Partitioning helps organise your data and has many advantages. It can help with speed, security and backup.

Partition recovery...

FDISK is a Windows utility for partitioning a hard disk drive in preparation to hold data. Partitioning is useful for naming different areas for different uses. For example separating the operating system and data. Typically most computer hard drives have a single partition, the logical C drive. FDISK can also be used for setting up a dual boot system such as Windows in one partition and Linux in another. Disk partitioning is also common on LAN servers where different sets of users share files and applications. But does partitioning safeguard your information against data loss?

Whilst we advocate keeping your data backed up to a second physical hard disk drive, sometimes this is not practical. There is a common myth that partitioning will help against malware. A virus can easily interrogate all the partitions, whilst it cannot propagate across two physical drives. Nevertheless, partitioning can help you organise your data. Partitioning is a simple process, but before you attempt this, make sure you have a full backup of your data. FDISK will format the hard drive and this will delete any existing data.

SSD hard drive technology is extremely fast in terms of reading data. It can either optimise a PC that is usually dedicated to video games with premium features, such as 4K or 3D, or revitalise an old PC or Mac. Most importantly, the computer can be adapted to accommodate a standard 3.5″ desktop or a 2.5″ laptop hard drive.

What is the procedure to be followed?

Changing a hard drive requires several steps. It can be done by yourself or by a professional. There are several things you should know before having a go at this task, in particular, including software that allows copying from one hard drive to another if you want to keep your regular working environment. In addition, you may need more specific software if you intend to copy a Macintosh hard drive (a PC can copy Macintosh hard drives) because the purpose of the drive-to-drive copy is that the software knows how to copy correctly the so-called partitions.

In the case of Macintosh, these are partitions of the HFS+ type, while Windows partitions are of the NTFS type. Generally, it is best to have a desktop PC running Windows (7, 8 or 10) to perform the operation because you may actually use the original PC drive to work with the copying software. This is then used to copy to the replacement drive or to copy the laptop drive to the SSD that will replace it.

The choice of copying software is important

There are several choices of copying software. In practice, to replace the internal drive of a PC or a PC-type laptop, you can find solid state hard drives including a special kit with the right software and the adequate small cable to be used in the operation. But this is generally a little more expensive. To copy a Macintosh drive, after several attempts made by professionals, Paragon Drive Copy Professional and Acronis True Image turned out to be the only ones able to successfully copy the partition. Indeed, they allowed starting the Mac with the new hard drive in place of the old drive without any problem at all, doing nothing else than replacing one with the other after copying.

What is left now is to choose the appropriate hard drive and install it in place of the old one.

This free Web-based tool from VMware hopes to make virtualization management easier for SMBs

Originally unveiled just prior to the start of VMworld 2009 back in August, VMware's Web-based ESXi 4.0 management tool, VMware Go, has finally been released. Users can now sign up for the service at the new VMware Go Web site.

There are a number of companies trying to challenge VMware's virtualization market dominance. To do that, big-name companies are offering free virtualization solutions such as Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix XenServer, and Red Hat KVM. VMware also has its own free hypervisor technology, ESXi. But many SMB companies are still on the fence about whether to virtualize and, if so, which vendor to implement. This segment of the market appears to be a significant portion of future virtualization revenue; however, current adoption rates just aren't there.

For many organizations, a lack of virtualization skills or the lack of time and money to properly train IT staff can be a large barrier to overcome. With the introduction of VMware Go, VMware is trying to simplify the installation and configuration of its ESXi hypervisor and provide an easy on-ramp for SMB companies that might be new to the server virtualization market.

"With VMware Go, we are eliminating the skill barrier for getting started with virtualization, so companies who are concerned about not having the IT resources or expertise, especially SMBs, can now more quickly and easily enjoy the many benefits of virtualization," said Dan Chu, vice president of emerging products and markets at VMware.

Introduction

In order to repair tables in a Microsoft SQL Server database, the following commands will need to be issued through the query editor in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio Express.

Ensure that no Webtrends services are started while the database repair is underway.

Next Steps

1. Download and install MS SQL Server Management Studio Express for the version of the MS SQL database installed with the product.

Webtrends Analytics 8.5 and 8.5a use MS SQL Server Express 2005 by default:
Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio Express

Webtrends Analytics 9.2x and 8.7d use MS SQL Server Express 2008 by default:
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Management Studio Express

Note: Installation of Management Studio Express 2008 requires installation of the Microsoft Web Platform first, after which Management Studio Express 2008 will follow.

2. After installation, open the application from Start > Programs > Microsoft SQL Server 2005/2008 > SQL Server Management Studio Express.

3. Log into the database using Windows Authentication

4. Expand Databases, then right-click on wt_sched and choose "Properties."

5. Select "Options" and scroll to the bottom in the pane on the right.

6. Change "Restrict Access" to "SINGLE_USER."

7. Select OK and repeat the above steps for the wtMaster section of the database.

8. Select "New Query" from the toolbar, and in the query pane that opens, paste in the following commands: