How to Boot from USB Disk

Lots of people have been wondering if there is an easier way to reformat their computers without going through any hassle. If you're anything like me, you'd most probably have a CD album full of important CDs, which you'd leave at home and won’t carry with you all the time. And when you want to give your computer a full system format, you'd be searching your CDs again. Either that, or you'd most probably clear 7GB off of your C drive (assuming you gonna install Windows Vista), and mount an ISO image that consists Windows Setup files using a third party software like Daemon Tools or PowerISO and go for a non-clean format.

I used to do this before finding out an easier method. Why not use your USB instead? Just plug in your flash drive / thumb drive / pen drive / whatever you call your USB drive into your USB port, re-boot your computer and reformat your PC on the go. Better yet, keep the device as Windows Installation Drive. Whenever you feel like reformatting your system, just plug it in and reformat your computer. Easy uh? I’m going to show a step by step tutorial on how to do this. It can be done for Windows Vista or Windows 7, since it has guaranteed positive results so far. I have not tried this for Windows XP yet, so don’t come complaining to me.




Requirements:

• A USB Drive: Thumb Drive, or External Hard Disk, which is more than 3GB.
• Windows Vista/Windows 7 Installation CD or Equivalent Image files (ISO, DAA, etc)
• USB Port
• A system that actually does support either one of the OS

Step 1:
Connect your USB Device to the system


Step 2: Download and extract USB Disk Storage Format

You’ll have to run this in administrator mode. Right click and choose Run as Administrator.


Step 3:

1. Choose the appropriate device from ‘Device’ label.
2. Leave the ‘File System’ label as FAT32
3. Click Start
4. Close when done

Step 4:
Download and extract Grub4Dos. It is very important for you to extract the entire folder instead of running the file straight away. Again, you have to run this in administrator mode.


Step 5:

1. Check the ‘Disk’ Label. And choose the appropriate USB drive.
2. Leave ‘File’ Label unchecked.
3. At the far end of the label ‘Part List’, click Refresh.
4. Choose ‘Whole Disk (MBR)’ under this title.
5. Click Install.

It won’t take long till you get a confirmation message in command prompt. Click ‘Quit’ when you are done.

Note: If at the beginning of step 5 the Label Disk shows no entries, that means you are not running in administrator mode.


Step 6:
Remember the folder that you had to extract for Grub4Dos archive in step 4? Open that folder, find for two files named ‘grldr’ and ‘menu.lst’. Copy these two files and paste it in your USB drive. You are almost there now.

Step 7:
Now, insert your Windows Installation CD for the very last time into the CD Rom. If you have ISO image of Windows Installer, this is the time for you to mount it. As for me, I normally keep image files of my important CDs. Load/Mount it, open the installation folder/CD Rom drive, and copy every single file there, and paste them into your USBb drive.

 The final state of your USB drive should look something like this:

Easy, right? Oh, of course you need to change your Boot Priorities. Set the system so that it’d boot from the USB drive. There is no definitive manner, as setting up the Boot Priorities is machine dependant. But to give you a clue, when you a restarting your computer, press the button that you need to press in order to enter into the setup screen. This key is normally displayed on the first screen when you are rebooting your computer. It goes something like: “Press F2 to configure Setup Menu” or something like that.

When you are in there, find for Boot Sequence or Boot Menu or Boot Priority or anything that has the word ‘Boot’ in it. There, you will see a small list, which has entries like CD Rom, Hard Disk, Floppy and things like that. Find for USB drive and press the necessary keys to bring this particular entry to top. It would be a good idea to have the USB drive connected before you go into this setup. Also, it is advisable for you to disconnect all the other USB storage devices when you are doing this.

If you do this right, the setup will bring you into a blank screen, in which you can choose a list of Windows to install. Just Choose Windows 7, and go with the flow. You can unplug the USB Device after the system reboots for the first time (or before).

I hope this tutorial will help you to setup you own bootable USB drive. With the physical size of USB disks nowadays, imagine the possibility. You could keep an entire Windows 7 in a small USB Drive, and keep it in your wallet or something. Cool huh?

