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So after checking a few pages on the link google search link provided by @yordan and then performing some of my own searches, I came to the conclusion that a different BIOS can be flashed to the motherboard, However, it has a very high risk of bricking the board. So it is better to stay away from it unless you surely and explicitly know what you are doing exactly....

I am sorry about your disease @velma... Hope you are fine now.... If I knew that the you are the incharge of mycent script, I would have bombarded your inbox with PMs.... Next time be ready for that Yes I can confirm now that the script ran and the website is also running. I have paid the unpaid invoice that caused me so much trouble. Special thanks to @yorda for PMing velma. You are my saviour @yordan.. Thankyou very much... The following is the detail of my support tickets about this issue: ID 667931 => Please run mycent script on my account ID 734412 => I opened a ticket about runnin mycent script on my Xisto account. The ticket doesn't exist now and my website has been suspended ID 516613 => My website has been suspended for more than 3 days.. A support ticket (ID 734412) about the issue is getting no response. What is happening I got response on ticket ID 516613 about 2 hours ago from Shree (maybe its you @velma)... And it does hurt me financially every single day my website is down. I am very much dependant on the Adsense based money the website generates and therefore it really hurts.. What's more important is that, the downtime is too dangerous for my website as most of the traffic is Search engines based, and this down time is definitely going to hurt the reputation SEOwise. That's why I got irritated. But I guess "All is well that ends well".. I apologize if there is anything harsh I said. Thanks @velma and @yordan

I have my wesite hosted on Xisto servers. It has been about 3 years since I am using their services. and I have to say that I haven't been let down as much as I am now... The story is that I live in Pakistan. You definitely can't use paypal. You are very unlikely to get a credit card (the condition are too extra-ordinary). You can get a debit card but it won'd work on the internet. So if you have to do business with someone outside Pakistan, you would have to use some other source for payment processing. This is the reason why I chose xisto and Xisto because they have this brilliant mycent system where I can give them my time and they would provide me the service I need. No need for paypal, or credit card. But lately, some strange things have happened. The mycent script is down so you won't get mycents for your posts automatically. You would have to open a support ticket to request to run mycent script on your account. But what if the "support ticket" system is also not functional.... this is what's happening now. so you can't get mycents, and you can't ask for the scritp to be run on your account. (I say that the support system is down because I am not getting any response to my support tickets, and some of the tickets get deleted automatically)... And then the due date for payment arises. But you have no mycents and no mechanism to get mycents for your posts. And the date is overdue. And your website is suspended. In my case, I submitted a support ticket to allow till the 30th to pay my overdue invoices.. which was answered (not without many hassles and embarassments). And then 30th came, and my posts were still not rewarded and then they suspended my website. I opened a support ticket on the 30th (before my website was suspended) to run mycent script on my account so that I can pay the outstanding balance, but the ticket was deleted automatically. and my website suspended. I reopened another ticket, providing reference to the email I got when I opened the first ticket. I got a reply something like "will look into it, hang on". Then I waited for a day and nothing happened. I added a reply to the support ticket explaining my situation and requesting to un-suspend my website for the time being. I waited for another day but got no reply.... Then I opened another ticket providing reference to my old tickets and mentioning that I am not getting any response, but unforutnately again, I didn't receive any reply..... So my website has been suspended for more than 3 days. My tickets aren't being answered and my posts aren't earning me mycents so that i can pay the outstanding dues..... its so embarassing What am I supposed to do now?? Moderators can you help me with this issue.....

I may get a little off-topic here but I would really like to ask that how much different (or similar) are the BIOS of a computer and Firmware of a peripheral device. What made me post this question here is that there are methods by which one can change the firmware of a device, which is supposed to be present on a "READ-ONLY" chip. So if Firmware is something like a very minimal BIOS, (I have a strange feeling that it my assumption might be true), than may be its possible to flash a different BIOS onto a computer. And I am pretty sure to say that the chip that stores BIOS, does actually allow some changes to take place. for instance you can update the bios of your computer. And updating definitely means that some changes are made and maybe some new additions as well...

It has been some time since I have experimented with stuff (went kind of busy lately)... But I do know that a newer version of Linux Mint is available. And maybe this newer version doesn't have this bug. You need to give it a try to know for real.

Your experience is more practical than that of mine, so I guess it deserves more weight. If it feels nicer as compared to the 4:3 screens (as you say after having experience with both), then it should be preferred...

