Plastic Nev

That free ebook that Malwarebytes kicked out may explain what that 2GB of vanished data is, providing of course the whole thing was that big, which being linked to unwanted adware, it just might have been. It pays to be careful with any download, be it software, documents or anything else, especially when advertised as being free. ( not saying the ebook was responsible for your problem, it may, or may not have been) Now that you have Malwarebytes, and we always recommend keeping it, for any download and before actually opening the download, if you right click on the downloaded file, you should now see an option to scan it with Malwarebytes, good practice to do so before opening it. Nev.

Hi and welcome to Extreme Tech Support - Free PC Help Alyx. Have you had a look in disk management at what is shown for each partition, both in sizes and how much used space in each? To open disk management click "Start" and type in "Disk Management" in the search bar, click on "Create and format hard disk partitions" Let us know what you find in there, if possible a screen shot of the disk management window could help. Nev.

Hi again, you should also see an improvement now Norton has gone and McAfee. Choose any of those Starbuck mentioned but only one. Part of your slow problems will have been due to both McAfee and Norton being there together. You should only ever have one antivirus, if more than one, each can conflict with the other and cause slow working or complete crashes. Do keep the Malwarebytes though as antispyware programs do not cause problems as they work in a different way altogether. Nev.

I have also found an independent but seemingly trustworthy site for driver downloads, scroll down the list at the bottom is a zip download for SIS graphics drivers, see if that is the one you need. http://www.getpcmemory.com/drivers/download-acer-aspire-m1610-desktop-windows-xp-drivers/ Nev.

Further to my last posting, I have now realised that the site does not carry a SIS driver for XP, those I have seen are for Vista only. The two available are not for SIS and will possibly not work. You said in your first post that you had found a SIS driver for XP and it was a big download. It may well be a large file but XP may need it in order to work correctly. Can you give us a link to that driver download so we can look further into it as to whether indeed it is the one you need. Edit to add, you posted while I was writing, right at the top of the page, there is a diagnostic tool to determine which make of hardware you have, have you tried that tool? That will tell us for sure if indeed it is SIS. If it is, and the VGA driver is amongst those in the chipset, installing the lot will update all drivers and install the correct VGA one at the same time. Nev. Nev.

Hi, I see there are four different drivers available for each different chipset maker. It now depends on knowing which make of graphics chip is on your motherboard in order to get the correct driver for it. Do you know which it is and if SIS are you sure? if it is SIS, then that is the driver you need. Nev.

Hi, at some stage, all Microsoft Office software has to be paid for to continue to use it. However, if no luck with Open Office, there is another I learned about recently and I am quite impressed as it seems to handle Microsoft documents and files a little better and it is called Kingsoft Office. Download it from here= http://www.kingsoftstore.com/kingsoft-office-freeware.html Nev.

Charles Ripley, writing in PC Advisor asks the question, "If you don't really need Java, then get rid of it" This is because of the security holes in it that are still unpatched, even though an emergency patch was issued recently to cover a security risk that was being exploited in the wild. This was covered in this post from Starbuck recently. http://extremetechsupport.com/threads/14075-Rogue-Microsoft-Services-Agreement-email-notifications-lead-to-latest-Java-exploit For the article by Charles Ripley, more here= http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/security/3380068/if-you-dont-really-need-java-get-rid-of-it/?cmpid=HTML-N100912&olo=newsletter&elq=5588ca05aaa04a3fa7216ebbfffc475b&elqCampaignId= Makes sense to disable or remove Java if it isn't needed in any of your online work. Nev.

To add to the advice so far, if this computer was one of a batch, and all given away to other children from this same school, the parents of those children will also have been given the same instructions that you have lost. Hopefully at least one of them will have kept those instructions so why not ask around? Nev.

Hi try a different program to burn the disks, one I have used with success is the free InfraRecorder. Have a look here, then to download click on downloads on the right hand side. http://infrarecorder.org/ If your system is 64bit be sure to download that version. Nev.

Hi Roger, Firstly good to know you have found the cause of the problem, well done. I would remove AVG altogether and go for a different antivirus, most of us here will recommend doing that as AVG is sometimes nearly as much trouble as getting a virus. Plenty to choose from and these are recommended by our security and malware removal guys. What's more, they are free! Avira AntiVir ....installation guide Here Avast free MS Security Essentials . I am using the Microsoft Security Essentials myself and no problems with it. I would also recommend using a decent spyware and general malware remover such as Malwarebytes free too. Nev.

A case of yippee and well done. Glad all is sorted now and everything retrieved as well. Good little tool to have is that partition manager as you now know. Thanks for the feedback and always glad to help. Nev.

Hi Mick and welcome to Extreme Tech Support - Free PC Help. I am surprised that the sound card you fitted doesn't work. However the first bit of advice I must offer is to try and get your money back from whoever you bought it from, the sale of goods act does cover buying second hand goods you know, especially if bought through a dealer. If however you wish to ignore that we can try and help, if you can go back to device manager as we shall work from there first. open the sound video and game controllers and then the drivers tab, have you tried updating the drivers? Also can you tell me please which manufacturer is listed for the sound, is it for example AC97? Also in device manager are there any red or yellow marks against any other entries, if so what are they? Next thing is to look in BIOS and see if sound is disabled. Turn off the computer completely and reboot it, then start tapping the F2 key as soon as the DELL logo appears. Have a good look round the BIOS and see if the sound is disabled. (It may be disabled due to the sound card being fitted, if so try removing the card and re-enable the sound) Nev.

Hi, Bluesplayer, (Good man) provided a link here- http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/topic111937.html I suggest having a look at that, especially items 6 and 7, a data recovery tool just might find what is recoverable from the drive in the caddy. Nev.

