Is your computer hard drive lost or infected with a virus, making it impossible to boot into the Windows operating system? Have you equipped yourself with any tools to quickly recover your data or speed up your hard drive?
Simple Recovery
The Windows Recovery Console (WRC) in Windows XP is a highly effective, safe, and user-friendly tool. It operates in an environment similar to DOS, allowing you to copy file data, repair boot sector errors, and more, without needing to boot into the operating system. For example, if your Windows fails to start, you can boot into WRC and use the startup repair feature or the “fixmbr” command, hoping to resolve any arising issues.
To start the Recovery Console, insert the Windows XP installation CD into your CD drive and restart your computer—make sure your computer is set to boot from the CD. When the Windows XP installer appears, press the R key to launch the application. When you see “Windows NT Boot Console Command Interpreter,” press 1 or any key suggested by your operating system installation, then hit Enter and enter the Administrator password.
WRC uses many commands similar to those in Command Prompt. You can use commands such as attrib, cd, copy, del, dir, exit, md, ren, rd, set, and type, just like in DOS.
However, the Recovery Console often restricts access to certain directories on your hard drive for security reasons. If you don’t remove these restrictions while your operating system is functioning normally, it will be difficult to perform copy operations or any tasks involving these directories.
To remove these restrictions, execute the following task while your operating system is still running properly. Access the Local Security Settings manager by going to Run and typing “secpol.msc” or navigating to Start | Settings | Control Panel | Administrative Tools | Local Security Settings. Then, go to Security Settings | Local Policies | Security Options, double-click on the item Recovery Console: Allow floppy copy and access to all drives and all folders, and select Enabled.
On the next boot, if Windows fails to start, boot into WRC and enter the command line “set AllowAllPaths = true” and press Enter.
Speeding Up Your Hard Drive and Reducing the Risk of Failure
As your hard drive fills up, the operating system tends to “stuff” new data files into any available space. Sometimes, files get broken into many smaller pieces to fit into the remaining space on the disk. If there are too many fragmented files, not only will your hard drive slow down, but your entire operating system will also experience significant slowdowns, increasing the risk of data loss.
The solution is to use the Disk Defragmenter tool in your operating system by going to Start | All Programs | Accessories | System Tools and selecting the drive you want to “clean up,” then click Ok and wait.
However, there are some files that cannot be moved during the defragmentation process. These files remain fragmented even after running Disk Defragmenter. Most of these data files are the Master File Table (MFT) or SWAP (virtual RAM).
The only way to clean up SWAP files is to delete them before using the Disk Defragmenter tool—ensure your system has at least 256MB of RAM before removing the SWAP file.
To remove the SWAP file, go to Control Panel | System | Advanced tab | Performance Settings | Advanced tab | Change. Under Virtual Memory, select “No paging file,” click Set, and then OK. Now proceed with defragmenting your hard drive. After defragmentation, revisit the Virtual Memory section to set parameters for your virtual RAM. Increasing virtual RAM can help speed up your system. If you have enough disk space, set the Initial size to 500MB and Maximum size to 2048MB for better performance, including improved sound quality for MP3 files.
As for MFT files—system files that only exist on NTFS-formatted drives—they cannot be moved. As your hard drive stores more data, the size of MFT files increases and becomes fragmented. However, this doesn’t mean you cannot move them; a registry tweak can help you address this issue. Go to Run and type regedit to open the Registry Editor. Once the Registry Editor opens, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlFilesystem, double-click on the NtfsMftZoneReservation key on the right, and enter a value between 2 and 4—default is 1, which allocates 12.5% of the disk space for the MFT file, while values of 2-3 allocate 25-37.5%, and 4 allocates 50%. Close the Registry Editor and restart your system.
Seeking Simplicity
Your hard drive will run much faster and more stably with ample free space. You may have backed up, encrypted, and optimized your data, but there is still more to do.
The first task is to clean up any unnecessary applications, remove dangerous spyware, computer viruses, and more.
Next, clean up unnecessary data files on your hard drives. Go to Start | All Programs | Accessories | System Tools | Disk Cleanup to remove excess files, temporary files, and more.
This article addresses the fundamental aspects to help speed up your system and protect your data and hard drive.
