Though Microsoft has now included a “System Restore” functionality within Windows XP, it does not substitute for regular backups of your system and your data. System Restore is designed primarily to offer unattended system file backups to prevent a new software install or something becoming corrupt from destroying your system. By performing regular system file backups, Microsoft gives the option of quickly restoring your system to working order if something occurs.

This does not, however, backup any user data nor does it provide a complete system backup. To perform these functions, Microsoft includes its own backup utility in Windows which you should become familiar with.

To start the backup program, go to Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Backup


When you first start the backup program you will see the Backup or Restore Wizard. Start by clicking Next.


Click Next.


Let's choose what to back up by selecting that option and clicking Next.


Select the folders you wish to backup. You can go several folders deep and select one if you do not want the whole root directory. In addition, I selected “System State” which will backup system information such as the Registry. Once you have selected your folders, click Next.



Choose the location you wish to backup to. Click Next



Click on Advanced to select additional options.



Here you can select your backup type.



Normal is the default and backups up daily normally. The other options changes the type of backup, e.g. a differential backups data that has changed from one backup to another. Leave it as Normal and click Next



On the “How to Back Up” screen, we're going to add the Verify data after backup selection so we can make sure the backup is good. Click Next.



You can append the backup to an existing backup – adding to the data already present – or you can replace the existing backup – remove those files. By appending, your disk space will be quickly eaten up. Click Next.



You can set a schedule for the backup to run at or just run it now. Click Next.



Click Finish to complete the wizard.



The system will now begin backing up data.



Once it is complete, click Close. You have now backed up the folders you selected

Table of Contents

Introduction
Disabling Windows ME System Restore
Enabling Windows ME System Restore
Conclusion

Introduction

Windows ME contains a feature called System Restore which is enabled by default. This feature is used by Windows to restore system files that are located on your computer in case of system failure. These backups, called Restore Points, are contained in directories on your hard drive called _RESTORE. These _RESTORE folders are updated with the current copies of important files and registry information every time you boot your computer.

As a security measure Windows does not allow files found in the _RESTORE folder to be accessed by other programs. This behaviour can cause a problem when System Restore inadvertantly backs up a file that is infected with a virus into the _RESTORE folder. Now your anti-virus software will not have the ability to clean this file and if you ever restore these files, that infected file will be restored as well.

In order to resolve this issue you can disable System Restore which will automatically delete all previously saved restore points from your hard drive. This will enable you to remove an infected file if you suspect that one was backed up into the _RESTORE folder. Disabling System Restore does not delete any personal data that may be on your hard drive, it will only remove the files that are contained in the backup.

For more detailed information on how System Restore works in Windows XP you can read this article:

Windows XP System Restore Guide


Disabling Windows ME System Restore

To disable System Restore follow these steps:

Step 1: First click on the Start button and then click on the Control Panel.

Step 2: When you are in the Control Panel double-click on the System Icon. You will then be presented with an image similar to Figure 1 below


Step 3: Click on the tab labeled Performance designated by the red box in Figure 1 above. You should now see a screen similar to Figure 2 below.



Step 4: Click on the button labeled File System designated by the red box in Figure 2 above. You will now be presented with a screen similar to Figure 3 below.



Step 5: Click on the Troubleshooting tab as designated by the blue box in Figure 3 above. You will now be presented with a screen similar to Figure 4 below.



Step 6. Place a checkmark in the box labeled Disable System Restore designated by the blue box in Figure 4 above.

Step 7. Press the Apply button and then the OK button. Windows will now prompt you to reboot.

Step 8: Press the Yes button and Windows ME will reboot.

When the operating system restarts System Restore will be disabled.


Enabling Windows ME System Restore

In order to enable System Restore please follow these steps:

Step 1: First click on the Start button and then click on the Control Panel.

Step 2: When you are in the Control Panel double-click on the System Icon. You will then be presented with an image similar to Figure 1 above.

Step 3: Click on the tab labeled Performance designated by the red box in Figure 1 above. You should now see a screen similar to Figure 2 above.

Step 4: Click on the button labeled File System designated by the red box in Figure 2 above. You will be presented with a screen similar to Figure 3 above.

Step 5: Click on the Troubleshooting tab as designated by the blue box in Figure 3 above. You will be presented with a screen similar to Figure 4 above except there will be a checkmark in the checkbox labeled Disable System Restore.

Step 6. Remove the checkmark in the box labeled Disable System Restore designated by the blue box in Figure 4 above.

Step 7. Press the Apply button and then the OK button. Windows will now prompt you to reboot.

Step 8: Press the Yes button and Windows ME will reboot.

Then the operating system restarts System Restore will be enabled.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Using Man
How to search the man pages for a particular word or phrase
Conclusion

Introduction

Many users who try Linux for the first time can get confused easily as their is no readily apparent help system available to them. As Windows programs are typically graphical in nature, it is not too hard to find the help menu for that particular program. Linux, on the other hand, has thousands of very useful programs that are run from the command line and therefore it may not be easy to find the help for that particular programs. Thankfully for us, developers created the program called man. Man, which stands for manual, is a program that can be used to view the help or manual page for the thousands of individual programs found in Linux or Unix.

For the most part, but not always, when a program in Linux/Unix is developed the developer will also create a separate man page file that contains the manual for that particular program or command. When the program is installed, the installer will also install the man page that was included into the proper location so that you can easily read the manual page as needed. This tutorial will provide a basic overview of how to use man to see the manual, or help pages, for a particular program.

Using Man
For this tutorial we teach you how to use man within the console or X-Windows Terminal program. If your *nix computer starts up automatically into X-Windows you will need to find the Terminal application and run it. This will present you with a small box with a prompt that you can type commands in. If your computer boots directly into the console, then you simply need to log in, and use the console for the rest of this tutorial.

Now that you are at a prompt, lets start learning how to use man. At your prompt type the following (please note for these exercises my prompt may look different than yours):

man

When you type man, without any arguments, and press enter you will see something like this:




The reason you received this response is because man always requires an argument in order to work. For most purposes, this argument will generally be the name of the program. Now that we know this, lets look up the manual page for a popular command line program, the program mkdir. To see the manual page for mkdir we would type the following and press enter:

man mkdir
After you press enter, the man command will search for the manual page corresponding to mkdir and display it. So after typing that command you would see something like this:





As you can see the manual page for mkdir has extensive information. It tells you what the program does, the syntax for the command, the arguments that can be used with the command, who to report bugs found when using the program, and the copyright information for the program. With this information you should have no problem now seeing the manual for the myriad of *nix commands available.


How to search the man pages for a particular word or phrase

Sometimes you need help with a particular file or program and are unsure exactly which manual page to look up. Thankfully there is a argument that you can use with man that will allow you to search through all the man pages for a particular keyword or phrase. This argument is the -K argument. The syntax for this command is the following:

man -K keyword
So for example, lets say that you wanted to search for all manual pages that contained the word fstab, you would type:

man -K fstab
This would then return a list of manual pages that contain that word and give you the option to view it (Y), skip it (N), or quit the search (Q). To view one of the matches simply press the y button and that particular manual page will show.


Conclusion

Now that you know how to view the manual pages of *nix commands using man, get out there and explore your operating system. There are many different commands that will be useful to know. A very popular manual being intro; man intro. Man also can be fun. Try some of these man commands for some hidden surprises (may not work on all linux distributions):

man c
man poll (look in the warning section)
man sex

And if worse comes to worse, and you still need help using man, you can always type the command man man and press enter :)

Table of Contents


Introduction
Seeing a list of mounted filesystems
The mount command
How to unmount a filesystem
Conclusion

Introduction

A filesystem is a way that an operating system organizes files on a disk. These filesystems come in many different flavors depending on your specific needs. For Windows, you have the NTFS, FAT, FAT16, or FAT32 filesystems. For Macintosh, you have the HFS filesystem and for Linux you have more filesystems than we can list in this tutorial. One of the great things about Linux is that you have the ability to access data stored on many different file systems, even if these filesystems are from other operating systems.

In order to access a filesystem in Linux you first need to mount it. Mounting a filesystem simply means making the particular filesystem accessible at a certain point in the Linux directory tree. When mounting a filesystem it does not matter if the filesystem is a hard disk partition, CD-ROM, floppy, or USB storage device. You simply need to know the device name associated with the particular storage device and a directory you would like to mount it to. Having the ability to mount a new storage device at any point in the directory is very advantageous. For example, lets say that you have a web site stored in /usr/local/website. The web site has become very popular and you are running out of space on your 36 GB hard drive. You can simply go out and purchase a new 73 GB hard drive, install it in the computer, and then mount that entire drive as /usr/local/. Now your /usr/local mount point has a total hard drive space of 73 GB, and you can free up the old hard drive by copying everything from the old /usr/local to the new one. As you can see, adding more hard drive space to a computer, while still keeping the same exact directory structure, is now very easy.


Seeing a list of mounted filesystems

In order to determine what filesystems are currently being used type the command:

$ mount

When you type this at a command prompt, this command will display all the mounted devices, the filesystem type it is mounted as, and the mount point. The mount point being local directory that is assigned to a filesystem during the process of mounting.


How to mount filesystems

Before you can mount a filesystem to a directory, you must be logged in as root (some filesystems can be mountable by a standard user) and the directory you want to mount the filesystem to must first exist. Also in some situations, you must be logged in as the root user in order to make the particular mount directory. If the directory exists, and any user can mount that particular device, then it is not necessary to be logged in as root. When mounting a particular filesystem or device you need to know the special device file associated with it. A device file is a special file in Unix/Linux operating systems that are used to allow programs and the user to communicate directly with the various partitions and devices on your computer. These device files are found in the /dev folder.

As our first example, lets use a real world example of accessing your Windows files from a floppy in Linux.

In order to mount a device to a particular folder, that folder must exist. Many Linux distributions will contain a /mnt folder, or even a /mnt/floppy folder, that is used to mount various devices. If the folder that you would like to mount the device to exists, then you are all set. If not you need to create it like this:

$ mkdir /mnt/floppy

This command will have now created a directory called /mnt/floppy. The next step would be to mount the filesystem to that folder or mount point.


$ mount –t msdos /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy


You have now mounted an msdos filesystem, which is indicated by the –t (type) option. The device is recognized by the /mnt/floppy point. Now you can access MS-DOS formatted disks as you would any other directory.


To mount a CD-ROM:


$ mount –t iso9660 /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom


Again this is a similar method as above to mount the CD-ROM.

Different filesystems can also be mounted in a similar manner:

$ mount –t vfat /dev/hda1 /win

Any filesystems that are not mounted can be seen via the df command. So using that command you know what you got to work with.

Note: The -t option should be used so that the operating system knows the specific filesystem type that you would like to mount the device as. If you leave the -t option out of the command, mount it will attempt to determine the correct filesystem type it should mount the device with.



How to unmount a filesystem

When you are done using a particular filesystem, you should unmount. The command to unmount a filesystem is the umount command.

When unmounting a filesystem you simply type umount followed by the mount point. For example:

$ umount /mnt/floppy

$ umount /mnt/cdrom


Conclusion

Now that you know how to mount and unmount filesystems, even those from other operating systems, in Linux, using Linux should now be even more attractive and a much more powerful tool. For more information about the mount and umount commands you can view their man page (help files) by typing the following commands:

$ man mount
$ man umount

For more information about how to automatically mount certain filesystems when the operating system starts, you can view the following man page:

$ man fstab