Plastic Nev

Hi Jim, some of the older Vista documents and spreadsheet stuff, may have been overwritten by newer stuff, hence why the recovery software can't find them. Those Windows old files, are they stuff found by the recovery software? If not, dump them in the recycle bin, if after a few days there is no noticeable problem because they are missing, (which I doubt there will be a problem) empty the bin and get some hard drive space back. Now to the radio signal from the stair lift gizmo, as Kenb said, I doubt that is a cause of your problems unless there are some unscreened cables, such as the mouse or keyboard cables, very close to the gizmo. Having said that, I know of some radio amateur friends who use some quite powerful and high frequency radio transmitters/transceivers alongside their computers with no problems at all. My radio gear is upstairs and computer downstairs, so nothing to compare with. Nev.

Have you looked in device manager? any exclamation or question marks? Click the arrow to the left of Mice and other pointing devices, double click on whatever comes up, then select the driver tab, first try "update driver". If nothing better available, try a system restore back to when you know it was working. Being the mouse, I am reluctant to try uninstalling the mouse drivers at this stage. Besides, it looks like windows found drivers and installed them when you tried the spare mouse, it just didn't work. Nev.

May I also reinforce KenB's post as above, you may not do actual bank transactions, but if you bought anything via the internet while those trojans were active, they will have picked up your credit or debit card numbers, Paypal account details etc. We don't like to hear if a member finds he has been robbed and accounts emptied by these criminals if we can warn in advance to prevent that. Nev.

OK Osprey, thanks for the list of parts, I will look first into how much I can get locally and prices, if not available or can be bought cheaper on line I will do, there are some pretty good local shops and computer part retailers in this town, so like to give my business first to the local guys. Besides, I might be able to get a part time bit of work with at least one of them when I retire from full time work. Nev.

Just a note, in Windows 7, using the CTRL+ALT+DEL keys you may get a blue screen with a list of choices, click "Task Manager", when that opens click the processes tab for the information KenB asks for. Alternatively, you can also press the windows flag key and the "R" key, that will open the "Run" box, type in or copy taskmgr Then Paste into the "Run" box and click OK. That will also open the task manager. Nev.

Hi, you just might be able to find a service manual for it on this Sony website= http://www.sony.co.uk/support/en/product/VGN-TT11WN_B Failing that, have a good look around this guys website, he specialises in laptop repair and advice all for free. http://www.laptoprepair101.com/ Hope you can find enough to help you take it to bits for cleaning, and also to be able to put it back together too. It is that bit still on the work top after you think you finished :confused: Now where did that bit go?? :D Nev.

Hi, considering it just shuts down with little or no warning, it could be a serious overheating problem. However to get to the source does mean dismantling the laptop and then investigating the heat sink, fan, and possibly replacing the thermal paste between the heat sink and CPU. I doubt that it is a hard drive issue as you should get some form of message from the BIOS that it cannot find any boot volume, rather than a total shut down. Though if a serious overload of the power system from a damaged hard drive would shut it down straight away, it isn't that likely. Nev.

At some point, data will be flying backward and forward between the RAM and processor during editing and playback while in the editing software, so I would say yes for the higher speed RAM, might cost a bit more but hopefully worth it, though will wait for Synapse on that as he knows, or to be more correct has forgotten, more than I will ever know. As I said earlier I also am thinking of upgrading via a new build, so will be interested in how yours works out, if it does, I may follow you and build to the same specs. Nev.

Hi and welcome to Extreme Tech Support - Free PC Help. Without pictures I am guessing a little but it sounds like the output from your tower is the older VGA type which is an analogue type of signal output but the newer monitor is possibly DVI or HDMI, which is digital only, so there is no easy adapter available as the signal types are entirely different. Some monitors, mine as an example, do have different inputs available and has a few sockets for that purpose, have a look at your monitor at the back and see if there is any more input sockets or ports, also check the lead now attached, does that go straight in or is that a plug and socket? If there are no other available ports on the monitor and the cable you have goes straight in, then you may need to buy and fit a graphics card to the computer, in order to provide the correct output for your monitor. Nev.

Hi again, OK for the Malwarebytes, nothing showing so unless something else shows up, for now I think we can say it doesn't look like malware is causing the problem One thing that doesn't seem to have been mentioned is Hardware acceleration, Click on tools and the options, then advanced, under the general tab, and in the browsing section, is there a tick in the box for "Use hardware acceleration when available"? If there is try removing it, if there isn't, put one in. Just one of those "I wonder if?" moments here, but might be connected. Nev.