My personal opinion is that when you have more than one screen, 4:3 serves better than the 16:9. The opinion will be especially stronger when there 3 screens involved. Now I don't have any practical experience with 3 screens and this opinion is obviously based on speculation. The logic behind this speculation is that 16:9 would sometimes make you feel that it should have more height (the "9" part) to it. Now is you have 3 such screen lined up horizontally, you are definitely going to feel for more height (again my personal speculation) because it is going to be too wide as compared to the height. So if I ever get the luxury of having 3 screens and choosing which ones to go for, I would definitely go for the 4:3 screens.

The sound from the table contributes significantly to the overall noise produced. I can say so because when I cover the table surface with some soft material like few layers of cloth, or foam, the sound decreases significantly. But I would also mention hare that the sound produced by keyboard only is still irritating enough for others to at least mention to me that they are being irritated.

Some Background: I have a laser printer “Samsung ML-1675”, which I bought about a year back. It was working fine and I was more than pleased with it, until it stopped printing because of low toner (ink) level. I don’t have much experience with printers but being a DIY type of guy, I decided to do it myself, The first step was to get information on how to refill this specific Printer Model. So I spent some time searching various kind of info on the internet. Soon, I realized that this specific model (like many other newer models) has this counter chip which needs to be replaced with every refill. So it clearly meant that I won’t be able to do the refill myself unless I had an extra counter chip. So I decided to seek some professional help and took it to the market. At the market, I found that refilling printers that had this counter chip was much more expensive than refilling the old printers that didn’t have the chip. I had bought the printer for about 5000 PKR, and I was told that the refilling would cost 1300PKR. That is each time I had to refill, I would have to pay more than 1/5 of the price of the printer. And with every refill, I would get about 1000 pages. This was completely unacceptable. Previously, when I searched online for various kind of info, I learned something called “Custom Firmware Flashing”. For those who don’t know what this means, let me explain it a little. (I really like explaining @yordan) Firmware, Custom Firmware and Flashing? Firmware is permanent software programmed into the read-only memory of a device. Almost every electronic device that is used with computers nowadays has its own read-only memory in which its specific software (firmware) is present. The Factory Firmware of the printer I had was designed in such a way that it counts the number of pages printed and stores this data in a separate chip (the counter chip I mentioned above). The firmware is designed in such a way that when the count reaches a specific number, the printer would stop printing, even if it has lots of toner left in it. Now I don’t know why it is designed this way, but this is how it is. So basically, you are limited to certain number of prints you can perform, and then you will have to replace the counter chip… Not very End-user friendly. This firmware is actually a piece of software. So as with all software, it can be modified in different ways. Now, if someone modifies the firmware in such a way, that it doesn’t stop the printing process when the page count reaches certain value. Or it can be even modified to stop counting pages and thus making the printing completely independent of the counter chip. This would now be called a “Custom Firmware” And the process of installing a firmware onto the read-only memory of a device is called flashing. So when you install a custom firmware to a device, this would now be called “Custom firmware Flashing”. Custom firmware can also be built from scratch, but this would be very time consuming and impractical. Obviously, every other computer user doesn’t have the skills necessary to modify firmwares. Only few people (who are expert coders) can do that. And some of them make their work public, so that anyone can use their work on their own devices. My story continues: So I found such a firmware specifically for my Printer model, I gave it a try i.e. I flashed it and it worked straight away. The printer started working without me having to refill the toner. This clearly demonstrates that the printer had the capacity to print more pages but because of some silly counter chip, it was restricted from performing fully. What I really want to know: So what I really want to know is “Is it legal to flash a custom firmware?” From what I know about the legality of software and hardware, I have a strong opinion that the actual process of flashing something to a device that you have bought cannot be illegal in any way (as far as that something isn’t illegal). And I guess this describes it all. But I would explain it any way (@yordan ) So basically when you pay for something, it becomes your property. And you can do whatever you want with your property (obviously as long as it doesn’t affect others). So whether I hammer my printer, extract every single component of it, or even flash custom software to it, this is completely my personal business with my personal property. Nobody has got to do anything with it. The most that can happen is that manufacturer’s warranty would be void and I won’t be able to claim it. So I have a strong opinion that flashing a custom firmware isn’t illegal. But this brings us to the second question: “Is the piece of software you are flashing Legal itself?”. And most likely the answer would be “NO”. This is because most expert people who create these custom firmwares, don’t create them from scratch. They modify the Manufacturer’s software as per their needs. Now my understanding is that most companies have made it clear that the software part is the manufacturer’s property. But there’s also this idea that when I buy a printer , I pay for both the hardware and software. So as long as I keep it to myself, there may be a chance that playing around with the software part of the device isn’t illegal. But when you modify it and distribute it, this is certainly illegal. So I flashed (legal part) a custom firmware (most likely illegal). Am I OK with the law ?? And there’s also a selfish thinking coming into my mind right now. Like, I have used a software created by someone who has willingly made it public and described no limitations on how this should be used. So basically I am free to use it in whatever way I want. And I shouldn’t be responsible for how the software itself was created, because I didn’t create it. I just used a publically available piece of software on my personal property… How much correct or incorrect I am with my presumption ???

