So, you installed windows after installing Ubuntu and did not make a backup of the GRUB annd now you cannot boot into linux. Its not even listed in the options at the start up! Its not the end of the world. There is an easy way to get your GRUB back to normal.

Things you need :

One messed up compute

One Ubuntu live CD

Well, thats about it. Now, one major thing that you need to remember is that you need to have the same version of live CD as the one installed on your computer. Meaning, if you have Ubuntu 9.04 on your computer, then you need the same live disc. Thats because the lower version grub cannot open the higher version grub files. So, once you have this the procedure is very simple. Just boot from the live disc and wait till Ubuntu loads. Then, go to applications -> accesories -> Terminal

Now, once in the Terminal, type “sudo -i” without quotes and press enter. Once you do this, you will be in root and you need to be extra careful of what you type. Specially spelling errors and case of the letters (capitals and small letters).

Next, you need to determine what partition is Ubuntu installed in. To do this, in the terminal type “fdisk -l” (Its minus symbol followed by letter L in small case). After this, it gives the list of partitions as shown in the figure below. In that find your linux partition. Mine is sda5 as highlighted there.

Terminal (Click to enlarge)

I have only one here (excluding swap). You may have two or more depending on your configuration. So, now you need to mount these drives. To do this, create a mount point. To  do this type,

mkdir /mt/ubuntu

Note that there is space between “mkdir” and “/mt/ubuntu”

You can name it anything really. Now mount the partitions at this point.

mount /dev/sda5 /mt/ubuntu

Note that there is space between “mount” and “/dev/sda5″ and “/mt/ubuntu”

That will mount your linux partion. IF you have a separate “/boot” partition, then you need to mount that too. Say, if the boot partition is in sda3 then

mount /dev/sda3 /mt/ubuntu/boot

Note that there is space between “mount” and “/dev/sda3″ and “/mt/ubuntu/root”

Now its time to reinstall  the grub. To do this type

sudo grub-install –root-directory=/mt/ubuntu /dev/sda

Note that there is space between “grub-install” and “–root-directory=/mt/ubuntu” and “/dev/sda” . Once this is done you will get a message as below

“Installation finished. No error reported.

This is the contents of the device of the device map /boot/grub/device.map.

Check if this is correct or not. if any of the lines is incorrect,

fix it and re-run the script ‘grub-install’.

(hd0)       /dev/sda”

Thats it. Done. Reboot the system and you will have your grub back. Now, you will have an option in the end that says windows which will take you to the windows OS choices (if you have more than one version of windows installed in your system). If you dont find windows in that list, boot to Ubuntu and open a Terminal and type

gksu gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst

This will open the menu list. There, when you scroll down, you will find the Ubuntu listed there. Below that there will be a line saying

### END DEBIAN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST

# This is a divider, added to separate the menu items below from the Debian
# ones.
title        Other operating systems:
root
Now, below this you add the following

title        Microsoft Windows XP Professional (Or any other version)
root        (hd0,0)
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader    +1

That will get the windows back in the list. Please provide any additional details or suggestions through comments

Many people are really irritated with their PC’s performance. But it’s not the PC’s fault. It’s their fault. Had they maintained there PC from the start or even in the middle… they would have their PCs running great…sometimes even better than ones which are only a few months old. Don’t worry though. Here are some simple yet effective steps you can optimize your PC to it’s maximum.

