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Suspect hard drive in pc has gone BUT have another pc! given by daughter in law's relation, not tested but told ok, so I plugs it in all ok, then I goes to load various bit and bobs, in doing so I got the "forged copy" message, so I goes to load my genuine XP disc, only to be told I can't as the copy version is a later one! However it also says I can remove the dodgy one by " restarting and booting from cd" Now how do you do that? I thought I knew but as soon as I restart it goes back to original dodgy disc, IF you can help please bear in mind you are talking to a thicko as regards pc's! I can reinstall windows (normally) and alter BIOS or whatever, but not aware of certain proceedures, ie the equiv of having to be told degrees before top dead centre with valves closed and points gap in thous instead of "set ignition timing" on 0ld motorbike

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Update, have now managed to get a "new" version of XP on pc, even managed to delete existing partition, create a new one and install etc. only thing is now got no email, it's asking what my POP server is or something thus, if anyone knows broadband settings for btinternet could do with such, something like ........ 25 .................110 etc? thanks for advice etc

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I'm not 100% certain on B.B settings,,,,, but in the server boxes, I think you have to put

incoming: mail.btinternet.co.uk

outgoing: mail.btinternet.co.uk

(((on Outlook Express,,, for other ISP's, one usually puts pop.your.isp.com and smtp.your.isp.com.)))

Again the 'norm' for the port is 25,,,,, almost everything works from that,,,, but just in a while, you may need to alter that. there is an article on it (on Microsoft site),,, i'll see if I can find it.

Incy dentally, I still use outlook express to run my supanet stuff through,,,, it's linked to my BT B.B.

hope this helps,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

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Have now done it! !clapping! and am available for pc upgrades at £75 or £5 per email! lol, Thanks for all advice, that website you mentioned bazzer, think it might be www.bt.com/gettingsetup it gives advice on setting up btmail in outlook and various other servers inc all those Pop3 SMTP 25 110 settings, addresses etc

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  • 3 months later...

More Problems! PC (mentioned earlier) still working ok but think I need to reload windows as I can tell PC running slower? thing is I have loads of family esp new grand daughter photos so off I goes to buy disks to download such to, only to find I have a cd player fitted not a cd-rw!!!!!!

I gave away remains of old pc on freecycle (inc fully working rewriter with nero disks etc. but have an old memorex one not sure if it works, but main problem is it has 3 leads, the normal 4 pin power one, the long multi pin and the unknown one a red/black/white 3 thin core that goes in a 4 pin audio socket, any idea where the other end goes on mother board? or alternatly anyone have cd-rw pref with disk at reasonable price OR in meantime advice on how to get rid of all this crap on pc (cookies?) sites visited, and other stuff without risking losing pics etc

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Just had to but an external hard drive my self (£100 , but it is 500 gb of memory) as I too wanted to save my pics, unfortunately I needed 35.5 gb of disc space and all mine are only 700megs !!!

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Hi Ash,

Sorry if this sounds nasty, but if you need to ask how to get rid of cookies and crap means that you are not deleting them often enough - this applies to all computer owners. They NEED clearing out regularly, cos they just take up space (memory) on your system.

Go to Control Panel > Internet options. The middle item says Temporary Internet Files, & lets you delete Temp Files & Cookies. Temp files are put on there every time you visit a site,,,, and never used again. You all need to get rid of these - regularly.

Similarly Cookies. The difference with Cookies is that they also contain your Sign-on details such as Name & Password. For eg, when you log on to your Internet bank, you have to sign in,,,, when you visit on-line shopping places etc etc etc, you have to sign in. 99% of cookies are useless & need to go,,,, but if you delete all cookies, be prepared to re set the sign-in places again afterwards.

You also NEED to run DEFRAG often. Like the above, it's built into your system,,, to actually use - so use it.

When you open it, you will see how much your disc is fragmented: that means how the information on your disc is split up. Say you load a program,,,, instead of all the info for that prog being in one lump, so it's easy to load,,,,, it's split into maybe dozens or hundreds of bits. This is where your machine takes time,,,, looking for all the separate bits to run the program.

We all need to do these regularly.

Then you could look into "Cleaners". System cleaners & Registry cleaners. These are free programs to do just that. You will need to look into that a bit. Some people say follow these programs 'implicitly' whilst others tell you to use with caution. Look into them. I can tell you the ones that I use,,,, not that I'm an expert,,,, nor that I use them fully/properly,,,,

The above will make a difference,,,, whether it's enough to 'see' or not, depends on how much you get rid of.

