Month: December 2004

Ways to keep your NT/2K/XP system defragmented

Dave Farquhar Windows ,

Last Updated on April 15, 2017 by Dave Farquhar

Defragmenting on a regular basis isn’t the only thing to overall system performance, but it’s a major factor. Fortunately there are some free tools that do a good job of it. Unfortunately they don’t come with Windows.

Here’s how to automatically defragment your system and your registry.

You can defragment the registry using PageDefrag, a utility by Mark Russinovich of WinNT Magazine fame. I’ve been known to set it to defragment the registry and page file at boot time; after the first time it doesn’t add much to the boot time at all. And XP can still get itself defragmented and booted faster than NT4 usually could manage to boot.

I talked a few weeks ago about DIRMS, a command-line defragmenter. I still like it. I recommend that you schedule a defrag at sometime you won’t be using the computer, like 4 AM. It’s easy to do with any version of Windows using the AT command.

at 4:00 /every:Monday dirms c -q

The AT command requires the scheduler service to be running. It does not require Internet Explorer 4.0 or newer to be installed, so it’ll run on NT4 boxes that only have the default IE 2.0 installed. If you want to run on additional days, separate it with a comma.

Now if DIRMS would just sort files by access date when it defragments, it would be the ultimate defragmenter.

Update: I don’t like DIRMS anymore. It failed me once big-time, and then I found something better.

A Linux-based GPL\’ed disk partition table recovery program

Dave Farquhar Linux , ,

It seems like I’m recommending the program MBRwork to someone at least once a month. I recommended it two or three times just last week. But there are a couple of things I don’t like about it. One, it’s DOS. Creating DOS boot floppies isn’t as easy as it used to be. And two, it’s proprietary, so it could theoretically disappear any minute.

But similar tools exist for Linux.The most highly regarded is gpart (guess partition), which just happens to be included on the BG-Rescue Linux two-floppy rescue system. Download BG-Rescue Linux and burn the ISO image to a CD, or download the two-floppy version and write it to two floppies, and keep it in your toolbox. Or, of course, they’re on Knoppix.

When a partition table vanishes, or, a more likely scenario, a system quits booting mysteriously, you can boot BG-Rescue Linux and run gpart. You can also check FAT/FAT32 filesystems with dosfsck and NTFS partitions with ntfsfix.

Need to undelete some files in an emergency? You can even undelete files from NTFS partitions with ntfsundelete.

Clearly, skills with a handful of Unix utilities are very useful even in a strictly Windows shop.

Looks like I should explore these tools a bit more in-depth this week.

IBM dumping its PC business?

Dave Farquhar Hardware
IBM dumping its PC business?

Last Updated on October 9, 2025 by Dave Farquhar

John C. Dvorak comes full circle in his column about IBM possibly dumping its PC business. He starts off saying it makes little sense, but by the end of the editorial, he has his mind made up that IBM should have done it years ago.

Of course, this was probably written before word got out that its talks are more of a joint venture or spinoff than a complete sellout.

Read more

Quieting and lengthening the life of a case fan

Dave Farquhar Hardware

I serviced a PC last week while my Internet connection was up and down like George Bush’s approval rating. It was making a lot of loud noises and at first the owner thought his hard drive was crashing. But when he described the sound to me, it sounded like a fan.

He sounded relieved and said he’d ignore it, but I told him I should take a look at it.Noisy fans are more likely to die than quiet ones. And while a lot of computers have enough fans in them that they can survive if one of the case fans dies, the likelihood of surviving long with a dead CPU or power supply fan is slim. Case fans should be kept in working order too, just because life expectancy roughly halves for each 10 degrees Celsius the temperature rises.

By opening the case and powering the system on, I was able to quickly isolate the noise to the case fan. It really wasn’t terribly loud–he commented that it quieted down a lot when he brought it to me–but I figured since he’d brought the computer over and I’d looked at it, I might as well do something useful. I peeled back the foil sticker on the fan face that hides the bearing and applied a drop of oil. Use 3-in-1 or a similar oil, or for that matter, a drop of 10w30 or another automotive oil if it’s all you’ve got. Do not use WD-40 or a similar penetrating oil. WD-40 does a great job of stopping squeaky doors and freeing up locks and preventing rust, but at best it’s a mediocre lubricant.

Also, with oil, more is rarely better. The excess will shoot out of the fan and weaken the adhesive on the sticker. It’s much better to put in a little and have to add more later than it is to put in too much from the start.

I replaced the sticker and put the fan back in the case. I powered the system on. It was noticeably quieter.

I don’t know if that fan’s life expectancy is now measured in weeks, months, or years, but it’s a pretty good bet that it’s been lengthened, and it’s going to annoy a lot fewer ears.

Running Knoppix on a Proliant with a SmartArray controller

Dave Farquhar Servers and Networking ,

If you’ve ever tried to run Knoppix on a Compaq or HP Proliant with a Smart Array controller, you probably got a rude surprise.

Here’s how to make the hard drive(s) show up.Open a shell window.

Type ‘su’ (no quotes) to become root.

Type ‘insmod cciss’ — you may get a message that it’s already installed.

Type ‘cd /dev’

Type ‘MAKEDEV cciss’ (this is case-sensitive).

Now Knoppix will see your drives so you can mount them and/or edit the partitions with qtparted.

Read this if you are using the free AVG 6.0 antivirus software

Dave Farquhar Viruses ,

Grisoft has offered a free edition of its AVG 6.0 antivirus software for several years. Unfortunately it has discontinued the product and will stop offering updates on 31 December.

The solution is to download their new free version.It’s a pain, but unfortunately, free things almost always have some kind of strings attached. To be entirely fair, for-pay antivirus software often has some strings attached too.

So if you’ve been using AVG, or you have friends who have been, download (or get them to download) the new version and update it.

Some people have been complaining lately about AVG not updating their definitions as quickly as the other vendors. The result is that some viruses that Norton Antivirus would catch go undetected by AVG. If you can afford better virus protection, buying it is probably worthwhile. If not, the AVG free edition is still better than no protection at all.

Revolutionary new computer maintenance trick!

Dave Farquhar Hardware

That got you going, didn’t it? At least I hope it did. I know I’m not the only one who has a problem with the screw-in posts on the back of computers coming off. I’m talking the posts next to your video port, your parallel printer port, serial ports, and all that.I was working on a computer tonight that had that problem and I finally thought of a way to keep that from happening. It’s an old trick I first heard of more than 20 years ago, but I only just now remembered it.

Glue those posts into place so they won’t turn on you. Before you screw something into them, of course. Permanently attaching your monitor to your computer isn’t a good thing.

Superglue works just fine for this. For a bond that’s less permanent–and less manly–but nearly as strong, use nail polish. I’m sure there’s a proper way to apply it but I just brush on a little bit like paint. It doesn’t take much.

Make that minor modification, and then after King Kong comes and tightens all of your connections on the back of the computer–I know my house isn’t the only one he visits, but I do wonder how he manages to put everything back exactly the way I had it–you’ll be able to get those cables disconnected without taking all of your posts with it.