1. Chapter 1 Basic System Board Hacks

   1. Introduction: Hacks #1-10

   2. Lock Others Out of Your Computer

   3. Bypass the BIOS Password

   4. Recover a BIOS That Won't Boot

   5. Boot Faster

   6. Display a Boot-Time Graphic

   7. Configure Boot Device Order

   8. Set Your Clock Back

   9. Avoid the Legacy USB Option

   10. Hack an Unhackable BIOS

   11. Upgrade Your Flash BIOS

2. Chapter 2 Basic System Board Setup

   1. Introduction: Hacks #11-18

   2. Step Away from the Legacy Device

   3. Manage Devices

   4. Configure Serial Ports

   5. Configure Parallel Ports

   6. Configure Sound Cards

   7. Configure SCSI Host Adapters

   8. Configure Network Cards

   9. Reeducate Plug and Play

3. Chapter 3 CPU Hacks

   1. Hacks #19-29

   2. Get More Power

   3. Identify Your CPU

   4. Which CPUs Are Hackable?

   5. Which System Boards Are Hackable?

   6. Determine Your CPU Speed

   7. Keep It Cool

   8. Control CPU Clock Speed from the BIOS

   9. As Goes Voltage, So Goes Speed

   10. Set the CPU Multiplier

   11. Unlock Your CPU Multiplier

   12. Check the Vents

4. Chapter 4 Memory Hacks

   1. Introduction: Hacks #30-39

   2. Install More RAM

   3. Recognize Memory Limitations

   4. Install the RAM Your Operating System Needs

   5. Tame the Windows 95 and 98 Cache

   6. Manage the Paging File

   7. Manage Windows System Resources

   8. Force Windows 98 and Me to Swap Less

   9. Pin the Kernel in RAM

   10. Speed Up Your RAM

   11. Enable Memory Interleave for Via Chipsets

5. Chapter 5 Disk Hacks

   1. Introduction: Hacks #40-57

   2. Partition and Format Wisely

   3. Determine Your Filesystem

   4. Create a New Partition with NT, 2000, XP, and 2003

   5. Create a New Partition with PartitionMagic

   6. Merge Partitions with PartitionMagic

   7. Convert FAT to NTFS

   8. Create or Delete NTFS Partitions from the Recovery Console

   9. Fix the Master Boot Record on FAT Partitions

   10. Fix the Master Boot Record on NTFS Partitions

   11. Fix the Partition Boot Sector on NTFS Partitions

   12. Fix GRUB or LILO Boot Problems

   13. Format Your Disk

   14. Change Logical Drive Letters

   15. Restore DOS Bootability

   16. Rescue a Blown 2000 or XP Installation

   17. Fix the Windows 95 File-Caching Bug

   18. Avoid the Delayed-Write-Caching Blues

   19. Detect Drive Failure Before It Happens

6. Chapter 6 Disk Drive Performance Hacks

   1. Introduction: Hacks #58-67

   2. Choose the Fastest Hard Drive

   3. Use an 80-Wire Cable

   4. Upgrade Your IDE Interface

   5. Kick It Up a Notch with Serial ATA

   6. Get the Fastest IDE Driver for Intel Chipsets

   7. Get the Fastest IDE Driver for Via Chipsets

   8. Speed It Up with RAID

   9. Speed Up DOS with SMARTDRV

   10. Speed Up Windows with VCACHE

   11. Linux's Drive Performance Booster

7. Chapter 7 Video Hacks

   1. Introduction: Hacks #68-74

   2. Get off the PCI Bus

   3. Upgrade from Built-in Video

   4. Don't Expect Much from AGP Aperture Size

   5. Choose the Correct AGP Mode

   6. Overclock Your nVidia Adapter

   7. Overclock Your ATI Radeon

   8. Overclock Anything

8. Chapter 8 I/O Device Hacks

   1. Introduction: Hacks #75-84

   2. Basic PC Configuration Rules

   3. Let Windows Tell You About I/O Card Conflicts

   4. Break the Rules with LPT Ports

   5. Break the Rules with COM Ports

   6. Rewire Your COM Ports

   7. Boost COM Port Performance

   8. New Uses for an Old Port

   9. Use USB for Peer-to-Peer Networking

   10. Get the Most out of USB

   11. Install the Driver Before You Install the Hardware

   12. Please Continue Anyway

9. Chapter 9 Boot-Up Hacks

   1. Introduction: Hacks #85-94

   2. Make a Bare Disk Bootable

   3. Configure a Multiboot System

   4. Multiboot with Third-Party Utilities

   5. Speed up Operating System Installation and Maintenance

   6. Access NTFS Files from Other Operating Systems

   7. Give Your XP Installation Access to the Recovery Console

   8. Hack the Windows 95/98/Me DOS Startup

   9. Hack the MS-DOS Configuration File

   10. Hack the MS-DOS Startup File

   11. Hack the Windows NT/2000/XP Boot Loader

10. Chapter 10 Configuring a New PC

    1. Introduction: Hacks #95-100

    2. Clone Your Hard Disk

    3. Move Applications and Settings from One PC to Another

    4. Protect Your PC from Viruses

    5. Protect Your PC from Malware

    6. Surround Yourself with a Firewall

    7. Do Your Backups

1. Colophon

Our look is the result of reader comments, our own experimentation, and feedback from distribution channels. Distinctive covers complement our distinctive approach to technical topics, breathing personality and life into potentially dry subjects. The tool on the cover of PC Hacks is a screwdriver. A mainstay of the household toolbox, the screwdriver is a device composed of a handle and a metal head, used to thread screws into material. The screws act as fasteners and come in a variety of shapes and sizes. A typical screw has a cylindrical or conical shaft ingrained with a helical groove and is topped with a head specially shaped to interlock with the head of the screwdriver.

While the ancient Greeks allegedly used wooden varieties of the screw as early as the first century B.C. as part of their wine presses, the screwdriver itself is a more modern invention. Witold Rybczynski's venerable cultural history of the screwdriver, One Good Turn, dates the first evidence of the tool's existence back approximately 500 years, when it was believed to have been used to thread metal screws into fifteenth-century armor. Sanders Kleinfeld was the production editor and proofreader for PC Hacks. Jane Ellin was the copyeditor. Emily Quill and Claire Cloutier provided quality control. Ellen Troutman-Zaig wrote the index.

Hanna Dyer designed the cover of this book, based on a series design by Edie Freedman. The cover image is from the Just Tools collection of the CMCD Library. Clay Fernald produced the cover layout with QuarkXPress 4.1 using Adobe's Helvetica Neue and ITC Garamond fonts.

Melanie Wang designed the interior layout, based on a series design by David Futato. This book was converted by Joe Wizda to FrameMaker 5.5.6 with a format conversion tool created by Erik Ray, Jason McIntosh, Neil Walls, and Mike Sierra that uses Perl and XML technologies. The text font is Linotype Birka; the heading font is Adobe Helvetica Neue Condensed; and the code font is LucasFont's TheSans Mono Condensed. The illustrations that appear in the book were produced by Robert Romano and Jessamyn Read using Macromedia FreeHand MX and Adobe Photoshop CS. This colophon was written by Sanders Kleinfeld.