So after using the then new (now quite old) keyboard for some time, I realized one thing. The number of mistakes I made on that apple keyboard clone were way too many as compared to what I make on the a4thech usb keyboard. And I am more than certain that this is because of the layout of the keys. The apple clone appears to have a normal layout. But I make more mistakes than I am supposed to make on a normal layout keyboard for instance the keyboard of my laptop. I don't understand why are there so many mistakes. Maybe its because of some major contribution from the small travel distance of the keys. On the other hand, the A4tech keyboard, which has a slightly slanted layout of keys, turns out to be pretty accurate for me. And what's more important is that I feel more comfortable typing on it. So its fast, its comfortable and there are less mistakes. The only problem is the problem of sound. So from the past month or so, whenever I can compromise on the noise produced, I use this A4tech keyboard, and when I really have to reduce the typing noise, I unpleasingly use the Apple clone wireless keyboard.

Because the word "tablet" has become so common, I think I first need to make clear that I am not talking about a Tablet Computer (like Apple iPad, or Nexus 7 etc). I am talking about a Graphics Tablet, an input device which enables a user to draw images and graphics similar to the way they are drawn with a pencil on a paper. The Graphics tablet I am talking about here is Genius G-Pen M-609X. I had bought it about a year back. Its use was very limited. Just used it for some drawing practice and some stuff for my website. Basically I didn't use it much and it just kept lying aside. About a week back, I got interested in drawing some stuff so I took it back and connected to my computer. The battery (in the pen) was a little swollen but it did work fine. I still avoided the risk of damaging the pen so I changed it. I had lost my drivers CD so I had to find the drivers online. which was fairly easy. And the tablet was functional within a few minutes. However, I noticed that it was functioning a bit weird. There was this strange vibration of the cursor whenever I used it. I mean like even if I would hold the pen steadily over the Tablet, the cursor would vibrate. And this vibration would get mixed with any kind of motion I gave to the pen. So for instace if I moved the pen straight vertically, the cursor would actually move in a zig-zag fashion. This translated to tremendous malfunction whenever I tried to draw something. I couldn't even draw a straight line (instead of a straight line I would always get a Zig zag). So practically, I couldn't draw with it at all.. First I thought that it is a photoshop issue and tried to make a few tweaks to the settings but then I quickly realized that even with photoshop closed, the cursor behaves similarly. So it clearly suggested that this is not a photoshop issue I tried to find the solution online. I found a few like Update drivers, Change batteries, try different usb port, disconnect other usb devices, Disable windows tablet interface and even something like use a spray of water in the vicinity to neutralize any static charge (@huh) but none of these worked. So as with all other issues that I am unable to solve, I decided to make a fresh install of the whole operating system (windows 7). And I went through the pain of Reinstalling windows, all the drivers, all the software and all the configurations. Though this approach didn't completely fix the issue, but it certainly improved it. The vibrations are still there but they are significantly smaller now and in fact I can draw some rough drawings now. However, I would still like these weird automatic cursor movements to disappear completely... So any ideas on what would be causing them and how to get rid of them....

Ok its have been about an year since we had this discussion @manuleka, @yordan, @OTHER PEOPLE,. What do you people think now about it. How has the SSD technology grown within an year (almost an year ) I quickly went through the posts and it reminded me that there were two main things that we discussed about SSDs. The First thing was that SSDs have a short life span as compared to Disk Drives. Plus their storage capacity decreases over time as they are used more and more. I would really like to know how much improvement has been made in this category. I mean are the SSDs more stable now? The second main point of our discussion was the price factor. As per our discussion, it was the main reason why many people would stick to their Hard Drives and not shift to the SSDs, So how much change have we seen in the prices of SSDs during this period.

