36.

System Utilities
Bad Sectors in Hard disk- A bad sector on a hard drive is simply a tiny cluster of storage
space — a sector — of the hard drive that appears to be defective. The sector won’t respond to
read or write requests.Bad sectors can occur on both traditional magnetic hard drives and modern
solid-state drives. There are two types of bad sectors — often divided into “physical” and “logical”
bad sectors or “hard” and “soft” bad sectors.
A physical — or hard — bad sector is a cluster of storage on the hard drive that’s physically
damaged. The hard drive’s head may have touched that part of the hard drive and damaged it,
some dust may have settled on that sector and ruined it, a solid-state drive’s flash memory cell
may have worn out, or the hard drive may have had other defects or wear issues that caused the
sector to become physically damaged. This type of sector cannot be repaired.
A logical — or soft — bad sector is a cluster of storage on the hard drive that appears to not be
working properly. The operating system may have tried to read data on the hard drive from this
sector and found that the error-correcting code (ECC) didn’t match the contents of the sector, which
suggests that something is wrong. These may be marked as bad sectors, but can be repaired by
overwriting the drive with zeros — or, in the old days, performing a low-level format. Windows’ Disk
Check tool can also repair such bad sectors.
Causes of Hard Bad Sectors- Your hard drive may have shipped from the factory with bad sectors.
Modern manufacturing techniques aren’t perfect, and there’s a margin or error in everything. That’s
why solid-state drives often ship with some defective blocks. These are marked as defective and
are remapped to some of the solid-state drive’s extra memory cells.On a solid-state drive, natural
wear will eventually result in sectors becoming bad as they’re written to many times, and they’ll be
remapped to the solid-state drive’s extra — or “overprovisioned” — memory. When the solid-state
drive’s extra memory runs out, the drive’s capacity will start to drop as sectors become
unreadable.On a traditional magnetic hard drive, bad sectors can be caused by physical damage.
Causes of Soft Bad Sectors- Soft bad sectors are caused by software issues. For example, if your
computer suddenly shuts off due to a power outage or a pulled power cable, it’s possible that the
hard drive may have shut off in the middle of writing to a sector. In some cases, it’s possible for
sectors on the hard drive to contain data that doesn’t match their error-correction code — this would
be marked as a bad sector. Viruses and other malware that messes with your computer could also
cause such system issues and cause soft bad sectors to develop.
How to Check for and Repair Bad Sectors- Windows has a built-in Disk Check tool — also known
as chkdsk — that can scan your hard drives for bad sectors, marking hard ones as bad and
repairing soft ones to make them usable againOther operating systems, including Linux and OS X,
also have their own built-in disk utilities for detecting bad sectors.
Bad sectors are just a reality of hard disks, and there’s generally no reason to panic when you
encounter one. However, you should always have backups of your important files just in case a
freak bad sector strikes .

Master Boot Record- The Master Boot Record (MBR) is the information in the first sector of any
hard disk or diskette that identifies how and where an operating system is located so that it can
be boot (loaded) into the computer's main storage or random access memory.
in-place installation- The installation of an operating system or application on the computer
without removing the older version first and without saving any data beyond normal precautions. In-
place installations of operating systems have a tendency to cause problems, especially if the new
version is very different from the previous one.
Registry fixing, performance level check, Shortcut fixing, Fixing Startup process, log, etc.-
The registry or Windows registry is a database of information, settings, options, and other values
for software and hardware installed on all versions of Microsoft Windows operating systems. When
a program is installed, a new subkey is created in the registry.
You can perform registry cleanup manually using the Windows Registry Editor. Follow these
steps:
1. Click the Start button and then select Run ...
2. Type “regedit” in the text box and press Enter.
3. Locate any applications that have already been uninstalled and delete them:
a. Expand the HKEY_CURRENT_USER section and then expand the Software
b. Look for keys based on the name of the uninstalled applications or the vendor and
delete them.
4. Next, find and remove any duplicate keys that the uninstalled applications might have left
behind:
a. Press Ctrl+F to open the Find dialog box.
b. Enter the name of the uninstalled application and click OK to search. Each matching key
or value will be highlighted.
c. Remove the highlighted key.
d. Press F3 to find the next match and delete it. Repeat this step until you have reviewed
all highlighted items.
5. Remove unwanted start-up items from the registry:
a. Navigate to the following location: My Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\
Microsoft\Windows\Current Version
b. Click Run to list shortcuts to all the executable files that run at startup.
c. Delete any applications that you don’t want to run at Windows startup. Do an online
search to investigate any that are unfamiliar.
d. Repeat the same task for the following key paths as well:
• HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\ CurrentVersion\Run
• HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components
• HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components

Users and user account.Privileges, scope, permissions Etc- A user is a person who utilizes
a computer or network service.A user account is a location on a network server used to store a
computer username, password, and other information. A user account allows or does not allow
a user to connect to a network, another computer, or other shares. Any network that has
multiple users requires user accounts.
The authorization given to users that enables them to access specific resources on the network,
such as data files, applications, printers and scanners. User permissions also designate the type
of access; for example, can data only be viewed (read only) or can they be updated (read/write).

Also called "user rights," "user authorizations" and "user privileges."

Concept of Virtual Machine- A virtual machine (VM) is a software program or operating system
that not only exhibits the behavior of a separate computer, but is also capable of performing tasks
such as running applications and programs like a separate computer. A virtual machine, usually
known as a guest is created within another computing environment referred as a "host." Multiple
virtual machines can exist within a single host at one time.
To create a virtual machine using VMware Workstation:

1. Launch VMware Workstation.

2. Click New Virtual Machine.
3. Select the type of virtual machine you want to create and click Next:
4. Select your guest operating system (OS), then click Next. You can install the OS using:

 An installer disc (CD/DVD)

 An installer disc image file (ISO)

5. Click Next.
6. Enter your Product Key.
7. Create a user name and password.
8. Click Next.
9. Enter a virtual machine name and specify a location for virtual machine files to be saved, click Next.
10. Establish the virtual machine's disk size, select whether to store the virtual disk as a single file or
split the virtual disk into 2GB files, click Next.
11. Verify the other configuration settings for your virtual machine:

 Memory – change the amount of memory allocated to the virtual machine.

 Processors – change the number of processors, number of cores per processor, and the
virtualization engine.
 CD / DVD – with advanced settings where you can choose between SCSI, IDE.
 Network adapter – configure it to bridge, NAT, or Host-only mode, or customize where you can
choose between 0 to 9 adapters.
 USB Controller.
 Sound card.
 Display – enable 3D graphics.

12. Click Finish.

13. When the virtual machine is powered on, the VMware Tools installation starts. You are prompted to
restart your virtual machine once the Tools installation completes.