Dad's PC Problems

So I woke up this morning to find out that the previous night my dad was having problems with his computer. I wouldn't call him completely computer literate. After a virus scan picked up some "infected files" in System32 and told him to "manually remove" them, he proceeded to move the infected files found in System32 to the desktop and turned off his PC. I theorize that these were somewhat significant components since the events following meant he couldn't start his computer up.

Today he told me this and that it won't turn back on properly. After trying to turn the computer on it gave me the boot menu of options like "Start up Normally", "Start up in Safe Mode" and "Return to last previous state which it had turned on correctly". After trying all the options and finding that the computer wouldn't start up and only loop back to this area in the start-up process we tried something else.

We switched the Master Hard Drive with the Slave Hard Drive (which was from a previous computer that had Windows XP installed on it), it gave me an error which I recognized as it having another drive or disc higher in priority than the Slave Hard Drive. I unplugged the External Hard Drive and anything else that could possibly interfere.

The computer booted up into Windows XP through the Slave Hard Drive, through the use of the keyboard only (since the mouse refused to install the plug'n'play drivers for some reason) I was able to replace the System32 files on the Master Drive to their usual place. I also backed up all of my dad's files from the Master Hard Drive to the External Hard Drive at the same time, in-case anything was to be lost from such tampering.

After replacing these files the computer started up into its usual state.

Hex Editing a Problem

Today I tried to play the old PC game Turok 2: Seeds of Evil which I used to have on Nintendo 64 but had never played the PC ported version. I shortly found that the only available resolutions for the game are in 4:3 with no option for any 16:9 resolutions such as my own monitor's default resolution 1920x1080.

I didn't really enjoy looking at the smudgy imagery that 4:3 resolutions provided on my screen, so I searched the internet for a solution to the problem. I found that with use of a Hex Editor I can edit one of the game files and replace the values for 800x600 for example with ones for 1920x1080. 

I opened up a Hex Editor which I already had on my computer for a number of years (known as HxD) but hadn't had many opportunities to use. I replaced said values then opened up the game and set the resolution to 800x600 in the settings to trick it into using 1920x1080. Which worked!

Further blogs I will be following

I have found a total of 5 blogs to follow, including the TechCrunch blog that I had mentioned previously.

The other four are, with brief explanations:

• Kotaku, which is mainly a gaming blogsite.
• PC Pro Blog, another technology blogsite about recent PC news.
• Youtube's Blog, the massive video uploading site's official blog.
• Blog Project 1.0, a classmate's blog about his own interests.

The Blog I Will Be Following

TechCrunch is the name of the blog I will be following over the coming weeks. I chose it because it has an assortment of tech industry news on facts and figures and is updated regularly. It also offers profiles of startup companies, products and websites. It was founded in 2005 by Michael Arrington and first published in June of 2005.

Here is a link to the blogsite: http://techcrunch.com/