Operating Systems Uncovered | Behind the Computer, Inside the Device™

I have 1 XP desktop, 1 Vista desktop, 2 Vista laptops & 1 network external hard drive. The 2 laptops are on the network, but they don't see the external hard drive. The vista desktop gave no problems.

The type of file system is nothing to do with it. On the machines which do not see the others go to tcp/ip properties and click advanced, then the wins tab. Set always use netbios over tcp/ip and turn off use lmhosts.This is essential to browsing.

I have a toshiba equium l20-197 which i need to format to reinstall windows xp pro, only problem is i cant now log into windows due to a fatal error, and i dont no how to get into ms dos to format the hard drive with out going in to windows first? does anyone have any ideas???
Thanks for the answer, now i have changed the start up program so it should boot from the os disc, but it doesnt make any difference, is there sumthing im missing at start up??

you can not format it from any part of the system, even the command prompt, which is NOT dos. It will be locked as it is a running system. You need to boot from the OS cd, and tell it to install. At the screen showing the partition use the D delete option to remove the partition and then the C create option to make a new one to install on.

I would like to create a bat file in C: suing dos comment. I don't rememver how.

Create using notepad. Save as file.bat in C:\

How can i restore my windows 2000 computer back to original factory settings like it just came out of the box?

Like it came out of the the box 9 years ago? Look at the calendar,time for a new computer.

My dad has a windows 98. I just got done reinstalling windows and would like to connect it to the internet to get updates. It has a standard internet port (like the kind for a telephone or Dial-up internet). So I wondering if I could connect my computer (running xp) to the laptop and then connect the internet to my computer. Thanks in advanced to any help.

You won’t be able to hook up to a broadband connection using an RJ-11 (phone jack).

There are a couple of ways you could do this, though.
(The answers I list below assume you do not have Wi-Fi capabilities. If you do, that would be the easiest way.)

1. Buy an Ethernet card for the 98 laptop. Then hook up the Ethernet card to the modem, or if your XP computer has two Ethernet ports, use a cross-over (not a straight-through) to connect the laptop to the XP machine. Then, configure Internet sharing on the XP machine, and you’re ready to go.
Note: If you use a regular (straight-through) Ethernet cable as a direct link between two computers, it will not work.

2. Buy a Wi-Fi card for the 98 laptop, and if you don’t already have one, a Wi-Fi router or access point. Then use the Wi-Fi connection.

I have an HTC Tytn that came pre-installed with windows mobile 5 and i want to install windows mobile 6. I am an HTC club member but the site has nothing to download. Please help me – where can i download windows mobile 6 and how do i install it onto the phone?

I do not believe that is compatible with 6 yet. They are working harder to get 6.1 on more of the newer phones than catch up to older 5.0 phones. I just got an HTC Touch that was preloaded with 6. Here is the link to show what phones can upgrade to 6 and 6.1.

I am planning to buy a new phone, but I want to make sure it has Japanese input on it. Does Windows Mobile 5 or Windows Mobile 6 have Japanese input pre-loaded, or do I have to download it?

It depends on the manufacturer of the phone. WM5 and WM6 both support alternate languages and input, but it depends on if the manufacturer implemented it or not.

I have a Compaq Armada E500 laptop, Windows 98 (not SE) and 128 mb ram with a Pentium 2 processor. Every time I start up the computer, the Windows 98 logo shows and loads and it boot up fine, except it is only about 33% normal size and is centered in the screen. When it's done booting up, the screen is filled. Is there something wrong with the computer, or is it not very important?

It's not that important. The spash screen, if I recall, is only like 640 x 720, or something like that. If you have a higher screen resolution than that in Windows, your desktop will probably look bigger.

I have a Mac that runs Boot Camp. I recently thanks to some of you, found a more practical program similar to Parallels. I was wondering if there would be any problems with moving my Windows XP to this new place as my Windows XP is currently registered to the Boot Camp. Please Help!

XP licenses are technically only allowed to be installed twice: once on your laptop and once on your desktop. Anything other than that is a legal violation. If XP has not been activated twice already then you shouldn't have any problems with the activation key.

How do I get rid of the extra Operating System? Or get it off of partition? The extra system takes up an incredible amount of disk space. The Operating Systems are both Windows XP home edition.

WIndows is actually quite naughty – it requires drive C: for some stuff. So keep the OS on drive C: To remove the OS on the other drive, you need to delete some folders and files – let’s assume it’s on drive X:
Folders:
X:\Program Files
X:\Windows
X:\Documents and Settings
Files (these are hidden files):
X:\boot.ini
X:\IO.SYS
X:\MSDOS.SYS
X:\NTLDR

However, as mentioned above, it may be simpler to just format the disk. However, the next step is to remove the reference to the volume in the boot menu. You have to edit C:\boot.ini and remove the line that references the other OS. You will have two similar lines:
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS=”Microsoft Windows XP Professional”
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS=”Microsoft Windows XP Professional”

The first of these is drive C:, so delete the second. Make sure that you keep the one that says “multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)”.