oboitoke!

Make your Recovery disks and save a System image as a secondary backup. Back up your files, unplug all other HD's and peripherals,

Boot into BIOS setup, if this is a new Win8 PC look for a setting to disable Secure Boot. Then enable Legacy BIOS or Compatibility Support Module (CSM). This should remove any EFI Boot Disk from BIOS Boot order. Set DVD drive first to boot, HDD second. Then set SATA controller to AHCI. Save changes and Exit.

Then boot into installer DVD or flash stick burned or written using tool and latest ISO for your licensed OS version.

At first installer screen Press Shift + F10 to open a Command Box, type:

DISKPART
LIST DISK
SEL DIS 0 (after confirming Windows 7 target HD #)
CLEAN
CONVERT MBR
CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY SIZE=102400 (for 100gb partition, adjust as desired)
FORMAT FS=NTFS LABEL="WINDOWS 7"
ACTIVE
EXIT
EXIT

Next click Install Now to Clean Install Windows 7 to the partition you created. If it fails then report back at which step and the verbatim error message.

In addition read over these steps to understand the tools and methods which work best to get and maintain a perfect Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7. The steps are the same for retail.

The purpose of creating the partition above is to wipe the HD and define an Active partition which resolves most install failures. Afterwards you can adjust the OS partition size in Disk Mgmt, create other partitions as desired.

re-port from here

So you want to became a hacker a reset someone centos root password??

No, this is not for you..it's rather for windows user who happens to administer centos server and forgot his root password. Only 7 simple steps needed...

1. Boot the system and when you see the following message "Press any key to enter the menu", press any key. (You will see the list of available kernel versions.)

2. Press e in order to edit commands before booting.

3. Highlight the list item with vmlinuz in it by using the arrow keys and press e.

4. Now type single OR init 1 at the end of the line.

5. Then press enter and b to boot the system with the new argument. (The system will boot into single user mode and you will see bash prompt)

Now it's time to change the password:
6. Type passwd

### Shell Commands ###
passwd
Enter new UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:
passwd: password updated successfully

7. Type reboot to restart the system.

There you have it...

Got shiny new HP PC from HQ.

Problem is, it has a recovery partition that has a big warning not to touch from HP when opened. I have to hide this so I don't damage it by accident; also it`s an eyesore.

After googling around... I got this:

Click Start, type diskmgmt.msc, press Enter and wait for Disk Management to load. When it does, right-click directly on the recovery partition so it becomes the selected one, then select "Change Drive Letter and Paths..."

On the next dialogue box that appears, click Remove. You'll get a warning box like this:

Click Yes, and from that moment on (you should close any open Explorer windows and re-open them) neither Windows (aka Explorer) nor applications will be able to "see" the recovery partition - you've effectively hidden it from pretty much anything except Disk Management itself.

This keeps the recovery/restore partition intact, "protects" it since nothing can access it (the OS and apps require a drive letter being assigned to access partitions), and you're good to go.

Just as a sidenote: while deleting the partition can recover some extra space on a drive, the issue that most people have nowadays is they put too much on hard drives. One should never ever fill a hard drive more than 85% full, regardless of OS or file system. I can't even begin to tell you how many machines come to me for repairs/tuneups/optimization/reinstalls and they're 90, sometimes 95% full and the performance of the entire machine suffers drastically for it.

If you're so pressed for space you have to actually delete the recovery/restore partition, it's simple: you've got too much stuff on the drive already and should either back material up to another location (and delete it off the drive to recover space), or get another hard drive and move stuff over. But keep that ~85% full figure in your head and do your best not to ever go past that point.

Windows (and all modern OSes) work best when the OS "has room to breathe" aka free space. When you severely reduce the amount of available free space on a system, you're essentially choking it and performance will suffer because the OS can't find storage space when it needs it.

If you do decide to delete the recovery/restore partition, ensure - and I mean triple-check if necessary - that you've created those backup/recovery/restore DVDs before removing the partition.

Hope this helps...

The solution is from here.

edit: and while at it... I found users keep repeating to do some backup with free tool Macrium, and whs from sevenforums.com create nice tutorial.

Has your child ever been awakened with the loud "Ta-Daaam!" sound your laptop played when you opened it at late evening? Have you ever opened notebook on public meeting and the computer loudly notified everybody about your new messages or something? I bet you wanted to smash the computer into smithereens then! Each time this happens to me, I promise myself to disable the sound before logging off, but I always forget about this in few minutes.

 

Software making a computer quiet when it's turning on

I've created a small Auto Mute utility to make a PC silent when it's turning on or waking up. Solution is as easy as a pie! The sound is automatically muted when the computer is turning off or is going to suspend mode. The next system start is absolutely silent even if you forgot to turn the sound off in previous session. After that you can enable sound effects manually, using a shortcut combination. Moreover, you may use this keyboard shortcut to quickly switch the sound on and off when working.

MailBrowser is a firefox and internet explorer plugin for managing Gmail attachment and contacts. This application that is so cool, and make me want to convert to firefox immediately (I use opera). You've got to watch the video to see the potential of this apps. More info on the developer's websites.

JumpLaunch is a missing link between taskbar and user. It is a simple program that can display quick launch shortcuts in a jump list. Just "pin" it to the taskbar and it is ready to use.

The Opera development team is currently in the process of making Opera 10 final available to its worldwide audience. The final version of Opera 10 is already available on the Opera ftp site from where it can be downloaded by user’s. User’s who prefer to wait for an official announcement can expect that to happen later this day.

The Opera web browser is the first major web browser to hit a two-digit version (even before Google Chrome, who would have thought that..) and it is well deserved as it was source for a series of web browsing enhancements and improvements that were copied by other Internet browsers throughout its existence.

Opera 10 final is apparently the same build (except for a few minor changes to standard files and a few new folders) as the Opera 10 Release Candidate 2 that was released last week. It is still recommended to upgrade to the final version of Opera 10. Downloads are available.

The Windows version of Opera 10 is currently the only one that is being offered in additional languages next to English. The Linux and Mac version are currently only available in English.