WARNING: This tutorial is meant for those who have experience in re-formatting computers beforehand. It shows only the ways to use a USB drive to reformat a computer, not the actual process of reformatting the system. It would be a good start for the beginners to learn from here, provided that you have nothing to lose. If you have valuable information or data in your computer, things can get terribly wrong if they don’t get backed up. So, try it at your own risk. Make sure you know what you are doing. And, Good luck.

My Windows 7 Review: Windows Vista is so Yesterday!

Pardon me for being braggadocio, but I just can’t help myself from feeling good to be using Windows 7. I have switched to Windows 7 a couple of days ago and I got to say, I’m really impressed. In this short period that I have tried Windows 7, I dare to say that Windows 7 has clearly outperformed its predecessor, Windows Vista. Instead of focusing on creating a candied-coated OS, Microsoft has done a superb job in developing an OS which has it all. They paid more attention to the necessary needs and less to the trivial ones. If cosmetics are all you expect in a new OS, then Windows 7 won’t impress you much. This is because Microsoft retained majority of the appearance features from Windows Vista. It is not surprising if an average user could not distinguish the two Windows from a momentary look. (Click Read More)



At first glance, one would notice the heavily transformed taskbar in Windows 7. In fact, this has to be one of the major changes appearances wise in this new OS. It gives the user an option to always combine taskbar buttons and hide their labels. With this feature included, your taskbar never has to be messy again. If you are a conservative person, fear not as a simple tweak will bring back the old styled quick lunch taskbar buttons. Another change in the appearance takes the form of desktop themes. Windows DreamScene is no more, but it has been replaced by Slideshow-y Wallpapers. The wallpaper changes every certain interval predefined by the user, eradicating the boredom that comes from staring at single wallpaper all the time. Everything else pretty much remains the same.

But like I said, Windows 7 is nothing about appearance. Its performance is what amazes me. My notebook reboots in few seconds now, and shuts down even faster. Cool, huh? I don’t want to get technical here, but in layman’s term, all you got to know is Windows 7 to Windows Vista is like Windows 98 to Windows 95. To those who lived through that period, you’d know it was so magical when you first unleashed Windows 98. Windows 7 is somehow similar to that moment. Windows 7 is everything Windows Vista is not.

There are few interesting features that I have noticed so far. Let me start with its keyboard shortcuts. Windows incorporated many more interesting keyboard shortcuts in this release of Windows, most of the making use of the ‘Windows’ key. For instance, if you press Win+Space, you’d get to take a peek at your desktop from whatever window you were previously on. This is useful if you have placed some important gadget on your desktop and you want to take a brief look at it without closing down or minimising your current active window. Other than that, there is another short cut, where you can press Shift+Taskbar Icon to make a duplicate program that is currently running. For example, you are running Microsoft Paint (which by the way has gone through major changes GUI wise), and you have worked on the image in it and you don’t want anything to get overwritten, so you want to open another copy of Microsoft Paint. Instead of going through start menu again, u can simply hold Shift and click on the active taskbar button to open another copy of Microsoft Paint. All these are just some of the many shortcuts that have been integrated in the new Windows.

Oh ya, my review will definitely be incomplete if I don’t mention this. Remember how Microsoft ensured you that Windows Vista would run software from Windows XP, and even if it can’t, you can run it different compatibility mode but it never really worked? Well, now it is working completely. And I have tested it for myself. I intentionally tried to install a program which can only run in Windows XP. Initially, and as expected, I could not get the program to run due to compatibility issues. But using Windows 7’s feature called Troubleshoot Compatibility, you get to choose to run the program using compatibility settings of a different platform. I for once find this feature extremely useful. Not all the products in the market are made forward compatible. At such, it is up to the OS’s developer to ensure these programs don’t get obsolete due to compatibility issues. What is even cooler is you get to save the settings of the program to run in that working mode for future execution. That means you only have to run Troubleshoot compatibility once.

