. Locate the drivers on your flash drive, select it and press Next.
• For XP, install a Floppy disk drive and place the SATA/IDE drivers in a floppy drive. Insert the Windows XP CD and press F6. Follow the instructions on the setup to add the SATA/IDE drivers. In case you do not have a floppy, then you need to create a slipstream cd using nlite.

In the rare event installing the drivers still gives you a blue screen, and you already scanned your ram using Memtest, and tested your hard drive with the vendor’s diagnostic utility, then the problem might be related to the version of Windows (i.e Reatail vs OEM, SP1 vs SP3, etc). Different versions of windows can be made using nlite.

This is a problem related to the Fake Alert trojan virus. Some antivirus programs delete, quarantine, or modify windows system files when they get infected or are errouneously identified as a virus. When this happens, Windows services wont start properly because their files have been compromised.

For this particular problem, namely when the Network Location Awareness is corrupted, the solution is to reinstall Windows service packs. Follow these steps to reinstall/install the service packs for your operating system.

1. Identify which service packs are installed  (Windows XP: Right click My Computer->Properties. Vista or 7: Right click Computer->Properties)
2. Remove currently installed service packs (Control Panel->Add/Remove Programs) 
3. Reinstall the service packs ( Download the service packs for your operating system )

This problem can also be fixed, if only a few files have been deleted erroneously, by following the steps here.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of switching to a laptop or netbook. This article will compare your average computer. There are a wide variety in each category, and each has its own advantages and disadvantages. But in this article I focus on what is called mainstream computers, as oposed to enthusiast computers.

Lets begin with the laptop. I begin with the laptop because many people are considering switching from their desktops to a laptop, specially when their desktop needs repair. Is this a wise decision? Well, lets consider the benefits of switching from a desktop to a laptop. 

Obvious plus is portability. You can take your laptop with you and use it on battery charge for 2 to 4 hours on a single charge. Space saving is also an advantage. Laptop have the basic periferals – keyboard, mouse, speakers, and sometimes camera – in one package.

But there are drawbacks to having a laptop as your main computer. Laptops usually come with hard drives that have spinning disks (as oposed to solid state hard drives). These tend to crash more often than desktop hard drives. Moving a laptop while it is powered on is the culprit because a spinning disk wants to spin on the same plane, if you tilt the laptop, you increase the chance that the reading needle crashes with the disk. Desktops are stationary and are not tilted while powered on as often and therefore have a reduced risk of crashing the needle on the disk.

Overheating is also a problem. Laptops do not offer good airflow to dissipate the heat. Most of the vents are located on the bottom of the computer, which are sometimes blocked by objects -like pillows. Another source of overheating is dust build up. This should not be a problem if you use crompressed air to clean your laptop at least every 4 months. But people wait until its too late.

One big problem with some laptops that have a DC port directly soldered onto the motherboard, is that the DC port gets loose over time with use. The first symptom us an overheating charger or DC port, then the laptop stops charging unless the cable is held at an angle. Then it doesn’t work anymore, and the DC port has to be resoldered or replaced. Either way it is a costly repair.

And that brings me to the last disatvantage of laptops. Cost of repair. If the video card on your laptop fails, the motherboard has to be repaired or replaced. Sound card fails, same thing, the motherboard needs replacement. Camera fails… yeap. These repairs are significantly less costly on desktops, not to mention it takes less time to repair. Motherboard replacements on a laptop can take up to a month. Desktops can usually be repaired on-site.

There are other more technical advantages and disadvantages, like performance, multiscreen support, and  screen resolution. But these would fall under the enthusiast category.

Now what’s with all the hype about netbooks? Well, netbooks are a kind of laptop that is used mainly to access the net, hence the name. Netbooks don’t come with optical drives, so you cannot watch DVDs on them the way you would use a laptop or desktop. But I would not expect a netbook to be used as a main computer, unless all you do is access the internet and some word processing.

To epitomize, the decision to switch from a desktop to a laptop or netbook comes down to mobility and space vs. maintenace cost. The performance difference between desktops and laptops is minimal in the mainstream category and therefore don’t play an important role. If mobility and space is of importance, a laptop is for you. On the other hand if you want to keep maintenace cost to a minimum, a desktop is the choice.

So you got infected with spyware eventhough you have antivirus and antispyware protections, or maybe you have become skeptical of how effective anti-malware software is at preventing and removing viruses (or viri) from your computer. In this article I will describe three different setups that are effective at preventing virus infections. Each setup is aimed at a particular type of user. You can then choose which setup best suits you.

First up is Windows protected by anti-malware software. This setup is best for users who want the ability install hardware and software they can find in the store (the kind that is mostly compatible with Windows operating system). I recommend using Kaspersky Antivirus, and Malwarebytes Free Edition.  The effectiveness of preventing a virus infection on this setup depends on keeping Windows and the anti-malware software up to date.
Effectiveness 85-70%

Lets move onto a similar setup. Windows protected by OS restoring software. This setup is best for people who want to keep the compatability with popular software and hardware but make little changes to their system. I recommend using Faronic’s Deep Freeze. With this setup, once you have installed all the software and hardware you want to use, you then “Freeze” the system to prevent any further changes. Any changes that occur while the system is in the “Frozen” state get deleted when the system is rebooted. So if you catch a virus, no problem, restart and you are like new. Data is best saved permanently using this system in external media, like flash drives, external hard drives, or optical media.
Effectiveness 99-95%

This next setup is Linux based. Linux is a public (open source  for the otaku audience) operating system. Most Linux distributions are free. This setup is aimed at people who only need to browse the internet. The Linux distribution I recommend for this is called xPUD. It is an operating system focused around a web browser. The chances that someone will write a virus for this OS is minimal because the operating system is so small and contains no valuable data. Other than being very effective at preventing a virus infection, it is also very fast.
Effectiveness 99-98%

There you have it. Post comments to discuss further details about each setup. Tell us what you use your computer mainly for and we will tell you which of these setups or other setups will best suit you. These setups are mainly geared to home and small business users. Corporate users with web servers and domain servers, that is a whole different animal.

I want to make an analogy about the current use of cookies on websites.

Imagine you enter an office store. You pick a couple of items and head to the cashier. The cashier asks you if you would like to become a Rewards Member. You accept. The cashier hands you a form asking for your contact information. Now the cashier saves you information in digital form in a Rewards Member card and gives you the card so that next time you visit the store you don’t have to fill a form again.

In this analogy the store is a website and the cookie is the Rewards Member card.

If you own a website with computer related content, then these are great websites to exchange links with.

Web-friend.com
 Visit today for your link to the resources of the net.

Home Cinema System

So there you are wanting to use your computer but get discouraged as soon as you realize how slow your computer runs. You wish you could just plug in something and make it faster. My friend, ask and thou shall receive.

Go to you local computer store. Buy a 4GB RBST USB flash drive. It only costs $9.99. Head back home and plug it in. Vista will ask if you want to use ReadyBoost to make your computer faster. Say yes (Of course) and set it to the max the drive can take. Voila!

If your computer is already fast. You wont see much of a difference. But for those wanting faster booting, faster opening of programs, and more reponsiveness. This is a good way to provide your system with a boost of speed.

No need to buy a bigger flash drive than a 4GB. ReadyBoost only supports a max of 4GB.

For more information click ReadyBoost