Hilarious @yordan... Actually its something like this: Question: Please Tell Me Answer: Let me explain how u can figure out the answer for yourself because no one can answer it better than yourself.....

Google since the past few years has taken anti-spam measures seriously and thereby has made a number of changes to its algorithms. Actually, google makes a huge number of changes to its algorithms every year. These changes can be classified in three categories: > Quality algorithm updates (including the anti-spam updates) > Design algorithm updates > Personalization algorithm updates Design algorithm updates and more self centric to google's own design philosophy. They don't affect SERPs. On the other hand, the personalization and quality algorithm updates have profound effects on SERPs. Personalization algorithm updates are more about individual user experience. For instance, you would have noticed that search results for certain queries differ when you have previously performed a different set of searches. This is based on personalization experience that google gives you.. The algorithm updates that affect the SERPs the most are Quality algorithm updates. Logically these updates can be divided into two groups. > Updates making sure that High-quality websites are placed higher in SERPs > Updates making sure that Low quality and spammy websites are placed lower As it might appear obvious, for the above two types of things to happen, Google would need to first correctly define whcih websites are high-quality and which websites are low-quality or spammy. And this is actually the most difficult task to perform and accordingly, bigger part of the algorithms are for this purpose. The so called anti-spam updates belong to the second group described above. They define the low-quality and spammy websites and make sure that these websites don't take high rankings in SERPs which are deserved by High-quality websites. Of all the updates, the anti-spam updates are most famous (or notorious for that matter) because of their profound effects on search rankings. Some of the previous anti-spam updates include Caffeine, Penguin, Panda etc. Each of these updates had in turn many updates like Panda 2.5, Panda 3 etc. The latest of the series is an updated version of Penguin, called Penguin 2.0. It has been active since May 22 and is said to affect more that 2% queries. It should be noted here that the algorithms are secret tools of search engines. They would never disclose exactly what they do and how they do it. So most of the things that is known about algorithms and algorithms updates include the bits provided by google and the results obtained from various studies and analyses. So There is no way to guarantee that the information provided below is going to be 100% accurate... So Penguin 2.0 basically targets link profiles of websites. By doing certain analyses on website's link profiles, these algorithms determine whether the site is High quality or low quality. Major things that these algorithms are thought to look for include: Irrelevant unnecessary linking: The first thing that Penguin 2.0 is thought to take by a storm is unnecessary and irrelevant linking in websites. For instance, on a website about smartphones, there are links like "baby food", "baby growth" etc. These links don't match the website in any way and thus they are considered irrelevant and unnecessary. Previously, these links were considered useless, but didn't have a profound negative effect on SERPs but with Penguin 2.0 this is going to be dealt with Iron hands..... Linking Circles / Network Linking: Previously, the techninque of inter-linking between a group of websites has exploited quite successfully. And if the network is pretty large, it becomes really difficult to differentiate the linking profile from that of a normal popular websites. But with Penguin 2.0, google things that this update has the capability to catch websites using this black hat strategy and thus penalize them in terms of drop in SERPs. Paid Dofollow linking: This is one type of black hat strategy, that has been targeted in almost every major anti-spam update but it still continues to exist. This is because it is pretty hard to catch which links are paid for and which are not. Google is not against advertisement (obviously, this is what google actually does to earn most of its income), but it is certainly against paying money to manipulate search signals. So if are to advertise something on your website, you better make sure that the links are Nofollow, otherwise you are goint to be penalized. And with Penguin 2.0, google is making further sure that it catches more and more culprits. Other than targeting these negative behaviours, the Penguin 2.0 is also thought to look for some positive behaviours of the website and thereby improve its SERP.. The most talked about these is the one that is talked about in all of the major updates, "Engaged Visitors". That is the websites which keep their visitors engaged are the ones that look most valuable to Google and its algorithms.... Any additions and corrections are invited..

ha ha ha Actually this is explaining how should this single word be chosen.....

