Saturday, March 29, 2008

Repair Windows with Linux

Intro


Invalid System File
Corurpt or missing : C:\WINDOWS\SYSTM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM
Put Windows CD Press r blaah!


Warning: Do it carefully or you might end up in reinstalling :)

Pre Requisites
Any Linux OS, Live CD might work as well.

What to do?
Boot into the linux OS, and run as root dosfsck -a /dev/sdaX
where /dev/sdaX is the Drive windows is installed on.
This should fix a corrupt file system.
(Applicable only for vFAT, NTFS no idea :)

Reboot the system
If it doesn't work again

Boot into linux
and do the following as root

Mount the drive windows is installed on to say "/mnt/c"

# cd /mnt/c/windows/system32
# cp -r config /home/some/directory
# cp ../Repair/system config/system

NOTE: Copy other files such as software from Repair to config only if they are shown as corrupt.

Reboot the system

Now it should boot into windows and show your desktop.
Now use system restore to get back to your initial state.

Any doubts ?

Sunday, March 23, 2008

tracert Program (path to the source)

Command Line :

C:\Documents and Settings\User10>tracert

Usage: tracert [-d] [-h maximum_hops] [-j host-list] [-w timeout] target_name

Options:
-d Do not resolve addresses to hostnames.
-h maximum_hops Maximum number of hops to search for target.
-j host-list Loose source route along host-list.
-w timeout Wait timeout milliseconds for each reply.


What?
Trace route is a handy little program that shows the networks / servers your request goes through to finally get you to the destination server.
To try it out just do
tracert
any_site_here

You will get a response similar to the one given below:

C:\Documents and Settings\User10>tracert digitalpbk.blogspot.com

Tracing route to blogspot.l.google.com [72.14.207.191]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 * 2597 ms 8 ms 192.168.1.1
2 17 ms 18 ms 14 ms 59.93.0.1
3 * * * Request timed out.
4 * * * Request timed out.
5 * 56 ms 59 ms 125.16.156.37
6 135 ms 63 ms 63 ms 125.21.167.25
7 3559 ms 316 ms 284 ms sl-gw39-nyc-10-2.sprintlink.net [144.223.157.149]
8 1040 ms 288 ms 286 ms sl-bb21-nyc-3-0-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.13.57]
9 593 ms 285 ms 290 ms sl-bb22-nyc-14-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.7.102]
10 371 ms 283 ms 535 ms sl-crs1-nyc-0-8-0-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.7.107]
11 287 ms 286 ms 287 ms sl-bb23-pen-4-0-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.20.123]
12 291 ms 292 ms 328 ms sl-bb24-rly-4-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.20.210]
13 715 ms 299 ms * sl-st22-ash-6-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.20.189]
14 318 ms 303 ms 1538 ms 144.223.246.18
15 * 773 ms 307 ms 209.85.130.18
16 1151 ms 407 ms 409 ms 72.14.238.232
17 432 ms * 378 ms 209.85.250.110
18 2107 ms 747 ms * 66.249.94.90
19 * * * Request timed out.
20 * * 2829 ms eh-in-f191.google.com [72.14.207.191]

Trace complete.


It shows that the request went through 19 systems to reach google.. phew!! :)

Have fun :)

Linux should also have one ?
can anyone comment on that ?