Transferring files over LAN - Part 2

Sorry, I had written in my previous post that I'll get back with the 2nd part of this tutorial tomorrow, but didn't actually get time. But now I'm free and here's the 2nd part that will show you the merits of client/server technology and TCP/IP protocol stack.
This one has one additional requirement and thats Apache Server Software. You may download it by clicking here.
Install it in the computer from which you want to serve the file to other one. Installation is quite easy. If you've some confusion in what values are to be filled in which boxes, then use these values:

Network Domain: localhost
Server Name: localhost
Admin Email: any email address

And check the box labelled: for All Users, on Port 80, as a Service


Ok, now you've installed Apache, lets make sure whether it is working correctly or not.
Open any browser window and type localhost in the address bar and press enter. If you see a white page with "It works!" written in large black font, that means you've done it succesfully!!!
But if not, then refer to the official documentation here or an unofficial nice one here.

Ok, so now we've finished installing the server software. Now lets proceed ahead and configure our LAN.

1. Follow the first two steps of the previous blog post i.e. http://p97.blogspot.com/2009/07/transferring-files-from-one-computer-to.html
2. Now in the server computer i.e. the one with Apache, right click your ethernet card in Network Connections, click Properties. In the box under "This connection uses following items", click Internet Protocol(TCP/IP) and click Properties command button below.
3. Now check the radio button that says "Use the following IP address" and enter 192.168.0.1 in the box, press "Tab" key on your keyboard, and the next Subnet Mask box will automatically be filled with 255.255.255.0. Now click ok and close.
4. In the client computer do the same but put the IP address as 192.168.0.2
5. Now navigate to the apache installation directory's htdocs folder and delete the index.htm or index.html files.
6. Copy the files you want to share, to this directory.
7. In the client computer open a web browser(I don't recommend IE!!!, use Opera or Firefox), and type 192.168.0.1 in the address bar and press enter. Viola!!! You can see the files that you copied to htdocs folder in the server computer. Just click any of it to start the download. You will get download speeds around 80Mbps i.e. around 10MB/s.

Here are some images to help you if you get stuck somewhere.

Transferring files from one computer to another over LAN

Many of my friends who're not directly connected to computers have asked me ways to share files between two computers. For most of them I've done that myself physically and for others, for whom my physical presence isn't feasible, I'm posting this one.
I'm assuming you've Windows XP running on both the computers and drivers for LAN cards are installed.

Additional Requirements: A CAT-5 Ethernet Crossover Cable(thats technical name, common name is LAN wire cross waala)

I will discuss two ways to do the same. One is a primitive simple way to share files. Other one is a bit geeky, and you'll probably feel proud of yourself doing that :)

Ok, so simpler one first.

1. Insert both the ends of the cable's RJ45 connectors to both the PC's LAN ports.
2. Open "Network Connections" from Control Panel or from Start>Connect To>Show All Connections. There, in both the machines, make sure the ethernet cards under "LAN or High-Speed Internet" category are enabled. If not enabled then right click over the corresponding icon and click "Enabled"
3. Now in both the computers right click "My Computer" in start menu and click "Properties". In "Computer Name" tab, click the "Change" button. Now put different names for both computers and in the bottom below "Member of" label select the radio button labelled "Workgroup" and put any name there. But make sure this workgroup name should be same in both the computers. Now click ok. And restart both the computers.
4. After restarting, open "My Network Places". Oh, where is it??? lol if you can't find it, just open "My Computer" and in the left pane i.e. Tasks Pane you'll see "My Network Places" under "Other Places". Click that. In the tasks pane of "My Network Places" click "View workgroup computers" and you'll be able to see the other computer.
5. Ok, now they're networked. Ok? So how to transfer the files? Easy!!! In any computer right click any file/folder/drive which you want to share, click properties and in sharing tab enable sharing.m Thats it!!! You can see that file/folder/drive on the other computer when you double click this computer's name in its my network places. easily copy the files.

The other(geeky) method, I'll post tomorrow.
Here are some images.


Thats a caT-5 cable with Rj45 connectors on both ends.












For the second part of this tutorial GO HERE

Reset XP Password

Forgot your Windows XP Password??? Or, got your hands on someone else's system but can't enter because you don't have the password. Ok, here are the simplest tricks you can use.
Trick 1
On the welcome screen press CTRL+ALT+DEL twice. Type username as Adminstrator and leave the password blank and press enter. If you're lucky then you'll enter the system. Lucky in the sense that, if the system owner didn't enter an adminstrator password while installing windows then you're lucky.
Trick 2
If you're'nt lucky according to the previous trick then this trick will forcefully let you enter inside! It works for sure. You need another computer with internet connection, a cd writer and a blank cd off course.
1. Download this file reset.zip
2. Extract the zip file to get an iso image.
3. Burn the iso image on a blank cd.
4. Boot the target computer with this CD. Follow the steps on screen and reset the password as you wish!!!
This trick works for resetting Vista too!
Trick 3
If you've access to the target computer with an account with administrator privilleges then you may use this command on command prompt to reset any user's pass

net user <username> <new password>

example:

net user administrator newpass

NTFS drive corrupted due to power failure!!!

I was working on my PC, when power went off. 3+ year old UPS gives a second to shutdown and even Mr. Bill Gates or Steve Balmer or whoever can't shutdown any Microsoft OS(except DOS) within 10 seconds!!! By the way, after power was back, I turned on my PC and damn!!! To my utter dismay, the Windows XP loading progress bar revolved twice and the PC restarted!!! I tried "Last known good configuration" and same happened with it as well. Finally I thought about safe mode and tried that too to find that it too hasn't any future.
They claim NTFS doesn't die on power failure? But what went wrong here???? I use NTFS especially for this feature but Microsoft cheated!
I had(have) lots of important data and I didn't want to loose anything. I slipped in the XP CD in the optical drive and went straight to Windows installation in order to repair, and there found that my Windows drive C was being recognised as Unknown Partition! Luckily other partitions were healthy.
I thought I should try Linux. I restarted the PC to find out that XP installation CD had wiped out GRUB!!! Well... That doesn't sound tough. I restored GRUB using the Good old Live CD trick. How? Just boot through Ubuntu live CD. Open terminal by pressing Alt+F2 and typing xterm. In the terminal type:

sudo grub
find /boot/grub/stage1

It'll give output similar to (hd1,1)
Then type:

root (hd1,1)
setup (hd0)

I've two hard disks. Linux calls them hd0 and hd1. Ubuntu is on hd1 and Windows on hd0. The above piece of code set up GRUB on Windows drive i.e. first hard disk i.e. hd0.
Then I booted into Ubuntu and tried to mount the Windows drive. It gave a long error message asserting to try "chkdsk /f". What to do now???? I found out the FreeDOS CD from my 500CD stack and slipped it inside and booted. And striking me again, it didn't detect NTFS drives!!!!! It supports only FAT.
Finally, the idea of using Recovery Console flashed in my mind. So, I booted through Windows XP installation CD and pressed R when prompted, to enter Recovery Console. It brought me to the C:\ prompt. I changed to D, E, F and found that all data on them was intact. Only C was refusing to enumerate the directory listing.
I typed

chkdsk /f

and it said /f switch isn't supported!
then I tried

chkdsk /r

and viola, it worked!!! It took 15 minutes and repaired the corrupt NTFS partition C:
And after a restart, I got back to my familiar desktop with all data intact!

Lessons:
1. Don't panick and format and reinstall Windows if you can't boot. Try alternate ways if you care for your data.
2.Spend some bucks and get a good UPS!!!