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Notes - System Tools

 Tech/Tools  807  4 mins

Tools

Ventoy

Ventoy is an open source tool to create bootable USB drive for ISO/WIM/IMG/VHD(x)/EFI files.

Download and copy Windows 11 ISO to the Ventoy partition.

Why I can’t find the HDD listed?

After booting Windows 11 installation, there’s no HDD shown out.

  1. You may need to disable the Secure Boot from BIOS
  2. You may need to disable the Intel VMD from BIOS

Clonezilla

Clonezilla is a partition and disk imaging/cloning program. It helps you to do system deployment, bare metal backup and recovery.

Clonezilla live is suitable for single machine backup and restore. See instruction.

Warning: To get the Windows image, you need to enter to the OOBE mode and select “Generate” for system to remove the device specific information from the image.

Apps

Outbyte Driver Updater

Download and automatically install Windows 10-11 drivers, and get the latest updates for your devices with Outbyte Driver Updater.

I re-installed the Windows system for Asus ROG laptop and downloaded/installed all the drivers from their website, there’re several device showed question marks beside them.

After I updated to the latest Windows 11, still there’re two devices with question marks. I downloaded/installed the Outbyte Driver Updater and it automatically updated and fixed all the drivers.

Windows

Win + X: Show list of useful tasks (Disk Management, Device Manager, etc.)

// todo // secure boot // intel VMD

How to reset forgotten Windows password?

  • Boot to Windows installation screen by using a bootable USB,
  • Select Repair your computer
  • Select Troubleshoot > Command Prompt
  • Enter the following commands

Note: See here if you can’t find the HDD

c:
cd Windows\System32
ren Utilman.exe Utilman.exe.bak
copy cmd.exe Utilman.exe

Boot into Windows login page and click the Ease of Access icon(like a dial clock icon) to open the cmd window

Enter the following commands to reset the password:

// list current users in the system
net user
// change the password for a user
net user OldUserName NewPassword
// Or add a new user
net user NewUserName NewPassword /add
// Or add the user to the admin group
net localgroup administrators username /add

Exit and reboot into your Windows system, login using the new password.

After you reset the password

copy Utilman.exe.bak Utilman.exe
del Utilman.exe.bak

FTP

Windowsftp command

!               delete          literal         prompt          send
?               debug           ls              put             status
append          dir             mdelete         pwd             trace
ascii           disconnect      mdir            quit            type
bell            get             mget            quote           user
binary          glob            mkdir           recv            verbose
bye             hash            mls             remotehelp
cd              help            mput            rename
close           lcd             open            rmdir

Example

To log on to the ftp server named ftp.example.microsoft.com and run the ftp commands contained in a file named resync.txt, type:

ftp -s:resync.txt ftp.example.microsoft.com

You can use ftp interactively

ftp> open angang.ca
Connected to angang.ca.
220 Microsoft FTP Service
200 OPTS UTF8 command successful - UTF8 encoding now ON.
User (angang.ca:(none)): andrew
331 Password required
Password:

230 User logged in.
ftp> cd audio/daogao
250 CWD command successful.
ftp> pwd
257 "/audio/daogao" is current directory.
ftp> ls
200 PORT command successful.
125 Data connection already open; Transfer starting.
20250205DG.mp3
20250212DG.mp3
20250219DG.mp3
226 Transfer complete.
ftp: 51 bytes received in 0.00Seconds 25.50Kbytes/sec.
ftp> bye

BIOS

Keys to enter BIOS

  • Acer: F12, F9 or Esc
  • Asus: Esc or F8
  • Compaq: F9 or Esc
  • Dell: F12
  • HP: F9 or Esc
  • Lenovo: F12, F8, F10, F11
  • MSI: F11
  • Razer Blade: F12
  • Samsung: F12 or F2
  • Sony: Esc or F11
  • Toshiba: F12
  • Republic of Games: F2 or F9

Bitlocker

You can’t restore or reset Windows to their original status if you don’t have the Bitlocker keys.

Where to find my BitLocker key?

You can find your Bitlocker recovery keys from https://account.microsoft.com/devices-list.

How to install Windows on Bitlocker encrypted drive?

Boot to Windows installation disk, remove the encrypted partition and then create a new partition from the space, install Windows to the new partition.

After finish the installation, you need to enter the audit mode to install all the device drivers. You can download the driver from the vendor website.

Diskpart

How to clear the encrypted HDD?

Warning:

  • This will clean the whole disk.
  • If you want to keep the other volume(system restore) and only remove the encrypted C drive, you can delete/create the partition and install Windows 11 on this partition. See here
diskpart
list disk
select disk n(0, 1, ...)
list volume
clean
create part primary
active
format FS=ntfs label=C quick
format FS=ntfs label=surface quick
assign letter=C
exit

How to delete a system partition?

diskpart
list disk
select disk 2
list partition

// select the system partition
select partition 2

// use override to remove it
// note: no partition number when delete
delete partition override
exit

How to fix hard drive not show out?

For the newer PCs most likely you will need an intel VMD driver. Or disable VMD from BIOS.

manage-bde -protectors -get d

See Disable Intel VMD technology

updatedupdated2025-03-032025-03-03

See Also: