Hide partition drive from My Computer in Windows

Group Policy is a feature of the Microsoft Windows NT family of operating systems. Group Policy is a set of rules which control the working environment of user accounts and computer accounts. Group Policy provides the centralized management and configuration of operating systems, applications and users' settings in an Active Directory environment. In other words, Group Policy in part controls what users can and can't do on a computer system. Although Group Policy is more often seen in use for enterprise environments, it is also common in schools, smaller businesses and other kinds of smaller organizations. Group Policy is often used to restrict certain actions that may pose potential security risks, for example: to block access to the Task Manager, restrict access to certain folders, disable the downloading of executable files and so on.

Here we using group policy for hide Hide partition drive from My Computer in Windows. ( Here i using windows XP )

Step 1 : In run commend type gpedit.msc

Step 2 : Hit Enter, You'll get following window, This is group policy editor window,

Step 3 : Choose User Configuration, In Tree under user configuration choose Administrative Templates,

Step 4 : Under Administrative Templates, click windows Components and then Windows Explorer. Now in the right side of the window we ca find a text , Hide these specific drives in My Computer

Step 5 : Now double click it, You'll get a window like as follow. Here, First you want to click Enabled radio button, Then want to choose drive want to hide.

That's all. Now click ok and check you My Computer.

Windows Event Log Viewer

In Windows XP, an event is any significant occurrence in the system or in a program that requires users to be notified, or an entry added to a log. The Event Log Service records application, security, and system events in Event Viewer. With the event logs in Event Viewer, you can obtain information about your hardware, software, and system components, and monitor security events on a local or remote computer. Event logs can help you identify and diagnose the source of current system problems, or help you predict potential system problems.

Steps to go Event Viewer :

Step 1 : Go to run and in field type ' eventvwr ' ( without quotes )

Step 2 : You'll get following window, In this log are grouped as 5 categries ,

• The application log is where applications / programs log their events. For example, when your virus scanner encounters a problem, it could bring this to your attention through the application log. The developers of the program are responsible for the type of events that are logged here. THAT is where you can often find VERY useful information about things that go wrong behind the curtains. Things that can dramatically slow down your pc.

• The security log is used to bring valid and invalid logon attempts to your attention. Also file access, creation and deletion of files can be logged here. You need to have an account with administrative privileges to enable, use and specify which events are logged in the security log.

• The system log , where you will find events logged by Windows system components. Can also reveal some VERY interesting troubleshooting information about your system.

Microsoft Office Diagnostics and Microsoft Office Sessions are used for Log MS-Office activities,

Step 3 : If you click the respective tree item in left you'll get log at right side of window,

About Events:

There are basically three types of events : information, warning and error.

• Informative events : There's no need to worry about it. they just, well, inform you that something has happened, e.g. a driver has loaded or a service has started.

• Warnings : Not critical. May be an indication of future problems, for instance when disk space is running low.

• Errors : You should try to get rid of those. They indicate a significant problem, such as the failure of a critical task. For example when a system service fails to start. These can cause loss of data or functionality.

source : http://www.windows-help-central.com/windows-xp-event-log.html

Deleted File Recovery in Liunx - PhotoRec

PhotoRec is great tool for recover deleted files in Linux

PhotoRec is a data recovery software tool designed to recover lost files from digital camera memory (CompactFlash, Memory Stick, Secure Digital, SmartMedia, Microdrive, MMC, USB flash drives etc.), hard disks and CD-ROMs. It recovers most common photo formats, including JPEG, and also recovers audio files including MP3, document formats such as Open Office, Microsoft Office, PDF and HTML, and archive formats including ZIP.
PhotoRec does not attempt to write to the damaged media you are about to recover from. Recovered files are instead written to the directory from where you are running PhotoRec or any other directory you choose. PhotoRec is shipped with TestDisk.

Here steps for recover lost data:

Step 1 : As a root user, install PhotoRec by "yum install photorec" in RedHat Linux. After install type photorec in terminal window

Step2 : You'll get following screen

Step 3 : Here want to choose hard disk, Hit Enter for proceed, You'll get following,

Step 4 : Choose partition table type, Our normal table type is Intel ( Normally we using this only ). Next you'll get following page,

 Step 6 : Hit Search for go to next step, Hit options for advanced options, Hit File Opt for choose specified file type recovery.

Step 7 : After Hit Search , you'll get following window. This for choose file system type.This is one of useful option for linux file system,

Step 8 : Now want to choose place for store recoverd files, Don't use same partition for store files. This'll corrupted files and can't recover file successfully.

After completion of file recovery,Open destination directory and get files. Wait until file recovery completion.

By this i have successfully restored lost files. Use it by your one risk. Hope you can successfully restore your lost data. 

Please go PhotoRec official page for more information.

Recover Lost Partitions in Linux - TestDisk

TestDisk is great tool for recover lost partitions in Linux

TestDisk is a free data recovery utility. It was primarily designed to help recover lost data storage partitions and/or make non-booting disks boot-able again when these symptoms are caused by faulty software, certain types of viruses or human error (such as accidentally erasing a partition table).

Here steps for recover lost partition:

Step 1 : As a root user, install testdisk by "yum install testdisk" in RedHat Linux. Type testdisk in terminal.

Step2 : You'll get following screen

Step 3 : Use options for create or skip log files, After that you get following screen. Here we want to choose hard disk for recover lost partition,

Step 4 : Here i use single hard disk, Hit Enter for proceed, You'll get following

Step 5 : Choose partition table type, Our normal table type is Intel ( Normally we using this only ). Next you'll get following page,

 Step 6 : Use options for choose our need, Analyse'll show you list of partition

Step 7 : Hit Enter for Quick Search , This'll analyse our Hard Disk, This process is as shown in figure,

After completion of this, It'll show all partition as available.

By this i have successfully restored lost partitions. Use it by your one risk. Hope you can successfully restore your lost partitions. 

Please go TestDisk official page for more information.