I think that MS site has a section on speeding things up,,,, which includes the above.

Good Luck

Baz

PS: HDD are cheaper now. You should be able to get a Terrabite for about £100.

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I clean out cookies, temp files and history every day before I close down! We rescued data from a hard drive that had been in a flood. Wouldn't work as a "C" drive but I "slaved it" and the wife recovered all her valuable data from it.

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Go to Control Panel > Internet options. The middle item says Temporary Internet Files, & lets you delete Temp Files & Cookies. Temp files are put on there every time you visit a site,,,, and never used again. You all need to get rid of these - regularly.

Follow the above,,,,,,, you can delete Cookies, Temp files & HISTORY. You can adjust your History deletions/schedule there also. For some reason I have mine set to 4 days.

If you delete ALL Cookies, you will need to re-set your log-in details when visiting regular sites next time. I think a small price to pay, to get back the space,,,, and get rid of 'previous' visitations.

ALL TEMPS need to be got rid of tho'.

From the same place (Temp Internet Folders) you can VIEW FILES. When you see the list of temp files (& Cookies) that your machine is holding,,,,, will make you jump,,,, & give a rough idea of how much room is being taken up by them.

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thanks for that, done as you advised, although I've been on pc good few years now, and reloaded windows fitted sound card etc some of basics I am hopeless with! seem to recall theres way of finding info on size of hard drives etc? I wonder if mine big enough to handle xp and rewriter etc and some "slice of pie" thing re what is used up? (as I said hopeless!)

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,,, we can't all be good at everything,,,,

I suspect that I've been using a computer for longer than most,,,, but that was my down-fall. I was 'using' it instead of 'learning' it.

I was far too busy to learn computing, and used the machine about my business. I wish I'd found a bit of time to learn them,,,, I'd be a wizard by now.

There is a pie chart somewhere in the system, but I can't recall where.

There area couple of great FREE program that will tell you every nook'n'cranny about your machine. Can be a bit technical tho'. SANDRA and EVEREST seem to be the best ones.

To see what HDD you have (without taking the top/side panel off & looking !) go to: Control Panel > System > Device Manager > Drives. Your HDD will be there, Brand and size. It won't tell you how much is 'used' though.

Have look there whilst I try to find somewhere that tells you usage,,,, again, that should be soooo easy,,,, but I gotta search,,,,

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Click on MY COMPUTER & you will see a list of Drives,,,, Hard Drives, Floppy Drives, DVD drives and even drive numbers for your cards / sticks etc.

It also shows how big your HDD is/are, & how much is left to play with,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

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To see your Hard Drive details go to 'Start' run up to 'My Computer' and then hover the mouse over it and right click, then select 'Properties' at the bottom. This will show the operating system, memory and processor details. How much memory is it showing?

Download this little clean up program http://stevengould.o.../CleanUp452.exe and then run it. I've used it for years and never had a problem. The first time you use it it asks if you want to use the Demo version. Say no and click the 'Cleanup' button.

You will be surprised just how much space it releases back on to you HD, especially if you have never cleaned up before.

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I've been with puters a good many years now Bazz, started with a humble Commadore64, there was a software pirate ring operating between the com64 owners at the power station and my pit where I worked, accumulated tons of software. It was so expensive for what it was back then, mid 1980's. I was learning BASIC back then, just wished I'd kept it up, came from debugging 64 software we used to have to load in by hand back then from books. Upgraded through the Commodore 2000, (I think that was the one we had), which was still better than the first Mac PC and still a few thousand bucks cheaper too! Then in 89 we purchased our first true PC, a 286 Packard Bell with monitor, printer and modem, cost the earth and only had a 20mb hard drive too!

I did have an 8086 Texas Instruments we picked up cheap around 1990 for my ham radio hobby, both the machines ran Dos!! recall that beast?? Had to learn tons of commands to work the machine. I shunned Windows when it first came out, then jumped in when Windows95 had been released. Got my first Internet connection around 15 years back now on 28.8kb!!!!! Slow??? we never noticed as there was nothing else available. Then we were upgraded to 33.3kbs, not that there was any noticeable difference!

