http://www.bootdisk.com/ 182 September 2004
The BootLIST Welcome to the 182nd Edition of The BootLIST
INDEX
1) Saving Old Floppy Disk Data
2) Apps That May Have Problems With Windows XP2
3) How To Turn Off Balloon Tooltips And Pop-ups
4) How To Remove XP SP2
5) 200 Meg Swap File In Windows 98SE
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1) Saving Old Floppy Disk DataPeterM asks - One of the ladies in the office asked me if there is a way I can recover what is lost on one of the company floppy disks. The error message reads the disk is not formatted. Back in the old days I use to use PC Tools. Is there something like that out there for me to buy?
*** While that seems like an XP message I'm not going into how to get XP to read old floppies in this article. If you have trouble reading data on an old floppy there are a few things to try:Boot to dos on a win9x pc and try to copy the contents of the disk to a directory on the hard drive. First make sure its a pc where the floppy drive is regularly used because if the drive hasn't been used in ages it can only take a second for your valuable disk to act like a cleaner and grab all the dust and grime off the unused drive. Note that if this happens and you put the disk in a known good drive it can mess that one up as well by transferring the dust and grime to the heads on the good drive.
You may get lucky and it will copy the file you need but may give you an error for the next file, and so on, or the copy process may continue after the bad file and copy the rest of the disk. If you are unsure how long since the floppy drive has been used use compressed air then a disk cleaner ie the type that comes with fluid that you put on a cleaner disk to clean the drive first. Then use a disposable disk to test the drive out first before you put in the disk you really want the data back from. You may have to use a few tossable disks as even after a cleaning some smudge may remain on the heads and your test disks will act as secondary cleaners.
In summary, the first step is to make sure your drive is OK and clean before you try anything else as you dont want to cause further damage to the disk that has the data you need to recover.
Jon C. adds:
Try PC Inspector. It's free and does a pretty good job.http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/UK/welcome.htm
Yes pc inspector was mentioned just last month for hard drive file recovery but it's reposted here as it also supports fat12 ie 1.44 disks.
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2) Apps That May Have Problems With Windows XP2http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=884130
The above is NOT complete list. Also note that I said [may] even tho MS's page has stronger language. ie many folks may not experience any problems at all with some of the programs on that list.
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3) How To Turn Off Balloon Tooltips And Pop-upsiteachtkd posted - When I hover over an object on my desktop, a yellow rectangle appears with a description of the item. Is there any way to turn this off?
Kelly answers:
How To Turn off the Balloon Tooltips and Pop-ups:Windows Explorer/Tools/Folder Options/View/Advanced/Uncheck Popup Descriptions for Folder and Desktop Items.
TweakUI/Taskbar/Uncheck Enable Balloon Tips:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/downloads/powertoys.aspOr use this automated edit:
Disable Balloon Tips or Disable All (Row 11)
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htmDisable All includes: Balloon Tips, Folder Contents Info Tips, Explorer Pop-Ups, Show Info Tips, Start Menu and Notification Area.
To use the Regedit [custom registry modification file]: Save the REG File to your hard disk. Double click it and answer yes to the import prompt. REG files can be viewed in Notepad by right clicking on the file and selecting Edit.
*** Note Kelly does her site for IE only so use IE to work with it.
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4) How To Remove XP SP2JoeScottNY wrote - A number of undesirable effects have occurred on my computer's functioning since downloading SP2. I'd like to delete SP2, and go back to the way the machine functioned 10 days ago before the download. I'd appreciate your recommending the procedure to do this.
vahuja answered:
How to remove XP SP2 from your computer:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=875350How to use the Automatic Recovery feature to recover your computer if the Windows XP Service Pack 2 Setup program is not completed successfully:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=875355How to Perform a Windows XP Repair Install:
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm
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5) 200 Meg Swap File In Windows 98SEChloe wrote - I just noticed a file called WIN386.SWP in my windows folder which is over 200 Meg in size. Anyone know if this is deletable to free up some disk space? What is its purpose? [I am using Windows 98 Second Edition]
*** That's your windows virtual memory file. It's used when you dont have enough physical ram to run your apps and/or windows so windows creates a virtual ram file called win386.swp on your hard drive. If you do have enough ram for what you do the swap file will be around 35 meg in windows 98SE.You are a prime candidate to add more physical ram which will REALLY speed up your system, especially if you have a 5,400 or 4,800 RPM hard drive. Note that even if you had a good amount of ram windows will still create a small swap file which is normal.
In other words, if your swap file is over 50 or 75 megs during normal computer use then you can speed up your system by adding more physical ram. Note that this advice does NOT apply to XP pagefiles/swapfile as it's created differently.
eg Windows XP will create a rather large pagefile on bootup but may only use a small portion of it. Windows 9x creates what it needs on demand.
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