Type: External (2.0 and later) Syntax: FDISK FDISK [/status] Purpose: Prepares a fixed disk to accept DOS files for storage. Discussion FDISK provides a set of options related to the preparation of a fixed disk. NOTE: This command is implemented in different ways by different manufacturers. Some may replace it …

Type: Internal (2.0 and later) Syntax: EXIT Purpose: Exits a secondary command processor. Discussion This command can be used when you are running an application program and want to start the DOS command processor, then return to your program. For example, to look at a directory on drive B while …

Clearing a Corrupt CMOS If you have arrived here through a search engine, and there’s no menu to the left click here! Explanation: During the startup process the BIOS has detected that one or more of the settings or parameters it has read from the CMOS memory is invalid. Diagnosis: …

Character Set Comparison Chart The chart below provides a comparison of the data mapping of several common Western character sets. Only the printing characters are shown here. Notes: The character codes are listed in hexadecimal. Only a small portion of the Unicode set is displayed. Specifically, only the printing characters …

Keyboard Key Lock Locked If you have arrived here through a search engine, and there’s no menu to the left click here! Explanation: The system is detecting that the key lock on the front of the computer’s case is locked, and therefore will not boot. The error message usually refers …

Fixed Disk Configuration Error – Hard Disk CMOS Mismatch If you have arrived here through a search engine, and there’s no menu to the left click here! Explanation: Most, if not all, systems automatically interrogate and examine the IDE hard disk(s) in the system and compare their geometry to the …

Performance Related Registry Keys File System Caching [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management] IoPageLockLimit”=dword:LockLimitValue00000000 The LockLimitValue can be: 4096000 for a system with 32MB RAM 8192000 for 64MB RAM 16384000 for 128MB RAM 65536000 for 256MB RAM Change to increases file performance. Configuring contiguous file allocation size [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem] “ContigFileAllocSize”=dword:00000200 Including this option increases …

Introduction I would like to thank Tom McFadden (mechBgon of the AnandTech forums) for the numerous hours he spent (during his vacation!) helping me edit this article into what it is now. In early PCs, the various components had one thing in common: they were all really slow :^). The …

Floppy Disk Has No Boot Sector If you have arrived here through a search engine, and there’s no menu to the left click here! Explanation: The BIOS POST process found a floppy disk to try and boot and operating system, however it couldn’t locate a boot sector from which to …

Binary and Decimal Byte “Equivalents” If you have arrived here through a search engine, and there’s no menu to the left, click here! It is an interesting coincidence that every tenth power of two is approximately equal to every third power of ten. This has resulted in two different definitions …