Plastic Nev

Ok, it looks like the installation of Windows7 has created a new partition for it, and left the old XP installations alone. You may have to install one of the many partition managers, some are free, to remove the old XP partitions. Not something I have done personally, so I will leave any further advice to one of our member with more experience. Nev.

The one thing I think may be a part of the problem or even all of it, is the refresh rate being at 85Hz, that seems a bit high. Normal rate for my monitors are both 60Hz, try adjusting down to 60Hz. It may well be the monitor itself protesting that it cannot support that rate. Nev.

Hi Mell, what program did you use to scan that drive, also have you scanned the smaller 80Gb drive as well? you may not have a powerful enough program to find any nasties, and in most cases it is best to scan also with antispyware or antimalware programs as well. If it looks like a virus or malware issue we will move you to that forum if necessary. Nev.

Hi, As well as checking out the RAM as suggested by Match, and you have had the graphics card tested. I know you may have tried this already as you said you have already tried other forums and got nowhere, but have you tried another monitor on this computer, or at least tried this monitor on another computer just to rule out any monitor issues. Can you tell us when this problem first started, and are you sure as to whether there had been any changes, new programs installed etc, before this? Also have you been inside the case and checked for loose connectors or plain poor connections by removing and replacing each plug or connector one at a time? (power off before doing that) Just trying to find out what you have tried so far. Nev.

Has enabling the MIDI in either of the choices made any difference? it just may. Nev.

Hi again, a bit of a puzzle here, going back to the original start of this, it says another application may be using it, plus also you found two instances of other devices with a question mark. I take it there is no clue as to what those devices are? This makes me think there may be some corruption in the operating system perhaps. Have you tried doing a SFC scannow? to do this you will need an operating System disk, go to "Start" then "Run", copy and paste this in to the box- sfc /scannow and click OK. This will check all system files and attempt to repair any bad ones. At some point it may ask you to insert the Windows disk. Providing you have one do so. Any problems with that have a look at this article here- scannow sfc - LEARN how to use SFC.EXE (system file checker) See if that sorts the problem. Nev.

Ah now I understand. A bit of a long way round but I now follow what you mean. OK a virtual environment is in as simple a way as possible to explain, is like running a windows OS virtually inside a real windows OS. Sandboxy is a neat little program that allows you to do this, it means you have an isolated operating system that nothing nasty (Well hopefully) can get out of so that you can run any program or other executable inside to see how it works, check it out for incompatibility etc. This doesn't help in finding what is stopping your sound system from working though, but I feel you may have got it right earlier when you mention that it may not be enabled properly in the BIOS, can you check that out? Nev.

To follow on from everything PseFrank said, we normally do not advise on password issues and for the reasons Frank said. However I have asked Admin for some guidance, as I feel there may be some help we could give considering the circumstances of you suffering a stroke. Please bear with us till we can give you some answers. However what I can offer is that considering you can get into it as a guest, can you access all the stuff there is on it? if so you can transfer it to either disks, flash drive memory, an external hard drive, or even another computer. Once that is done the only thing left would be a complete reformat and re installation of the operating system. Nev.

Hi OK still not a lot of information yet and what you say so far is a little confusing. Lets start with the case or box the computer is in, there should be a label somewhere that says who made it and what model it is, there should also be on that or those labels, the type of processor, size of hard drive, etc. Let us know what you find, or if you know for sure, was it a computer that has been built as a one off by someone, either yourself or some other person? If so, can you find out exactly what has been put in it? Nev.

Hi just to clarify a few things so we can understand this a little better, you mention disposable clones, do you mean running them in a virtual environment, such as perhaps "Sandboxy" or other type of virtual machine? Has this machine always been Windows XP, and you used a Windows XP disk to perform a repair, or was it an installation of XP over a different operating system?

Hi, I see you are using Revo, which is good as that will find all instances of AOL for you. Once it has run the normal uninstaller, it will as you no doubt know carry on and ask how deep you want it to go. I rarely use the full depth myself and find the second up will scavenge everything without upsetting any registry files. Nev.

Thanks for the update, at least we know now that the Windows XP installation was the likely problem with a corruption somewhere in it. Just a final thing, has the installation of Windows7 removed all traces of both those copies of XP? I hate to think they may be still there to cause future problems. Nev.

Hi Paul if using Messenger and the person at the other end can hear you then all must be OK, I have never tried speech on there myself though, but I have a microphone for the rare time when playing one of my instruments and need to record it, I have to be careful with the settings to prevent feedback or "howl round". But that is with an ordinary microphone not a webcam one. I believe folks using Skype can hear themselves and headsets are recommended to prevent howl round with that service. Try the suggestion from Randy and see if it does record in the Windows sound recorder. The only other thing to try is a separate microphone same as mine, and see if that can be heard, if not let us know as there may be some other setting may need looking at. Oh, Just remembered, is there an advanced option in your microphone level setting? if there is, click on it and you should also then have a box with a choice to check it for "Microphone +20dB Boost" try checking that, your microphone may have a low output and will need that. Nev.

