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What is POST? When power is turned on, POST (Power-On Self-Test) is the first step that your computer does, In POST it checks if the main important part of computer like RAM, Motherboard, Processor are installed and working properly. If the necessary hardware is detected and found to be operating properly, the computer goes to the next step of loading the Operating System but if the POST is not successful that means if one of the important part is not found installed then you will hear some beeps which is called NO POST, there would be different types of beeps specific to the nature of the problem. The patterns of beeps contain messages about the nature of the problem detected. For example, if the RAM is not detected, a particular pattern of beeps will inform you of that fact. An error found in the POST is usually fatal (that is, it causes current program to stop running) and will halt the boot process, since the hardware checked is absolutely essential for the computer's functions. What is a boot sector of a hard drive? Your hard drive is split into small sectors and the first sector of your Hard disk is called BOOT Sector. After POST , your computer goes to the Boot Sector of your hard disk and gets the information of Operating System from boot Sector and loads it. What can damage the Master Boot Record in the Boot Sector?

Having problems when installing Operating Systems can damage the master boot record. Stopping half way through installation is the most common cause. Changing the Windows Registry entries. Getting a virus that infects the MBR. Many viruses are built to attack the MBR.

How to fix Boot Sector? How to repair the master boot record (MBR of a hard drive manually (quicker) 1. Put your original Windows XP CD into the cd drive of your computer. Restart your computer and hopefully it will come up and say press any key to boot from the cd. 2. If this does not come up you need to enter your bios and change the boot order or sequence. See How to get into Your BIOS and change settings. 3. A blue screen will appear and you are on your way.. 4. You may need to press F8 to agree to the Windows Setup agreement. 5. After that the setup options will appear (see screen shot below). 6. Do not press ENTER as it will start installing Windows from scratch and you will loose all of your data on your hard drive. 7. Press the letter R on your keyboard to enter the Recovery Console. 8. When Recovery Console starts you will have to enter the number that corresponds with the installation you want to repair. For example if you have only one Windows installed on your

9. 10. 11. 12.

computer then you would press the number one key. If you have two operating systems on your computer and you want to repair the second one then press 2. Enter your Administrator password for that windows installation. You must enter an admin password here and if you do not, you cannot continue. At the Recovery Console command prompt, type fixmbr. You will be asked to confirm that you want to do this by pressing the Y key for yes. Now your Master Boot record will be fixed.

13. Now if that did not work you can also repair the Boot sector by following the same steps but typing fixboot instead of fixmbr. Fix the boot sector of a hard drive in Windows Vista and Windows Seven: This screen shot below shows what you will see when you insert the Windows Vista or Seven operating system cd. You can try to do a Start up repair first. Generally this repairs Windows problems. If you want to fix the boot sector of a hard drive you will need to choose the Command Prompt option, as we did for Windows XP. Type Bootrec.exe, and then press ENTER. This will let you into the Bootrec.exe tool where you can type try to repair the boot problems.

What is the difference between System Restore & Last Known Good Configuration? Both of these are used to restore the computer to a date in Past. In Last known good configuration you cant manually set a restore point, the computer automatically restores the computer to the LAST time when your computer worked (Booted) Properly. Steps to do LKGC (Last Known Good Configuartion)are:- Restart your system Press F8 several times, you will get on to a Black Page which is called Windows Advanced Options use the ARROW Keys to Choose Last Known Good Configuration (it is the 6th Option from top), the computer will take 5-7 minutes and it would restore your computer to the last time when your system restarted properly. In System restore you can choose any date from Past on which you had created a Restore Point and restore your computer to that particular date. You can only choose that date in Past on which you should have created a Restore Point. What is Restore Points- It is advised that if your computer is working properly then you should be creating a restore point after every 15- 20 days. So that whenever the computer has any problem you can restore your computer to a nearest date in past. To Do System Restore 1. Go to Start button, click All Programs, click Accessories, click System Tools, and then click System Restore. 2. When you click System Restore it would give you 2 Options 1 ) Create a Restore Point 2) Restore my computer to a previous date. Click on Option 1) i.e Create a Restore Point if you are satisfied with the performance of your computer to save a restore Point. Click on Option 2) i.e Restore my Computer to a previous date if there is a Blue Screen error or any other problem in your computer.

Use Last Known Good Configuration if

The last time you started Windows you didnt have any issues. You install a new device driver, restart Windows, and the computer will no longer boot. By reverting back to the Last Known Good Configuration you will restore the settings so that they point back to the old driver. You disable a driver that turns out to be more critical to the operation of Windows. By reverting back to the Last Known Good Configuration you will restore the settings back to when the driver was still enabled.

Use System Restore if

Problems started to occur after you installed an application, Windows Update, or a driver. You accidentally removed or modified an important system file that is causing the system not to function properly.

Q Name 3 types of fans in the computer ? Ans:- case fans, heat sink, smps fans Computer is restarting every 30 mins ? Certain computer viruses are written to reboot your computer without warning. Usually these viruses will make the computer reboot every 5, 10, 15 or 30 minutes after the computer has booted.If you

believe your computer may be infected with a virus or are uncertain if your computer is infected with a virus make sure your virus scanner definitions are up to date.

Your computer restarting on its own is almost always caused by outdated Video Drivers. Go to the computer or video card mfgr. and get the latest (non - beta) drivers. it definitely can be overheating. Maybe heat sink fan is not working properly which is heating up the processor chip and because of which it is getting re-started Or cpu fan is not working which is heating up the system. Motherboard, Processor, Hard Disk area should be cooled properly by using fans. If you CPU box is having only one fan or you have placed the box in a very congested area then that may increase the temperature inside the box which will cause restart.