You have received a very helpful reply in your first thread, here, click this link- http://extremetechsupport.com/threads/14047-Building-custom-pc-for-the-first-time-need-help! Please do not keep starting a new thread for the same question thanks. Nev.

Hi, providing you have the original install disks and a copy of the activation code you should be OK, and not actually need to get in touch with Adobe. Nev.

Hi and welcome to Extreme Tech Support - Free PC Help. For all sorts of odd reasons, sometimes the regional settings can get altered, this influences what the keyboard does as each main region has different layouts. To check this, go to control panel and select "Clock, Language and Region", Then "Change Keyboards, or other input methods" In the window that opens, first click the Formats tab at the top and check the format is to your preferred language, then the Location tab and check that is correct, then the Keyboards and Languages tab, and check that is also correct for your region. Nev.

The license actually stays with the computer, so a move of ownership of the computer is not a problem, transfer of license only refers to transferring the operating system from one computer to another. In the case of standard OEM licenses this is not allowed, however with full retail license and depending on the type and certain conditions, as far as I know it can be transferred. Nev.

Hi, and welcome from me too. I have done quite a lot with the Macrium free version, so had a good think about this and to be quite honest I cannot see a way round without a third hard drive, preferably external of course. One thing I will say though is to recommend that you download the full Windows PE and burn that to disk rather than risking all on the Linux disk. I found the Linux could not find my external hard drive when I was using it. (Macrium does warn it cannot work with some hardware, in my case my external drive) Downloading that Windows PE file even with a moderately fast connection can take time though, and it took nearly two hours for me. Well worth the wait in the end I think. If for example you intended - A, keeping the now slave as a slave for backup and extra storage. B, once an image has been created of your small drive, remove it and install a new bigger drive. Then it would be possible to create the image of the small 38GB drive and put it on the new slave drive. Remove the old small drive and install whatever sized larger drive, but still keeping the slave as a slave. The image then could be taken off the slave and installed as a full system onto the new drive. The Windows PE disk will certainly handle doing all that where the Linux, I am doubtful about, due as I say to not getting it to work for me. If you don't want to go buying another drive though, then the only way I can see is to borrow an external drive from a friend to use as a temporary carrier for the image. Nev.

Hi, to add, unless of course you buy a second hand computer, then it is the old Latin phrase, which I can't quite recall, but it means "Let the buyer beware" :D Any one want to buy a laptop? Nev.

Hi, can you confirm you have tried other speakers or headset plugged into the sound port as Ken asked Please. Otherwise it looks like all software options have been covered and is maybe a blown chip. That will possibly mean a replacement motherboard unless your lucky and it is just a loose internal connection. Being a laptop, they are difficult to work on and is best looked at by a technician who has experience in this case. Unfortunately, installed programs cannot be backed up by the methods at your disposal, the only way is by creating a full mirror image of the entire system, which does mean a large storage device such as an external hard drive. If you have an external hard drive, can borrow one , or willing to buy one, (Needs to be bigger than your original drive in the computer) we can help in creating such an image, not too difficult to do once you understand the software that does it. Once an image has been created and is on the external drive, it doesn't matter what is then on the internal hard drive, because re installing that image automatically reformats the internal drive first. However, be aware that if the sound fault is not a hardware issue after all, the fault will still be in that image. Nev.

Hi Signart, Yes indeed there is a catch, those so called free versions are bound to be pirated copies and very much illegal. You could possibly finish up in a worse position than you are now in if you did download and install it. Best bet is to follow Bobs advice and give Microsoft a ring. Nev.

Hi and glad it all went smoothly, if you do fancy putting in some partitions now, you can do so with that partition tool I mentioned earlier. Next thing being what to do with the old drive? if you have or can get an adapter to connect it to a USB port, you may be able to access any data that you may need that got missed in backups. Be aware though that with bad sectors on it, some data may be unretrievable. If happy with everything and all data retrieved, to protect your own privacy, destroy the drive. Drill through it, smash it with a big hammer, or similar destructive treatment. Being partly damaged with bad sectors, I wouldn't want to risk using it as an external drive for backups or plain storage. Nev.

Hi, though it is a long time since I did similar and put my laptop back to factory settings, I do seem to remember in the initial stages you are offered a drop down menu of the language you wish the operating system to work in. If however that option is not there, you can still install the system, then obtain (For free) the relevant language pack from Microsoft. Nev.

Hi and welcome to Extreme Tech Support - Free PC Help. Firstly it is very unlikely that whoever does a repair will reinstall the operating system. If the hard drive is OK and the operating system and therefore all your data is OK as well, the hard drive will be fitted back in untouched. That was the case when my laptop blew up in a cloud of smoke while fortunately still under warranty so it cost me nothing, but the entire motherboard was replaced. Cloud storage, is another ball game however and unless an external hard drive is an impossibility, I would not recommend it unless for a very short term. However, if using any external storage cloud or otherwise, you choose what to save in there and how it is saved, so if for example you wanted to be sure all photo's are kept, but don't want to bother with music, then that is exactly what you can do. Personally I would recommend buying an external hard drive and putting everything on that, it is much safer as it cannot be hacked into or the server not available, as can happen with cloud storage, it isn't infallible. If possible though I would be making enquiries with the repair service about the likelihood of not loosing all your data and that you do not want a reinstall of the operating system back to factory settings. Also for future safety of your data, even if an external hard drive is not something you can afford now, then look to getting one as soon as you can. Then look into what is called mirror imaging, that does store everything, including the original operating system, and can return a computer back to what it was when the image was created. Please do ask if you would like more information on any of the above. Nev.