Miscellaneous troubleshooting tips
Even more troubleshooting tips
Creating a boot disk.
A boot disk is useful if you encounter an operating system error and can’t get Windows to start properly. This allows you to load windows from a diskette instead of from your hard drive.
However, if you have your original Windows CD, you can us it to boot up Windows.
- Place your diskette in your drive.
- Go to My Computer. Right-Click your diskette drive and click format.
- There will be an option to create a startup disk. Check that and click start.
Creating restore points.
What is restore point for? Well, for example, if you have installed software or drivers which causes your computer to go haywire, System Restore, or restore point allows you to go back to a previous setting which ideally would be an uncorrupted setting.
Setting up Restore Points:
- Go to START > ALL PROGRAMS > ACCESSORIES > SYSTEM TOOLS > SYSTEM RESTORE.
- Select CREATE A RESTORE POINT and then click NEXT.
- Windows will then ask you to name the restore point. It is best to name it relating to the actions you are going to make. If you are installing a new graphic card, you can call it “Before Graphic Card Install”
- Click CREATE.
- Close the Window.
If you find out that the graphic card install didn’t go as smoothly as you’d hope, use the restore point you made.
- Go to START > ALL PROGRAMS > ACCESSORIES > SYSTEM TOOLS > SYSTEM RESTORE
- Select RESTORE MY COMPUTER TO AN EARLIER TIME and then click NEXT.
- On the next screen, you should see a calendar. Bolded dates are the ones you should look out for since these are the dates that have restore points saved.
- Once you see the restore point you want (like the “Before Graphic Card Install” example above), select it and click next.
However should you decide that you rather liked the newer settings better that your older one, run system restore again. You should see a third option, which is UNDO MY LAST RESTORATION.
System restore by default backs up every 24 hours. It will do so, provided there is enough disk space. It will overwrite the old backup if there is insufficient disk space. Thus more disk space = more restore points allocated, enabling you to go to any previous setting you had. Well, in theory anyway.
Setting up System Restore Disk Space:
- Run system restore
- On the left hand side of the screen, you should see the clickable words SYSTEM RESTORE SETTINGS. Click on that.
- On the next screen, you will see a settings button. Click.
- There will be a slider to enable you to adjust the amount of disk space to be set aside as restore points.
Performing a clean boot
A clean boot will help you identify any applications that are interfering with any other programme, so much so that said program doesn't run smoothly or even fails to start at all. To perform a clean boot is to strip the applications that run during startup to the bare minimum.
Basically, it is a technique which for troubleshooting if your computer starts to act up.
To perform a clean boot:
- Go to START > RUN (or [Windows] + [R]). Once you have the RUN window open, type MSCONFIG and click OK.
- At the GENERAL tab, click the SELECTIVE STARTUP button. Uncheck all the buttons except the USE ORIGINAL BOOT.INI.
- After that, go to the SERVICES tab. First, check the HIDE ALL MICROSOFT SERVICES.
- Then click DISABLE ALL.
If your startup problems disappear, it is safe to say that one of your background applications is causing your system to function abnormally.
- Now its time to go through the tedious process of enabling the disabled items one-by-one. Go back to the GENERAL tab, under SELECTIVE STARTUP, check PROCESS SYSTEM.INI FILE.
- Click ok, then you will be prompted to reboot. If after rebooting your problem returns, you know that one of the processes in the PROCESS SYSTEM.INI is causing a problem. If not, repeat the process with PROCESS WINI.INI FILE, LOAD SYSTEM SERVICES and LOAD STARTUP ITEMS until you find the process which is causing you problems.
- Once you have identified the process that is causing problems, open its tab. For example, if PROCESS SYSTEM.INI FILE has been identified, got to the SYSTEM.INI tab.
- Uncheck all the processes in the tab and reboot. After startup, check one of the items and reboot. Do this until you find the process which causes your computer to act up. Disable this process permanently.
