Author: Mark Krieger

I am having a Windows Home Server (WHS) in which my main system hard drive started to fail. Since it was still somewhat readable I figured I’ll copy everything to a new, larger hard drive. I wanted to re-install the system anyway because it started to be a bit flaky (probably the hard drive dying), but I didn’t want to loose all the computer backups which I had saved (multiple revisions and a few computers I had backed up for keeping just in case).

So I transferred the partitions from my old 250GB IDE drive onto the new 2TB SATA drive (making sure the old C:\ stayed at 20GB and only the new D:\ partition was enlarged – very important!), inserted the WHS install disc and started the re-install…until I came to the point where it should allow me to choose between a New Installation and a ReInstall – but it only offered me a New Install. So I started searching and thinking…

Continue reading “Workaround: WHS Server Reinstall – Option Not Available”

A little while ago I made a post recommending http://www.slysoft.com/en/virtual-clonedrive.html to mount ISO images as drives.
But what if the disc image you have is not an ISO image – or if you just need some files from disc images every once in a while and don’t want to have an additional drive show up all the time?
Try http://imagemaster.codeplex.com/. This small suite consists of one program to work with files in disc images which can extract files, create ISO images and burn to disc, and another one that can convert Bin Image Files (.bin), Nero Image Files (.nrg), Alcohol Image Files (.mdf), CloneCd Image Files (.img) and DiscJuggler Image Files (.cdi) to ISO images.

Update: It seems that the project doesn’t exist any more at CodePlex, but you can still download the version 1.0.3.7 at http://www.softsea.com/review/Image-Master.html or http://www.freewarebb.com/files/file/7110-imagemaster/

For Windows XP, Microsoft has an easy to use image resizing Powertoy which you could download at Microsoft’s website .
You just right-clicked a jpg file in Windows Explorer and could easily re-size it.
The problem is that this tool is not available for Vista.
Most people can only complain, but there are others who can do something about it. And someone did. There is an Image Resizer Clone available for Vista (and Windows 7). You can download it at http://www.codeplex.com/PhotoToysClone.
The version at the time of this writing works great. Only things to watch for – make sure you download the right version (32 or 64 bit) and be aware that it strips out any colour profile that may have been saved in the image.
Finally a quick and easy resize option again.

The most commonly offered resolution to a non-available hibernate mode is to run “powercfg /hibernate on” at an administrative command prompt (to start it: Click “Start”, type “command” in the Start Search box, right-click “Command Prompt” in the Programs list, and then click “Run as administrator”).
Complicated – and not the right solution for most people.
I found out that it frequently has to do with the new “Hybrid Sleep” function in Vista. When this is enabled, hibernate is disabled. Since I don’t care for “Hybrid Sleep”, but rather prefer “Hibernate”, I changed it to allow hibernation as follows: Continue reading “Hibernate On A Vista Laptop Not Available”