1. Softwares: First things first. Don’t install everything you find on the net into your PC. If you don’t like it, you remove it. And when you remove it, files get fragmented. When files get fragmented, your PC runs slow. You know how hard it is to find things at the right time in a cluttered place (like your room)? So choose your softwares with careful research. And AVOID BETA VERSIONS. They really have a tendency to fragment.
2. Defragment your PC atleast once a month. To do this, go to Start Menu> Programs> Accessories> System Tools> Disk Defragmenter.
3. Themes: Never use heavy themes (like Vista theme in XP) unless you have ATLEAST 1 GB RAM.
4. Devices: Make sure only those devices are connected which you are using.
5. Don’t run any program after your computer starts until your Hard Drive comes to a complete stop.
6. Virus scans are very important. Don’t wait for the Virus or Worm to crawl in your PC and get access to your system files, ruin your PC and then you start the scan…. NO! Scan ATLEAST once in 2 weeks. It is tiresome but rewarding. Keep your Antivirus up-to-date. Use Avira Antivir (Free Version available). It’s fast and effective.
7. Disk Checkup: Check your Drives for error regularly. To do this, go to your My Computer> Right click on the drive> Properties>Tools. Check Now. Use Disk Cleanup to clean unneccessary files.
8. Format (reboot) your PC when it gets really slow. it is healthy in the long run too and really boosts up your PC. Don’t do it yourself if you have no experience with it. Call a proffessional or experienced person.
9. Startup Trick: To make your WINDOWS XP startup faster, there are 2 things you can do. One, Remove your Welcome screen. To do this, follow these steps. Go to Start> Control Panel> User Accounts> Change the way users log in or log out> Uncheck “Use the welcome screen”>Apply Options. But you cannot have your programs running in your user account while the other user is working with this setting (Fast User Switiching).
10. Startup Trick 2: Remove all icons (that we can) to make startup faster. Run “msconfig” (without quotes)> Startup Tab> Disable All> Apply.

There is a really great software that I found for PC maintainance. And don’t worry. They didn’t pay me for this.

Glary Utilities: This is a simple software which you can use to really help your PC. It’s features are:-

• It’s Free of cost.
• It fixes and cleans invalid registeries.
• Removes Spyware and Adware.
• Cleans up dangerous Startup Entries
• Monitors andempties free RAM in PC.
• Comes with inbuilt Disk Cleaner, Registry Cleaner, Program Uninstaller, File Shredder and File Undelete too.

Our college computers are infected with this virus and it gets transmitted through pen drives. What this virus does is that it modifies the autorun.inf file in the roots of all the drives and creates exe files of all the folders with the same name and hides the original folder. This is very annoying and slows down the system considerably. So, here is the fix that I found using Google search

First of all, you have to remove its primary weapon. Autorun.inf. To do that, follow the instrustion

• First, click on start >> run
• Type “cmd” (without quotes) and press enter
• Go to root, meannig, type “cd..” (without quotes) till you reach the command prompt “C:\>”
• There, type “attrib -h -r -s autorun.inf” (without quotes) and press enter
• Type “del autorun.inf” (without quotes) and press enter
• Type “md\autorun.inf ” (without quotes) and press enter
•  This must be repeated on all drives. To change the drive just say “d:” (without quotes) or “e:” (without quotes) and so on.

Now lets remove it from the startup

• Click start->run and type msconfig and click ok
• Go to startup tab look for regsvr and uncheck the option click OK.
• Click on Exit without Restart, cause there are still few things we need to do before we can restart the PC.
• Now go to control panel -> scheduled tasks, and delete the At1 task listed their.

Now the gpedit part. If yours is XP home, then you will have to download and install it. You can do it from here. Once done follow these instructions

• Click on start -> run and type gpedit.msc and click Ok
• Go to users configuration->Administrative templates->system
• Find “prevent access to registry editing tools” and change the option to disable.

Once you do this you have registry access back so that you can change their values. This is done as follows. Please take a backup before editing registry

1. Click on start->run and type regedit and click ok
2. Go to edit->find and start the search for regsvr.exe
3. Delete all the occurrence of regsvr.exe. KEEP IN MIND regsvr32.exe is not to be deleted. Delete regsvr.exe occurrences only.
4. At one ore two places you will find it after explorer.exe in theses cases only delete the regsvr.exe part and not the whole part. E.g. Shell = “Explorer.exe regsvr.exe” the just delete the regsvr.exe and leave the explorer.exe

Once this is done, close the Regedit window. Now the final step in the removal process