What’s the catch one might ask. Well, I can’t see anything much, besides the removal of Windows Live Essential. Windows Live Essential includes Windows Movie Maker among other things. I don’t see myself missing this program anyway, with its issues of burning DVDs previously in Windows Vista. Besides, with Windows 7 integrating a built-in function to burn ISO image files, I can’t complain much now, can I?

Again, these are only some of the features that I have seen for myself in my 2-days usage period of the product. There are still much more to come. I have personally used Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Vista. And I find Windows 7 as the most stable and efficient built yet. It is simply the best version of Windows around. I would recommend Windows 7 to anyone. It will be released on 22nd October 2009.

For those who already have Windows 7, check out Window 7’s Top 30 Tips and Tricks.

FailBlog

Today's quick review will be on FailBlog. Similar to EngirshFunny, this partner site of them posts images that are.. Err.. Phailed :P

Enough said, go check em out for yourself!

http://failblog.org/

Image taken from www.failblog.org

Kanyeify Your Site!

If you have seen MTV Video Music Awards 2009, you must have not missed another Kanye's notorious outburst on how Beyonce's video is better than Taylor Swift's. The event was memorable for paying its tribute to the late King of Pop, but was overshadowed with Taylor getting Kanye'd incident. I find it surprising how videos on that ugly event were quickly removed from the internet. I cant find any for now, but if I happen to see it elsewhere, I'll put it here.

Anyway, some dude decided to create a website, where you can simulate Kanye's outburst on your own. Just that instead of ranting about Beyonce's videos, Kanye would rant about how Beyonce's website is way better than a site of your choice. All you have to do is place "http://kanyelicio.us/" in front any URL. Check out how Southern Speakers' blog got ranted by Kanye below:

Kanye on Southern Speakers

Engrish Funny

It's time for our Site Review again. Since when did we start to do reviews anyway? Anyway, back when I was doing my internship, this was one of the sites that never failed to entertain me. I could spend hours reading it, on how dumb people can really be. Hahaha.. Here you go:

www.engrishfunny.com

Image taken from www.engrishfunny.com

More web reviews to come.

Fmylife

Today, I gonna write a post about fmylife. There's nuthin ironic about it. FML

Hahaha. Aite, this is one of the sites that kept me entertained while I was doing my internship in KL. It is a blog, in which users can write a brief story about unfortunate events that had happened to them. The stories usually starts with "Today" and ends with "FML". More after the jump (click Read More).

http://www.fmylife.com

According to their website, fmylife is about:

"Fmylife.com contains a daily dose of short anecdotes, based on a simple recipe: in a few sentences, users can tell everyone the shitty moment which ruined their day. These short stories must begin with "Today" and end with "FML". On top of being a huge release for the person telling their story, delightfully proving that "f*** ups" happen to everybody every day, fmylife.com also aims to be funny for everyone involved, as well as a way to share your misfortunes with other unlucky individuals, bearing in mind that self deprecation and a sense of irony are essential!"

That said, I hereby unveil fmylife blog widget that will live to serve the purpose of your daily work-time-entertainment needs. Sometimes, reading something bad about others make you feels good.

Wat Up?

Now that the blog is back, and I have a fair amount of time for myself, its time to reconsider what this blog is really about. Sure we said it's gonna be about techy stuffs and things like that, but let us do a brief recap.

- First we blogged about how Michael died - Not techy
- Then sum Transformers collection update post - Not techy
- Then some ironic old van's post - Nuh uh
- Pentium posted about DP then - Still can't sense any
- And now just blog updates..

Erm.. Ok, like this. We gonna post about whatever stuffs that we find interesting. Emphasize on ‘we’ and ‘interesting’. That means, some of you might not feel comfortable with the things that we are gonna post here, take note. I have been receiving quite a number of interesting emails lately that I thought I’d share with everyone. So, watch out!!

Blog is Back

The blog has been succesfully vitalised with its brand new ripped look. It looks awesome and cool now. If this blog is a man, then he would be a fit one with 6-packs abs. Or maybe 8. Okay. Whatever.

Anyway, more things will be posted after this, stay tuned!