Even if the smps fan isnt wrkng then it will heat the power supply and can cause the restarts

The symptom you mentioned could indicate a problem with the RAM. If you are comfortable with opening up the box, see if you have two sets of RAM, try removing one of them and restart your computer. Loose connections of hardware cables.

Diff Between IPV4 and IPV6 ?

PV4 is 32 Bits and IPv6 is a 128 bits long IP address The terms bit and byte are common in computer networking. Both terms refer to digital data transmitted over a network connection. For example, bits and bytes both may represent network addresses What is IPv4? IPv4 was the first version of Internet Protocol to be widely used, and accounts for most of todays Internet traffic. There are just over 4 billion IPv4 addresses. While that is a lot of IP addresses, it is not enough to last forever. What is IPv6? IPv6 is a newer numbering system that provides a much larger address pool than IPv4. It was deployed in 1999 and should meet the worlds IP addressing needs well into the future. What is the major difference? The major difference between IPv4 and IPv6 is the number of IP addresses. There are 4,294,967,296 IPv4 addresses. In contrast, there are 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456 IPv6 addresses.The technical functioning of the Internet remains the same with both versions and it is likely that both versions will continue to operate simultaneously on networks well into the future. To date, most networks that use IPv6 support both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses in their networks.

What is a Parallel (Dirty) Windows Installation? Just remember this: A Parallel Installation of Windows XP is nothing but installing Windows XP in a different folder, other than the default one, which is C:\Windows. This is generally done for troubleshooting purposes and in situations where a user needs to access his drives/data and copy them onto an external storage device like a CD/DVD or even a USB Pen drive. Once you have copied all the data you need using Parallel installation, you can then do a Clean installation of Windows and then put back all the data. This is how you would go about it: 1. Start Windows XP Setup in the normal way and continue till you accept the End User License Agreement (by hitting <F8> key) 2. Windows XP Setup will detect the existing installation of Win XP on your computer and will also give you the option to Repair the existing installation 3. Now, since you do not want to repair the existing installation, but instead want to have a parallel instalaltion, select the existing installation of Windows XP and hit ESC to Continue installating a Fresh copy of WIndows XP. 4. Then select the same partition it is currently installed and hit <Enter> just once 5. In the next screen press C to continue installing in the same partition 6. Next, choose the option Leave the current file system intact so that all your existing files etc are not lost. 7. In the next screen, this is where you will be alerted by Windows that a Windows Folder already exists containing a copy of the Operating system. This is also where you will be given the option to install Windows XP in the same folder (by overwriting existing system files) by hitting the L key or to choose a different folder (for the parallel installation) by hitting the ESC key. 8. So hit the ESC key now and give a different name to the folder where you want your parallel installation to happen (by using the backspace key and put in a different folder name) and just follow the on-screen instructions from there on. For example, your existing windows installation will be in a folder called C:\Windows. So, choose a different folder name now for the parallel installation like C:\Windows1 (or any other name you wish) and continue with the rest of the installation as usual.

What is a Parallel (Dirty) Windows Installation? Just remember this: A Parallel Installation of Windows XP is nothing but installing Windows XP in a different folder, other than the default one, which is C:\Windows. This is generally done for troubleshooting purposes and in situations where a user needs to access his drives/data and copy them onto an external storage device like a CD/DVD or even a USB Pen drive. Once you have copied all the data you need using Parallel installation, you can then do a Clean installation of Windows and then put back all the data.

This is how you would go about it:

1. Start Windows XP Setup in the normal way and continue till you accept the End User License Agreement (by hitting <F8> key) 2. Windows XP Setup will detect the existing installation of Win XP on your computer and will also give you the option to Repair the existing installation 3. Now, since you do not want to repair the existing installation, but instead want to have a parallel instalaltion, select the existing installation of Windows XP and hit ESC to Continue installating a Fresh copy of WIndows XP. 4. Then select the same partition it is currently installed and hit <Enter> just once 5. In the next screen press C to continue installing in the same partition 6. Next, choose the option Leave the current file system intact so that all your existing files etc are not lost. 7. In the next screen, this is where you will be alerted by Windows that a Windows Folder already exists containing a copy of the Operating system. This is also where you will be given the option to install Windows XP in the same folder (by overwriting existing system files) by hitting the L key or to choose a different folder (for the parallel installation) by hitting the ESC key. 8. So hit the ESC key now and give a different name to the folder where you want your parallel installation to happen (by using the backspace key and put in a different folder name) and just follow the on-screen instructions from there on. What are the 2 Types of Partitions available? NTFS and FAT

A file system is the underlying structure a computer uses to organize data on a hard disk. If you are installing a new hard disk, you need to partition and format it using a file system before you can begin storing data or programs. In Windows, the three file system options you have to choose from are NTFS, FAT32, and the older and rarely-used FAT (also known as FAT16).

NTFS
NTFS is the preferred file system for this version of Windows. It has many benefits over the earlier FAT32 file system, including:

Improved support for larger hard disks. Better security because you can use permissions and encryption to restrict access to specific files to approved users.

FAT32
FAT32, and the lesser-used FAT, were used in earlier versions of Windows operating systems, including Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows Millennium Edition. FAT32 does not have the security that NTFS provides, so if you have a FAT32 partition or volume on your computer, any user who has access to your computer can read any file on it. FAT32 also has size limitations. You cannot create a FAT32 partition greater than 32GB in this version of Windows, and you cannot store a file larger than 4GB on a FAT32 partition.