RandyL

All hard drives fail sooner or later. I've even seen a desktop 3.5 inch drive fail in 6 months. Laptop drives usually don't last as long. I've heard but can't verify that 3-5 years is the average. Obviously it would depend on how often you use it. Besides dropping the laptop heat is a big killer of drives. So laptop drives probably fail faster because they can get hotter than desktops. You should only use a laptop on a hard surface. Soft surfaces, even a hard unventilated rubber surface, will not let heat dissipate. I use a laptop stand. Not only is the surface perforated for ventillation it has a built in fan that runs on the laptop power via usb. Even if you do all the right things any drive can fail at any time. They can even be defective right out of the box. I've replaced a lot of drives on other peoples computers but have been lucky myself so far. Unfortunately my laptop LCD, LED lit screen failed. I suspect it was dropped due to cracking on the corner of the screen enclosure. Darn kids. So it's external monitor for me. I can't really answer this. All I know is you need a SATA 2.5 inch drive. I don't know if it matters what the other dimensions are. I usually buy Western Digital but that's just my preference. The price and availability where I live is a factor. I have had good luck but others may disagree.

There's no animosity. I really do feel your frustration. I would feel frustrated too if I were in your position. The problem is the drive is failing. It will have bad sectors which means critical operating system files will be corrupted or missing altogether. If that is the case then there will be no last known good configuration or a good point to restore to. Sometimes a repair may fix the operating system enough to get it to boot but with a failing drive that is creating more bad sectors almost instantly the fix is very temporary. Even if you could get the Windows backup to run you would just be making an incomplete or corrupt image. I doubt you would want to image the problems to a new drive and have issues arise. I'm really just suggesting that a clean install on a new drive is not only probably best but probably your only option. I know it's a long proccess to get everything back to full speed but I doubt there is anything else you can do. I would backup what you can. Reinstall Windows on a new drive. Reinstall everything else. Get all the Windows updates. Customize your settings and such. After everything is as you like it then make an image with Windows backup or similar programs. Then you will have a backup of a perfect system should you ever need it in the future. I know it's a lot of work. I hate doing it too but sometimes it is the only way. Good luck.

Not unless you made a system image from back before you had problems. If you did a Windows backup before your drive had issues you could use that. Making a backup now would only make an image of a corrupt drive. But of course you can't do that now anyway.

Since you have the Vista disk you can reinstall everything on a new 2.5 inch drive which is great. Post #29 I listed a few of the normal things some people backup. I sure hope things work better with the new drive.

Slumdog please slow down a bit. What backup method failed? Have you managed to backup anything manually as I suggested? Do you have the Dell recovery disks and not just the drivers and software disks? Did you ever make a system image to an external drive when things worked right? Any 2.5 inch drive will work. However you will need a way to reinstall Windows. Do you have the Dell recovery disks and not just the drivers and software disks? Did you ever make a system image to an external drive when things worked right? If so how? If it was the Windows backup image did you also create the system repair disc as you will also need that? All these questions are important as there will be no operating system or data on a new drive. Without a way to put an operating system on a drive it's just a paper weight. All your old files may be gone too unless you have a system image and a way to use it. As for replacing the 2.5 inch drive on a laptop it might or might not be difficult.

I don't think any disks checks are needed. The drive is almost dead. It has all the signs. Are you trying to do an image backup such as the Windows Backup? If so forget it. If you have bad sectors on the drive and corrupt files you would just be backing up a corrupt system. I suspect the backup you are doing can't find missing and needed files. Do what you can to manually backup individual files such as documents, music, pictures, movies, contacts etc. Also you may want to export favorites and calendars if you use them. Do not turn off the computer until you do. It may never start again until the drive is replaced.

dlgdiag5.exe NOT digdiag5.exe Your previous typed commands had you typing the letter i instead of the letter l (L). It should be dlg and not dig. I am however doubting the instructions for this latest version as the command does not appear to match the file. The file name is DOSDLG_5_22 yet the instructions say to type dlgdiag5.exe. Maybe DOSDLG_5_22 or DOSDLG_5_22.exe should be the command Try all three. Also at the prompt it gives the letter C:\ to run the command. Maybe it needs to be run from a E or F prompt depending on the drive letter of the USB. Typing F:\ and pressing Enter will change the drive letter. The only other thing I can think of is that you copied the zip folder or the extracted folder to the USB instead of just the files inside the extracted folder. Try dlgdiag5.exe first with an l (L) instead of i .

According to the instructions I think you do this........ At DOS prompt type dlgdiag5.exe to run the program. Press enter after dlgdiag5.exe

Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for DOS might be an option for testing the drive. You will need no create a bootable USB stick on a working computer. You may also need to adjust the boot sequence in the computer BIOS so that it will boot from the USB flash drive.

LMAO That's all I can say about that.

Like always I'm late to the party. Pete take a break and celebrate.

Starbuck is correct as always. The only way IE 7 could be installed is if it was on Windows Vista or an earlier version of Windows. You were correct to assume it was strange. Please let us know more as we agree with you.

By default Simple File Sharing is enabled in XP. To change this go to Folder Options>View. Clear or untic Use Simple File Sharing (Recommended) Go back to the shared folder and right click it. Select Properties and use the sharing tab and security tab to set the desired permissions.

Hi and welcome. The odd characters in the link you provided (gclid) etc. is google click id. This in itself is not a concern as there are different reasons for it. As for your web browsing errors it's possible that you have corrupt or stale cookies that are causing this. Try deleting all temp files and cookies in your different browsers or use a temp file cleaner.