Well, yes it is.... You have to explainnnnnnnnnnn things you know

(Disclaimer: The post below is based on my personal experience as a beginner and is not targeted to anyone specific, so its more of my personal story described in a general way) When an average computer and internet user gets first introduced to the concept of earning money by his online presence, there is a siege of tremendous ideas on his mind. But most of them are vague and un-explained. So most people pursue further and start researching those ideas. At this stage, most average computer users (i.e. who are not specialist coders or webdesigners etc) realize that the most promising field in online money making is Creating and Maintaining your own Website ( I am talking about content websites, which would generate money mainly through advertisement, because most average people don't have the luxury of setting up business websites). When the beginner reaches this level of thought, another siege of ideas starts on his mind about what kind of website it should be. This is the time when the Beginner starts researching about different topics and learns about keywords. Then he further learns that in terms of money generation, some keywords are more highly rated than others. At this point, the Beginner thinks that he should make a website centered on the most expensive keywords, and in this way he should earn a lot of money..... Now after this point, a person can learn the right path to follow either the hard way (i.e. failing at multiple attempts) or he can extend the level of his research and give it proper time to learn what is the right way to proceed. Most people go through a mix of both. They do give some time to their research, trying to learn about various things from various soruces but they also fail at certain attempts. And I think that its completely normal and OK, because failure is the best kind of teacher. So what I have learned from my experience is that one shouldn't worry about the value of different keywords. The preferece should be the thing one knows, and can write quality stuff about. The preference should not be the value of the keywords. So for instance, keywords such as "insurance", "loan" etc are very expensive in Google Adwords, i.e they have high CPC values but not everyone can write good stuff about it. In fact, these keywords are more related to acutal services than content. Furthermore, because these keywords are very expensive, it is more likely that they would attract very professional people and thus competition would be severe. So for a newbie, targeting these keywords is not going to be a very good idea. On the other hand, if some person has done for instance Geology in college, and he can write good stuff about this subject, then he should definitely go for a website based on this. And he shouldn't worry too much about the CPC values of related keywords becaue if there is a quality website about a subject, then it is very likely to attract a huge number of visitors and more visitors can easily cover for the low CPC values. So basically, my advice is don't for the lucrative keywords. Instead go for something you know well and write good stuff on....

hmmm... so basically you consume a lot of multimedia... I can imagine that playing games on three monitors would be very exciting and fun..

Well, technically I don't know the answer to your problem. And I would really like to know. However, what I am intrested in is your setup. You said you are running 3 LCD monitors and a 4th LCD television. This setup amazes me for a number of reasons. First, how did you manage to connect so many displays to a single computer. It would be understandable if you use them alternatively but if you are using simultaneously, this is really amazing. I say amazing because I haven't seen a normal computer which allows you to connect 4 displays simultaneously. On laptops, there is a VGA port and a HDMI port. So you can connect one display via VGA and one via HDMI so you get a total of 3 diaplays. On a normal desktop graphics card, there is a HDMI port, a VGA port and/or DVI port, So at most you can connect 3 displays to it. Unless, I am wrong in my understanding of normal graphics cards of laptops and desktops, you should have done somethign out of the normal to achieve this and I am really interested in knowing this. Secondly, this setup amazed me because I really can't imaging why would someone need 4 displays. 3 displays are more than enough for almost all types of users. In fact, for most 2 displays is the limit. So I would really like to know why do you use 4 displays, It is some special kind of work that requires you to have that much screen space, or is it just because you like it this way. Third reason why I am amazed by this setup is based on "excess of anything is bad". So I would really like to know whether so much extra screen size have any negative effects on user experience and productivity.

oh... This thing is really getting over my head. When I wrote the previous post, I was thinking of some "pre-existing STANDARD". Like devices which have the capacity to perform what I need to perform, have some administrative options that are standard for that capacity. I hope you understand what I mean. Let me elaborate it a bit. You said my previous device was a pretty standard device. And there were a lot of free and paid programs that were able to do the job I was talking about.. As you mentioned in post # 6 So the thing I am not understanding here is that why was my previous device a standard one and the current device is not standard. My own imagined answer for this question is that there must be some "administrative options" available for that device that aren't available for the current device. So I wanted to know what these administrative options are.. Or maybe my imagined explanation is completely wrong. It is not about the "administrative options" but something else. In this case I would really like to know that is this something else. I means what is the actual difference between the two devices that made you say that my previous device was standard one and I could do with it what I want to do.. I hope I have made you understand what I really want to know...

So which administrative options are we talking about here... Can you name some of them ???

