Mike Rochip

I think someone once said that Windows ME is some kind of horrible mutation that was created when an evil, demented scientist tried to combine parts of Windows 98 with Windows NT . I humbly apologise in advance to anyone that uses and loves Windows ME and is willing to admit it in public.

From what I've read on this forum over the last year or so I was under the impression that ANY reason to get rid of Windows ME is a good one ...

Unfortunately I don't know much about hardware issues. Did you look to see if there were any warnings in Event Viewer? Also if you want to you can go to this site and download the file hddh.exe. It's a different hard drive utility that I've used and it even gives an estimate of when it thinks a hard drive will fail if it finds any problems. Not sure how accurate its predictions are though. You could run it and see if it finds anything the other one didn't just in case. Hopefully someone who knows more about hardware issues will chime in and give their advice.

Hey, I'm sorry. I didn't see this post yesterday for some reason. The attached file is a pretty good hard drive checking utility. You can click on the Health tab and it will highlight any problems it detects. It can also check the disk for physical problems and do a benchmark test. hdtune_252.zip hdtune_252.zip

How old is the laptop? It sounds like the bearing might be going bad in which case the fan should probably be replaced.

Actually, she figured out how to delete the files on her own. She also wanted to say "thanks" to you and Andavari [and me] for all the help. I'm hoping someday my advice actually helps someone, even if it's just by accident...

Thanks for the info Tony!

I just saw the site New Age recommended. That's the best installation guide I've seen for XP. Now I wish I didn't type my long, stupid post . Just kidding but his site does look like it's a lot better and easier to understand than the ones I recommended.

I see New Age replied while I was typing this and pretty much said what I was going to say but I'll post this also [mainly since I type really slow and don't want to erase everything, lol]. If I remember right when I installed XP on my PC it did ask if it should do an upgrade [keeping old files and settings where possible] or a new install which wipes everything out and starts fresh. If she chooses new install it will probably ask to reformat the partition [meaning the entire hard drive if there's only one partition on it which is probably what she has]. That would be the best thing to do since she already has the files she wants to keep backed up and there may be infected files on there now. Just make sure she has the files backed up on to CDs or DVDs and not on the computer itself. If it asks whether to use the NTFS file system or the FAT32 file system NTFS is better because it is more secure and supports more features than FAT32 does. The only catch may be this and it could just be a problem with my PC so I don't know if it's something that will happen to her: For some reason when I install or reinstall XP onto my PC it always puts up a message saying that it can not find a previous Windows installation on my computer and that I have to insert a Windows 98 or other Windows installation disk before the XP installation can continue. I don't know why that happens because I've always upgraded from Windows 98 or 95. Like I said I don't know if that's a common problem or only happens on my PC. Hopefully someone can answer that for me. Windows XP does a pretty good job of guiding people through the installation and usually there should be no problems that pop up. Here are two sites you may want to look at for more info: Microsoft TheEldergeek Let us know if you think of any questions.

Welcome to the forum lever ! Usually it's pretty accurate regarding the amount of files it removes but it also depends on how often you run it. Have you looked at the files it's removing to see if anything looks unusual? If you want you could list some of the files here and someone will tell you if everything looks OK. I use Firefox for my browser and it often removes about that much from my PC depending on how long I browsed and how many sites I've visited.

I noticed you have been recommending it in the HijackThis Analysis forum so I figured I'd give it a try. The sale advertisement came up on the download page. Are you using the realtime protection? I'm currently using Windows Defender. So far I really like this program. It seems to have a lot of features and options especially considering it's free.

Shhh... Don't tell anyone! On second thought everybody probably already knows I'm crazy... I seem to recall reading this on the internet somewhere:

I know most people here prefer to use free products [me included] but I thought I'd mention that I noticed SUPERAntiSpyware Professional with SUPERAdblocker is on sale today only for less than half price just in case anyone is interested. Sold separately for $69.90 today only $29.95. SUPERAntiSpyware

Does anyone know what it means when it shows things like google.com or archive.org as active users at the bottom of the forum index? Just curious.

That's true but it's similar to when the CD simply overheats. If a low quality CD is spun at the 56x speed and it is not perfectly balanced such as when the label is slightly off center, centrifugal force may tear the CD apart and then the laser could ignite the flammable gasses that are released from inside the CD itself. If it's a Metallica CD that breaks apart the heavy metal fragments may strike each other at high speeds causing them to generate sparks the same way the metal wheel and the flint do in a disposable lighter. This makes an explosion twice as likely to occur.

That's a good point. I was looking at the screenshot of the error message he posted. I was thinking closing or not closing the browser wouldn't cause the Program Error because on my PC Ccleaner continues either way and simply skips cleaning the specific browser related files if the browser is not closed. But I have XP and he's using Windows 2000 so that could be a big difference. lowbrow, could you let us know which browser you are using and if closing the browser or leaving it open [or both] causes the second error message to appear? I forgot to mention in my previous post that you may be able to see what's causing the error by looking in Event Viewer to see if there's any information about the error and what may have caused it. Using Event Viewer in Windows 2000

Well if he had made the 's' bold in the first place I wouldn't have missed it. So it's not my fault . @New Age Do you remember any of the other sites that won't connect?

That's why CD writers keep getting faster. The faster they spin the less chance that heat can build up on the CD and trigger a chemical reaction with the laser.

That is strange. I'm assuming it only does that on Tarun's site and nowhere else. Let us know if you figure out what's causing it. Sorry I wasn't any help.

It was just my estimate for an 80GB hard drive, I was assuming he would be prudent and make backup CDs for the backup Cds for the backup CDs for the backup CDs for the backup CDs for the backup CDs for the backup CDs for the original CDs he used when creating the backup. Or that he was would use the recommended practice of putting only one file on each CD to prevent overcrowding. If he was foolishly going to cram as many files as possible on each CD [which can cause the CD to overheat and explode] he would need about 107.03 of them.

You're right that probably isn't it then. Are you getting any error messages?

Could there be a firewall preventing the connection for some reason?

He connected the TV to the Ati video card. It has a built in TV tuner so it has video out to the monitor and the TV. It's a pretty awesome card from what I read on Ati's website.

It's a Windows wmv file that's embedded into the web page. You need the Windows Media Player Plugin. This article tells how to install it. I had the same problem a while ago. Mozillazine

Microsoft has a Backup feature for WindowsXP. If you have XP Pro it should already be installed. If you have XP Home you have to install it from the XP installation disk. I wonder why it's installed by default in XP Pro but not XP Home. Windows XP Backup I've never used it so I don't know how good it is or if that's what you're looking for. rridgely's method is a good way to do it. If you backed up your whole hard drive wouldn't you have to use about 67,423.5 CDs?