First bit quite correct, remove power and battery as soon as possible, spilled a drink in it? remove all power now!!! Not in ten minutes. Too many computer components can be ruined just by being wet, even with no power on, so washing with clean water is a definite no. As Jelly Bean says, try to drain out what has got in, then leave to dry out in a warm room for several days is all that should be done. SdCards, if it got wet some time since, and the battery and power wasn't removed straight away, you can try asking a repair tech locally to look, but it may now be too far gone to repair cheaply if at all. Nev. PS I like the idea of the spin dryer Starbuck, if you ruined it by getting it wet, you might as well totally destroy it in there.:D

Sometimes it can be funny to think back on some of the odd things you may have done to at least get things working till the proper spares or facilities are available. As a for instance, my car had been stolen from outside my house in the middle of the night, it was a rustbucket, and had been taken just for some possibly drunk ***** to get home. Once nearby, dumped it on a pub car park, then stripped it of valuables, like cassette player and radio, also the small sports steering wheel. So when the police finally told me where it had been found, I went to look in the hope I could get it home at least. After wiping all the finger print dust off everything, I was amazed to find my tool box had been left. So out came the mole grips, clamped them firmly on the steering column where the steering wheel should be, and drove it home, steering it with the mole grips like a sailing boat tiller. The latest callamity is the start button on the front cover of my desktop has broken, and then jammed. So the cover is now off, and the little tiny peg the button works on is now my means of running or starting this thing up till I can sort something proper out. I have also done many bodged jobs, just to get up and running again. Brass bushes to replace a proper ball bearing in my heating boiler fume exhaust fan. A small washer under one of the push rods to open the inlet valve on an older OHV engine in one of my older cars when the rocker arm broke. I sometimes wonder why I haven't blown myself up. Nev

Hi and welcome to Free PC help. This sounds like a problem with the CD drive itself, the BIOS is seeing that so trying the floppy drive and probably not finding that either. The first thing to check is to power off, then remove the cover, I assume this is a desktop, Check all cables are properly plugged in to the back of the CD drive, and also the floppy drive if it has one. It is sometimes best to actually remove then refit the plugs to ensure a good connection, then try again. Nev.

Hi Paul, on the bottom task bar on the right hand side, there should be a loudspeaker icon, a double click on it should bring up the complete volume control settings, make sure there is no tick in the microphone mute box, and also the slider is up. Nev.

Hi Caswilf, looking at that screenshot and there being no red or yellow marks, hang on till one of the previous guys gets back to you. Don't uninstall anything just yet. Nev.

Hi and welcome to Extreme Tech Support - Free PC Help, I guess you might know a bit after 10 years, so if there is anything you either need to know or can help with, just say so. :D Nev.

This does sound like some sort of monitor problem rather than being linked to your recent re format and is probably coincidental. Can you try the monitor on a different computer, just to see if there is any change? Nev.

First I agree with Tootech, it is never a good idea to work on any computer with the power on. Too much chance of damage being done by a short to something else. However try to clear the bios with the power off as suggested and see what happens. If however the problem with the XP partition is still there, and considering it won't boot at all, I would suggest removing the hard drive from the machine, it will mean buying an adapter to connect it to a USB port on another working computer and the type of adapter depends on what type the hard drive is, either IDE or SATA. Before connecting to the working machine, you need to be sure it has some decent anti malware installed, we can suggest good ones, and I recommend you let us know which is on it already before going further. Once we have got that far, it is a simple matter of connecting the hard drive via the adapter, the working machine will see it as a mass storage device and you should be able to find the XP partition. Do not open it yet, right click on the partition, and then select "Scan with -- " using the anti malware installed. Hopefully it will find and remove enough for the drive to then work back in its original machine. Re fit it, then come back here again so we can put you in touch with our security expert who can then assist in removing any further infections. Nev.

At this point, it may be best to get in touch with Dell and ask for a disk, you will need the model number and also the service ticket number, you should find both on labels underneath. You may have to pay for the disk, but it is not too expensive. Unless someone else knows of a way round, I doubt that the recovery partition is now accessible. Nev.

Hi Roscoe, The trouble with some of these error codes is they can be linked to other systems not XP home, in this case I find most come up as the NT server system, have a look here- Search The Knowledge Base It may or may not be any use to you. However I am concerned about the refusal to boot and makes funny noises? Are they mechanical clicks and knocks, or sounds from your loudspeakers? If mechanical you may have a faulty hard drive, I hope not, but see if any one else has more help for you. Nev.

Long before joining here I was and still am a frequenter of a few general purpose forums, the sort where folk can natter about whatever they like. In most cases they have a sub section for computer problems, with also some decent techy types helping out. AVG, even in the days when the free version would remove junk, there were multiple problems with it, with many forum members asking how to resolve whatever the problem was they were suffering. I have taken notice of all that over a period of several years, so AVG being a poor program is not new.

Hi and welcome to Extreme Tech Support - Free PC Help. The DVD you are trying to copy, is it a commercial disk? if so there will quite likely be some form of copy protection on it which will be preventing the full copy. We cannot advise of ways round that. Most if not all DVD disks will show the Audio TS folder as empty, this is because the sound is part of the video TS folder. How are you copying the DVD to a flash drive? Try, Start, My computer, then the disk should show in the DVD drive. Right click on the disk and choose "Copy", then navigate to the Flash drive to copy it to. see if that works. However there may be some form of copy protection on the DVD that is preventing the Audio. Nev.