Oh, its kind of bad news for me.. I need to understand a few things here. The previous device which I had described in the first post is actually Tenda W150D Wireless Modem Router. So it is a pretty standard device. This tenda device and the current EVO wifi cloud, both provided wireless functionality however, the tenda device is called "Wireless Modem Router" and the Evo wifi cloud is called "wifi hotspot". I don't understand why is this difference and what it meant. That is : > What is the difference between and wireless modem router and a wifi hotspot? > What is the significance of this difference (if any)? This functionality is provided with the device and can be accessed through the 192.168.1.1 page. However I am interested in doing much more than just controlling who can connect and who can't. The two most important things that I want to learn to do are: > Monitor all internet activity that has been going on through the device > Control in terms of which websites are accessible and which are not, which devices can connect and which cannot etc etc And if what you say is correct (that there isn't much I can do with this device) I would still like to learn why this device limits me while the previous one didn't. The name of the device "EVO Wifi Cloud" is a bit disguising. It is not an actual "Cloud". Not at least what I think a "Cloud" is. My understanding of a Cloud is that the service included a server that can be accessed from any where using any computer. This device is not like that. Actually the commercial name CLOUD for this device means only that you can connect many devices On The Go and not need to be localized. So this is not a proper CLoud system and there is no way it can be controlled via an external PC. From my experience of the device, it is much more like a normal modem router. The only big difference is that instead of a phone line connection as input, the device uses a 3g connection. And the second big difference is absence of Ethernet ports. The interface of the device (I don't even know what it is correctly called, the thing accessed by 192.168.1.1), is actually quite similar to what the tenda device I had...

So as you mentioned in one of your previous posts, OEM recovery disks should be used as the last step to rescue your PC when all other strategies (that are relatively data sparing) have failed. I am developing this opinion now that retail version of windows is much better than OEM installed versions, at least as far as data sparing in times of emergency is concerned. When you want to reinstall the operating system (for any reason), you get more flexibility with retail version of the windows.... not so with the OEM version. So with retail versions, you get to choose which partitions should be cleared and which should be not. On the other hand, OEM recovery disks don't give you such freedom. Now compare this with the fact that some computers that have Operating systems pre-installed as OEM, are actually a bit expensive than those who are Linux based or DOS based. So If you buy a computer which doesn't have an operating system and then you buy the operating system separately, the price won't be much higher than buying a computer with pre-installed operating system. However, I think there can be many arguments about usefulness of OEM over Retail and I welcome them to be discussed here.....

My scenario has changed a little bit from what I described in the first post. Previously my PC was connected via an ethernet cable to a DSL box (I still don't know what exactly a DSL box, because the thing to which my pc is connected via the Ethernet cable is commonly called MODEM here.) This device Modem / DSL box was connected to phone line which was broadband enabled. However, now my setup has changed a bit. Now I am using a device that is known here as EVO WIFI CLOUD.. Basically this device uses a 3g broadband connection. That is there is no phone line or anything attached to it. The device has a built in wifi hotspot providing the capability to connect to 5 devices via wifi simultaneously. The device can also be connected via usb to the computer. So now the target device is this 3G EVO WIFI CLOUD. In order to make the understanding of the capabilities of the device easier, I will attach pictures of the administration section of device accessed by 192.168.1.1 So when I enter 192.168.1.1 into my browser, this is how it looks like: Then when I enter the login username and password, this is how it looks like: And the settings section looks something like this: (The DHCP settings are active at the moment in the picture): So @yordan, Please help me in understanding the principles behind how this device connects to the internet and how can I use a proxy server to control and manipulate its activity.

Right now, what I am interested in is: What happens to the hard drive when someone restores his computer using the OEM provided rescue disk. Normally, when someone buys a new computer (with OEM installed operating system), there is just one partition occupying the whole hard drive. However, people prefer to have multiple partitions on their hard drives, because it is much more efficient and safe. So normally, people would create extra partitions in their hard drive while they are using their machine. Now suppose that a person who bought a computer with OEM installed Windows creates 2 extra partitions in the hard drive (which originally had only one partition). But for some reason, this operating system crashes and needs to be reinstalled. And he inserts the rescue disk provided by the manufacturer (or created by himself when he first bought the computer), and restores the computer using this rescue disk. > Will the hard drive be wiped off completely, deleting all extra partitions along with the data withing them. > Will the user be asked about what to do with the partitions and hard drive or the data would be wiped without any prompt. > If all of the data is wiped, how easy or difficult (or even possible) it is to restore the deleted data. I am interested in this because normally when you install a retail version of windows, you are asked about how the windows should use your hard drive. And if you have for example 3 partitions (C: D: and E:), you can leave the D: and E: all together and not a single byte would be removed or added to these partitions. Do the OEM rescue disks provide such degree of control..??