1. Click on start->search->for files and folders.
2. There click all files and folders and all your drives
3. Type “*.exe” (without quotes) as filename to search for
4. Click on ‘when was it modified ‘ option and select the specify date option. For example type from date as 1/1/2009 and also type To date as 1/2/2009. This depends on when your folders were modified. 
5. Now hit search and wait for all the exe’s to show up.
6. Once search is over select all the exe files and shift+delete the files, caution must be taken so that you don’t delete the legitimate exe file that you have installed on 1st jan.
7. Also selecting lot of files together might make your computer unresponsive so delete them in small bunches.
8. Also find and delete regsvr.exe, svchost .exe( notice an extra space between the svchost and .exe)
9. Make sure that you delete only the folders first as thats what is attacked in such viruses. The .exe files must be carefully deleted  by examining them.

After this is done, reboot your system. Do a cold reboot. Meaning, shut it down. Switch off the power and then switch it on the boot your system. Also, download and install Avira Antivirus to counter this type of threats in the future.

Hope this helped you as it did me

Problem : When you set your status message to show the current track being played on winamp, your gtalk craches, or freezes and does not respond

Solution : I found this one to work the best

• Exit Winamp and Google Talk

• Open notepad, keep blank document.
  

  Note: you should be administrator before you run. Vista users can right click and run as administrator.

• Save the blank file in PROGRAMFILES\Winamp\ folder and give the name winamp.m3u
• Vista users, save it in the folder PROGRAMFILES(X86)\Winamp\ and as above, name it as winamp.m3u for x64 OS.

• Open Winamp and Google Talk again.

The application will work well now

Problem: When you switch on the computer, your system starts the boot process normally. You will also get the logon screen and when you do log into your account, you get your beautiful background picture and… thats it. Nothing else loads.

Solution: Lots of sites gave a lot of solution of scanning with antivirus and all. I did all that and realised that there is no virus in my system at all. Then finally I thought of this one.

• When you log into your system, press CTRL+ALT+DEL to start the task manager
• Then in the Application tab, press new task..
• In the new window that opens up type “msconfig” without the quotes and press enter
• In the new window that opens up, in the General tab under the startup selection select the option that says Normal startup.
• Press Apply >> OK. It will ask if it may reboot. Say yes to that.

This is what solved my problem. Hope this helps you as well

Problem Details :

In windows XP, suddenly one sweet afternoon you try to open your project folder and suddenly you get a message saying “file can not be accesed acces is denied”. I know it can be REAL frustrating. This happens when, due to some strange mysterious reasons, the owner of that folder has changed and its no longer you.

Solution :

Turn off Simple File Sharing:

• Click Start, and then click My Computer.
   
• On the Tools menu, click Folder Options, and then click the View tab.
   
• Under Advanced Settings, click to clear the Use simple file sharing (Recommended) check box, and then click OK.
   
• Right-click the folder that you want to take ownership of, and then click Properties.
   
• Click the Security tab, and then click OK on the Security message, if one appears.
   
• Click Advanced, and then click the Owner tab.
   
• In the Name list, click your user name, Administrator if you are logged in as Administrator, or click the Administrators group.
   
• If you want to take ownership of the contents of that folder, click to select the Replace owner on subcontainers and objects check box.
   
• Click OK. You may receive the following error message, where Folder is the name of the folder that you want to take ownership of:

  You do not have permission to read the contents of directory Folder. Do you want to replace the directory permissions with permissions granting you Full Control? All permissions will be replaced if you press Yes.
   

• Click Yes.
   
• Click OK, and then reapply the permissions and security settings that you want for the folder and the folder contents.

Error detail :

During start up a error message flashes that due to some error like ‘Auto NTFS not found’, AutoCheck is being skipped. This is due to uninstalling programs that change the registry value and dont restore them while being uninstalled.

Solution :

Go to start >> run , type regedit and press enter

In the registry editor navigate to

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control

Click on Session Manager and remove the string BootExecute value.

Thats done now

One day suddenly I faced a new problem, when ever I double clicked on any drive, it started opening in new a window. I tried to fix it with the usual methods.