And the browsers, all two of them back then, either IE or Netscape, was in the days when you "Yahoo'd" and Google didn't exist!

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must have been a similar time,,,,

My mate had a Commodore, but was basically a Game machine. Games came on cassettes then ! I so wanted a computer. In the end I went for the Atari XL, as was a real computer,,,,, that did actual computing - plugged into the TV in those days. I still have it in the wardrobe,,, along with a few games and a couple of computer programs - still on cassette,,,, tho' Atari did bring out a floppy drive later on (not that I got one).

My same mate bought a Hyundai kit through me. That was also 8086 I think. It consisted of a computer that we know today, with monitor & wide carriage dot matrix printer. It had a 5.25" floppy drive & a geet big 30mg hdd ! (I also have these items now)

I bought my first 'proper job' which was a PCU brand, with 52mb hdd ("Christ,,, you'll never need all that,,,") It had a 4.5 & 5.25 fdd and the modem. I was hoping that my mate would teach me computing, but the day it arrived, he went back to sea for 9 months. No way was I going to wait, so I gingerly connected it together, & made a start.

I had only known DOSS, but windows had just come out - my first windows was v3.0. Boy, did that free up some time,,,, no longer inputting meaningless codes etc. That cost just under £3000,,,, a hell of a lot in those days,,, Got a Fujitsu printer,,,, & I was in my element then.

My current (main) kit is an Acer desktop with XP Pro SP3 > 2mb RAM (Max) > 2 HDD > 2 DVD ReWriters > Nvidea Graphics + Hanns-G digital monitor > Minolta colour laser & Brother 'All-in-One' kit.

Tried to boot up my 'stand-by' kit the other week,,,, but it won't come to life. I must see if I can get it working again,,,,, I'd luv to see what's on the hdd after all this time ?!?!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So, if anyone wants a fabulous Wide Carriage dot matrix printer - gi me a shaht. I know that home computer owners scoff at these machines, but they are ideal for printing Duplicate Invoices / Estimates etc. Don't s'pose the actual puter/monitor are worth keeping.

Would also sell the Atari now if pressured (inc cassette player etc) really is "as new".

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You'll ned to change the battery out and set the Bios back up before it will work Baz. The Commadore64 was more than a gaming machine, the wife used to do accounts on it, there were tons of application type software for it and we still have some invoice/purchasing etc printed sheets somewhere. We had the dot matrix printer, cassette colour monitor etc that went with the machine. It far outperformed the Apple 11E machine in capabilities. I would have to get my DOS books out to work in that now, forgot most of the commands. I do have a new machine on order with dual core, this machine although it has the 2.4ghz chip, gets real slow when I run my text editor and Photoshop, (not the one you get with cameras but the professional version, memory and cpu hungry it is), so need more speed, the new machine will have 4 gigs of ram, thats 3 more than I have now.

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,,,, am not sure which commodore model his was.

I was thinking of upgrading my kit,,,, but to be truthful, I can't see that anything newer will be much faster than what I have. I thought about changing the M.B & psu,,, but then I'd have to get new RAM, maybe a psu & as all my gear is IDE,,,, it wouldn't be compatible.

I'd love more RAM, but my M.B won't take it.

I also have P.Shop as well as Quark Xpress, the Mercedes Workshop stuff and I did have a massive Flight Simulator (I didn't realise just how big until I started to load it). It was supposed to help me with my flying lessons, but as my local school closed down last year it didn't get used much - I used it about twice - so last week - it had to go. It is an awesome program though & even had my local Lands End airport on it, as well as the Cessna that I was training in.

The only slow bit for me, is the Interweb. Mind you,,,, living where I do, I'm surprised they got electric !?

If I do anything now, it'll be a half decent lap-top. I don't need one,,,, I just fancy one,,,,, just like a big kid,,,,

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The Saga continues! First though more thanks to Frank for that programme, Yesterday I managed to get 2 "working" cd-rw roms, one even a Philips, I say even as that was my old one and still have the disk for that, however still can't get it to work, same with the other an HP one, any ideas? have searched for these drivers but totally lost in these masses of info etc on the web, HELP! compusmash

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Latest news! Doe it! not sure how? went on philip's site, saw this "update now" bit clicked and 3 sec download later it worked! then needed a burning programme, found this FOC "Express Burn" dead easy to load and dead easy to use, so one happy bunny here (till the next time) !cheers!

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