I'm not sure about some things but it might be just OK for everyday computing. What concerns me is the processor. The processor is 2 GHz. This is pretty weak by todays standards. Is that a single core or dual core? If you plan on doing any basic video editing such as with Windows Live Movie Maker which used to come pre-installed with Windows then even that basic program will not even install. WLMM needs at a minimum a 2.4 GHz. Even on a laptop I would suggest at least a 3 GHz dual core processor as a bare bones minimum these days. It is a touch screen which probably explains the high price. If it was not a touch screen it would be very over priced with those specs in my opinion.

Try a System Restore. Depending on the settings you used for the disk clean-up you might only have one restore point which would be the latest one. Hopefully you have a restore point to before you ran the installer.

Decent free video editing software is hard to find. It's even harder to find software that doesn't want to foist other third party programs during the install. The installers can be tricky. I always suggest to make a manual system restore point before installing just in case. The other problem I see is that you have Windows 8 and it's probably 64 bit. A lot of freeware is old and is not updated for that. However I have installed two programs on my Windows 7. One was for Vista and earlier. The other was for 32 bit Windows 7 even though my Windows 7 is 64 bit. Both programs worked. Both of these are not for Windows 8 but there is a high probability they will work as the basic structure of Vista, 7 and 8 are very similar. VirtualDub has some of the functions you want and the install was clean without any foistware. I only tested the program briefly so I don't know much else about it.

That's good to hear Ron. At least you have access in one direction. If you do try to get access both ways both computers need to have the same settings. It seems one does not. Again it's probably the security settings on one. In any case I'll mark this as solved for now. Good luck Ron.

Your two options are Private and Public. Private is what you want so don't change it. There are a number of things that might be causing issues. 1. First, if you have a third party firewall temporarily disable it. 2. Leave passwording off. 3. Make sure both computers have the same Workgroup name. 4. In the folder you are sharing add the group Everyone under sharing. 5. Go to Advanced Sharing and tic the box Share this folder then click Permissions. 6. Add the group Everyone then select the permission levels. 7. Go back and select the Security tab. If the group Everyone is not listed click Edit then click Add and add Everyone. 8. Select Everyone while in Security and set the permission levels. 9. For special permissions use the Advanced security settings. Usually when one computer can't access the other it's the Security setting that is wrong if the group name is the same. However as one of your computers is new it may have come bundled with an antivirus suite that includes a firewall and networking protection that is blocking it. As a precaution if you're afraid of getting in too deep set system restore points first. That way a couple clicks get you back to the start and you don't have to remember all the changes you made.

I think that if you are using different versions of Windows you may have to use Workgroup instead. I have used Workgroup with Vista/7, Vista/XP and 7/XP. Take a look at this article. Networking home computers running different versions of Windows

Hi Rusty; That's a problem with any email filtering program. Who knows what their protocol is for determing junk mail. It does appear to be intuitive however so I suggest to start marking them as "not junk". This will automatically move them to your inbox. After doing this a few times the filter should start ignoring them and let them go to your inbox.

I just thought I would mention that Ccleaner does have the option to exclude individual cookies from cleaning. This way you can use Ccleaner to delete cookies but save the cookies used for logiing onto sites. Ccleaner>Options>Cookies. Just move the cookies you want to keep to the right side,

Hi Ron. I'm not exactly sure what you mean but a few things come to mind. It could be hidden files and folders or protected operating system files. To see these go to Control Panel>Folder Options and select the View tab. Change the settings there. If you're talking about the entire size of your drive contents then it might be a hidden partition with your recovery files or System Restore (Shadow copy) files.

As far as System Restore goes did you tic the box that says "Show more restore points"? You might have some older points showing there.

Hi joddle; It sounds like you are trying to network XP and Windows 7. If this is the case then you correctly chose workgroup instead of homegroup. Homegroup does not work with XP and Windows 7 or XP and Vista. Between these operating systems you also have to do a couple other things. Yes it can be a bit of pain. Since I don't know your security I can tell you that some AV suites with a firewall can hinder networking so if you have a third party firewall I always find it best to temporarily disable it first. Chances are you can see one computer from the other but not the other way around. Or at least you can't access it. Start by turning on both computers. 1. Make sure your XP and Windows 7 computers have the same name in workgroup. It's the only way it will work. 2. In Windows 7 Go to Explorer or Computer and select drive C: and navigate to C:\Users\username so you can select the folders you want to share. You have to select folders to share. You cannot select the root Drive C: 3. Right click a folder such as Documents and click Properties. Select the Sharing tab. Click Share. Type the word Everyone and click Add. 4. Once again go to the same folder and click properties but this time select the Security tab. If Everyone is listed select it and click Edit to select permissions. 5. If Everyone is not listed click Edit then click Add and type Everyone XP should now be able to access and share the folder My Documents in Windows 7. For the reverse to work you may need to access the security or advanced security settings on the XP computer to set Everyone on the Documents permissions so that Windows 7 can see the XP Documents. Unfortunately My XP is not hooked up at the moment and it has been some time since I networked XP and 7. The point is if you want all your computers to be networked and you have a mix with XP and Vista/7 you have to do these things. A. All computers need to be on Workgroup. B. All computer Workgroup names have to be the same. C. Sharing and Permissions on folders to be shared has to have the name Everyone so that all computers can share. D. Security and Permissions on folders to be shared has to have the name Everyone so that all computers can share. E. You may need to select Advanced Security or similar on XP or 7 to access the settings. If XP were not in the mix then it would be simple by just choosing Homegroup. It was actually Synapse one of our team that taught me this.