Open the explorer and in that choose

Tools >> Folder Options. 

In the General tab, uder the browse folder option select “open each folder in same window”

Click Apply and then Ok

I tried the registry fixes too but that didnt work!

Then I digged deep and found that there is a “autorun.inf” file that was created in all the drives. You have to use “show hidden system files” option from folder options menu to be able to see it. Then, I tried to search the net and found a solution that I like to share here

• First, click on start >> run
• Type “cmd” (without quotes) and press enter
• Go to root, meannig, type “cd..” (without quotes) till you reach the command prompt “C:\>”
• There, type “attrib -h -r -s autorun.inf” (without quotes) and press enter
• Type “del autorun.inf” (without quotes) and press enter
• Type “md\autorun.inf ” (without quotes) and press enter
•  This must be repeated on all drives. To change the drive just say “d:” (without quotes) or “e:” (without quotes) and so on.

What the above does is that it deletes the autorun.inf file from all the drives and creates a directory by the same name. So, when the virus tries to copy itself into the drives again, it cannot do it as the directory already exists. Do the same to your pen drives to avoid being infected by the virus. After the spreading of virus is limited, you now need to reset the values of registry it has changed. To do that follow these steps

• Click on start >> run
• Type “regedit” (without quotes) and press enter
• In the registry editor, navigate as shown below. To navigate, just press on the “+” mark behind the name specified on the left side of the editor

  HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\ Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies

•  In policies, click on explorer

• Now, on the right side, find the value NoDriveAutorun. If its not there, right click on the empty space below the present values, click on new >> DWORD
  
  
• Rename it as NoDriveAutorun and press enter
  
  
• Double click on the value and chage the value to “FF” or “255″ and press enter

Now, colse the registry and restart the system. This solved my problems. I then made those autorun.inf folders as hidden. Now, this works well but doesnt remove the virus entirely. Scanning the system with a godd antivirus will help. But, there are simply too many viruses that create autorun.inf after infecting. Also, not all viruses are detected and deleted. I use AVG and it failed to delete this particular virus. Even Avast failed. So far this is the best fix I have. If anyone else has other tweaks, please comment

A fe days back I faced a strange problem, suddenly my CD/DVD drive disappeared. Everytime I rebooted the system, the “new hardware found” dialogue box would appear and fail to find any drivers for my CD/DVD drive. I tried to uninstall it from device manager and reboot the system, but that didnt work. A yellow exclaimation mark appeared on the CD/DVD drive in the device manager. So, this is the solution that worked for me

1) Close all open programs to avoid any intervention

2) Click on Start, Run, and type “regedit” (without the quotes) and press Enter

3) Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE >> SYSTEM >> CurrentControlSet >> Control >> Class >> {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} – Usually this is the first one in the 4D series

4) This folder is the DVD/CD-ROM Drive Class Description in the registry. Look for any of the following names in the right hand column.

• UpperFilters
  

• LowerFilters
  

• UpperFilters.bak
  

• LowerFilters.bak
  

5) If  any of the above keys shown in step 4 are listed, right-click on them and choose Delete

6) After deleting the keys, close the Registry Editor

7) Reboot your computer

Open My Computer and check to see if your CD or DVD drives have returned. You may also want to open Device        Manager and verify that the yellow exclamation and error code on the CD or DVD drive is gone.

 

Hope this solves the probelm

MSOCache is MicorSoft Office Cache. This is created when one installs MS Office on the sysem. This folder contains a local copy of the installation files of the MS office. This is on your Drive so as to avoid the necessity of CD drive when you want to install additional features or repair works on any installed components. Ofcourse, this is not necessary. My C drive had this folder and occupied about 600MB of space.

The point is that it can be deleted without any adverse effects on the system. In the MS Office help, they suggest that you delete it using the disk cleanup facility. I tried doing that, but it did not work for me.

So, I used explorer to locate the folder and deleted it from there. And, I have not faced any poblems till now! So there is my contribution towards the problem!