Rapidshare Happy Hours

Rapidshare have implemented a new captcha for some time that asks the user to enter four out of x letters that have a cat (others have a similar looking picture of a dog with a smaller head) in the background. This new captcha is confusing to users and many have decided that it is not worth the trouble.

One solution is to wait for the so called Rapidshare Happy Hours which allow downloading without filling out the captchas and no waiting time if the servers can handle the download. Rapidshare Happy Hours are active between 0:00 - 18:00 UTC+1 on Mondays to Fridays and 0:00 - 14:00 UTC+1 on Saturdays and Sundays.

If you are a heavy Rapidshare user you might find the Firefox add-on Happy Checker useful which notifies the user when the Rapidshare Happy Hour is active. I think that it should not be to hard to memorize the Happy Hour times and download from Rapidshare in those times only without installing yet another Firefox extension.

Reinstall Windows Xp in Unattended Mode

Sometimes you feel like reinstalling windows Xp, but you think of all the softwares and application installed on your computer. You will then be required to reinstall all of them.
Now there is a way to reinstall windows Xp, where in you can keep all the installed application and all the personal settings. Its simple and easy, just follow these steps.
Before moving ahead, make sure that CD-Rom in NOT your first boot device.

1. Login to Xp and Insert you Windows Xp disk in your drive.
2. Go to Command Prompt, and go to the drive(eg:- d:> assuming D is your CD drive.)
3. Then go to i386 folder(d:/i386>) and then type in the command prompt “WINNT32 /unattend”.
4. You will then see a setup starts running, which reinstalls the Windows on your computer, without harnessing your installed application and settings, and the too in unattended mode.

This is the method of reinstalling Windows in Unattended Mode. We have already seen the installing fresh copy of Windows Xp in Unattended Mode.

Hello guys, It’s Readers Query time again. This time one of our reader faced a problem of missing Boot.ini file. The computer was not able to boot because it was not able to find the proper location of the boot files, thus creating a problem. But for this simple reason, you cannot format your computer, and when you know its just a small file. What can then be done?
Usually when this file is deleted, it automatically rewrites a new file, and this booting the system. But in this case, it was not. Whats the solution then ?

Well, to this problem what can be done is booting XP from a external device, be it Floppy, Pen drive or even a Disk. You just need to copy the booting files into these devices, and all is then controlled by XP.
You need to have a second computer, in case your computer is down too. But if it is healthy and doing good, prepare a copy NOW !!!

Firstly format your device like Floppy, or Pen drive in a FAT File system, and then copy “ntldr” and “ntdetect.com” files from the i386 folder of XP disk. Then you need to copy your Boot.ini file to the drive to make it bootable.
If in case you need to write the whole code of this file, Follow this small tutorial for the same.
That’s it You can then boot your computer from any external device.

Editing The Boot.ini File

Boot.ini file is an initialization file, but editing it for some people has been a bad experience. In this post i will let you know the codes and their meaning and also how to edit them easily. By default this is hidden in Xp, but in case of win 98, it can be searched.
To access the file in Xp :-

• Right click on My Computer and select Properties.
• Go to the Advanced tab and click Settings in Startup and Recovery section.
• Click Edit and you will see the Boot.ini file opened in a notepad.

Now File says something like this

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS=”Microsoft Windows XP Professional” /fastdetect

The First line [Boot loader] just states the Booting Process.
timeout=30 is the time that will be provided to you to select from the list of OS’s installed. This works only in case you have multiple OS’s installed. It can be reduced easily, but make sure you give enough time to react upon it. 10 Seconds is the appropriate time.
The third line says multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS=”Microsoft Windows XP Professional” /fastdetect. multi(0) tells us the IDE on which the drive is attached to. Usually its Primary only. disk(0) shows the number of Hard disks mounted. rdisk(0) tells us from which disk it is booting. In case of SCSI drives, it might not show up. partition(1) tell that on which Logical partition the OS is installed on.
After that it says “Microsoft Windows XP Professional” that is the name that shows up on the OS selection page. You can put your own name there as well.
This was the editable part of Boot.ini file.
Now in case if you delete the file accidentally then you need not worry, you don’t need to create the file again. Xp will create a file of its own, and your system is safe.
But in case if someone edits it and puts in the wrong information, then it you system will find the file but not the correct path. So that might harm your Computer.
So, this was a small post on Boot.ini file and its editing. IF you got anything more to say or add, Do Comment.