boot

Infopackets Reader 'ltb223' writes: " Dear Dennis, I have a Windows 7 Pro computer which I haven't used for a long time. Now I want to use it, but I cannot remember my password. It has only one user account, so I believe I need to reset the admin ... password. Is there anyway to recover the lost password or am I stuck with reinstalling Windows and losing all previous data and programs? " My response: It's possible to reset the admin password, or any user password using a special password reset 'trick', known as the 'utilman' and 'sticky keys' exploit. This exploit ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Fabian A. writes: " Dear Dennis, I have a very old Dell Windows 2003 Server with a PERC RAID card set up for storage. We are trying to convert this old server into a virtual machine, then migrate to Windows Server 2016. I tried ... using the utility Disk2VHD to image the C drive into a .VHD file, then run the .VHD file using Oracle VirtualBox. Unfortunately, I keep getting 'a disk read error occurred' every time I try to boot the virtual machine. I have read your credentials and am very impressed with your knowledge, and was wondering if you could help us convert this server? ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Samir R. writes: " Dear Dennis, I recently did a clean install of Windows 10 on my machine and now my numlock on the keyboard keeps shutting off during bootup, even though I have numlock enabled in the computer's BIOS. When I was ... running Windows 8 (which I later upgraded to Windows 10), I did a registry hack to keep the numlock enabled after Windows is loaded. Can you help? " My response: I've had this issue before. I had to do a bit of digging and testing to make sure the registry hack you're referring to is compatible with Windows 10, but I managed to find the answer. I' ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Marion L. writes: " Dear Dennis, I haven't used my laptop for a few weeks. I went to turn it on today, but it won't turn on at all. I have it plugged in to the wall power outlet, but it still doesn't work. What do I do now? " My ... response: This is a fairly common issue with laptops; oftentimes the laptop won't turn on even if it's plugged into the wall if it's been sitting for a while - in your case, a few weeks. Sometimes, however, something else has gone wrong, and parts of the laptop may be corrupt or not working, or the laptop may have died. I'll explain what you need to ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Elijah N. writes: " Dear Dennis, I have an HP laptop with Windows 10. Yesterday the laptop was working perfectly fine, but this morning I tried to turn it on and all I get is a black screen. The power light turns on, and the ... screen appears to be on (the screen backlight is on), but the screen is black and it won't boot into Windows 10. Nothing happens. What can I do to get my laptop working? " My response: This is a fairly common issue, and is either a hardware problem or a Windows boot problem. Some possibilities include: the laptop motherboard or display may have died, or ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Tom S. writes: " Dear Dennis, I have an older Windows Vista machine and I'm trying to upgrade it to a clean install of Windows 7. The problem is that this PC is an all-in-one unit, and the DVD drive is broken; replacing it would ... be extremely difficult. I had a friend of mine convert the Windows 7 installation DVD into a bootable USB thumb drive, but it appears that my system does not support booting from USB. I also tried running the Windows setup.exe file from the thumb drive on my Vista desktop, but I receive a message that 'Windows installation could not be started from ... (view more)

A newly-identified piece of malware has achieved arguably the ultimate goal of cybercriminals. "Nemesis" is able to infect a Windows computer before the operating system is loaded. The malware is a particularly nasty form of a rootkit . That's ... software which is able to inappropriately access some of the core components of a computer (both hardware and software), often disguising its actions. A rootkit is a serious problem because it's often completely undetectable, which means that it can easily override antivirus software to carry out malicious tasks. In this case, the Nemesis ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Phil P. writes: " Dear Dennis, I have installed Windows 10 32 bit and now I am trying to upgrade to Windows 10 64 bit using the clean install method. Since I'm installing Windows 10 from scratch, I am also going to upgrade my C ... drive performance using 2 x 2TB hard drives (for a total of 4 TB usable data) in RAID 0 configuration . The problem is that when I try to install Windows onto my RAID, it tells me that 'Windows cannot be installed to this disk. This computer's hardware may not support booting to this disk. Ensure that the disk's controller is enabled in the computer' ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Pam C. writes: " Dear Dennis, I recently purchased an SSD (solid state hard drive) and wish to transfer my existing copy of Windows (from a standard hard drive) onto the SSD. I used Acronis True Image to clone the hard drive to ... SSD, but when I try and boot from the SSD, I receive the error message that 'BOOTMGR is Missing'. I have also tried creating an archive backup of the original hard drive and then restored that to the SSD, but I have the same problem. How can I fix the 'BOOTMGR is Missing' error? " My response: This is a very common problem ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Gail N. writes: " Dear Dennis, I have two HP laptops: one that came with Windows 7 and the other with Windows 8. I have already upgraded both laptops to Windows 10 using the 'get Windows 10 app' via the desktop. My question is: ... what happens if Windows 10 fails and I need to factory restore my laptop? Will I get back Windows 10 or will it reload the original operating system (Windows 7 or 8)? I ask because both my HP laptops have a 'factory restore' partition which I can access by pressing F11 on my keyboard during bootup. Also, is there any way to fix my laptop without ... (view more)