Hi, I wondered where you were!!:D OK about being away on vacation though. So it looks as if the RAM is OK now and apart from perhaps a fault on the hard drive, do you hear it ticking perhaps or other mechanical sounding noises, even faint ones? If nothing there, Starbuck mentioned there may be something else to try yet so will have to leave it with him again, he may be here later or if not then tomorrow. Nev.

Just a thought, the older IDE drive should have a jumper connection on the back which you can use to change from slave to master or the reverse, and a third option called "Cable select" can you have a look and see which it is set to please, if set to slave, try changing to master, and of course the other way round, lastly try it on Cable select. Nev.

Hi, OK, from your last post I am now beginning to suspect there may be a little more wrong than we first thought. Once you get your browser up and running I would like you to run a scan with Malwarebytes antimalware (MBAM) If you already have it installed, make sure it is updated first and then run a quick scan, If you don't as yet have MBAM please click this link= http://www.malwarebytes.org/ Go to the "Products" tab and click the "Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Free" to download and then install the free version. (it will take you to a mirror site, that is normal) Once it has been updated after the install, run a quick scan with it. After running the scan, a note pad page will open with the scan results, please copy and paste them in your next reply. Thanks, Nev.

Hi Mary and welcome to Extreme Tech Support - Free PC Help, can you tell us what make your printer/scanner is, it does have a scanner? Most scanners do the work from the scanner now so it is a case of opening the scanners program and selecting scan document as editable text. This does require the document, in this case a receipt, to be using a font type it can recognise though. The scanner software will usually select the word program as part of the operation. Nev.

Hi Ray, Maplin are a tad expensive, but if you have a local store, go have a look to give yourself an idea on prices, oh and also don't be surprised that you won't find a drive of less that 250GB or at least not easily, unless it is some old stock they have. Once you have checked that though, look round on the net, Amazon, New Egg, E Buyer, or similar you should find a similar drive for at least 20% cheaper or more. Considering the size of the internal drive, then a 250GB drive is more than adequate. Technically specification wise, 5000RPM or higher for spindle speed is OK, though a slower speed will still work, just take a little longer to create the image backup. Make of drive is perhaps more important though so go for a well known make such as Seagate, Western Digital, I have a Buffalo and found nothing wrong with that. I will warn that prices are still a little higher than they were last year due to most major manufacturers in I think it was Indonesia lost out to major flooding and they are still recovering from that. So expect a smaller drive to be around the £45-00 to £50-00 mark, however have a look round first and then come back to us for a recommendation after that. Once you have an external drive, then we can discus how to achieve the image backup on it, and don't worry, it is quite easy to do, just a little time consuming is all. (which explains why PC World or other dealers charge so much, it is the time you pay for.) Nev.

Hi, James, I didn't really expect a failure in device manager but it did no harm to check, so if you wish to try this, go back to device manager, open the DVD/CD-ROM drives again and select the top drive which I think you said is the IDE one and double click on it, this will open the properties window. Select the "Drivers" tab, then click on "Disable" and disable it. See if the button for the bottom drive still makes the top one open then. Hopefully it won't. If I am right, re-enable and try again, if it is back to square one, uninstall the driver, then reboot the computer, Windows will then find a new driver and install it automatically, hopefully if it is just a driver issue it should solve the problem, or at least I hope so. However if not, try uninstalling the driver for the bottom drive as well, and let Windows re-install that with a fresh reboot. Nev.

Hi, Keyboards can and do go iffy, but usually over all things and not just one website, however if you are finding other things not quite right then no harm as new keyboards aren't that expensive, let us know how you get on with that. Back to the DVD drive oddity, a gentle push usually sends the drawer back in, and you would be surprised at the number of folk who do that rather than push in the button with little harm done, though it can increase wear on the drive system cogs and gears over a period of time. Now to look at what may be causing this, have you looked in device manager? If not familiar with finding or getting to device manager, here is a quick way, if you already have "Run" in the start menu, open it and type or copy and paste in= devmgmt.msc Then click OK If no "Run" command is in your start menu, to get it to come up on screen, press the Windows flag key and the letter "R" key. Once in device manager click the small arrow on the left of DVD/CD-ROM drives, are both drives listed, and are there any red or yellow exclamation or question marks with those drives? Answer that for me and we may get a little further. Nev.

Hi, taking all the above advice and putting it into a nutshell, I in my own personal opinion would be to recommend you obtain an external hard drive, the size of which should ideally be the same or higher in capacity than the internal drive, or at the very least twice the size of the data stored on the internal drive, including the operating system. Once acquired I recommend creating a full system image, the program Grandad mentioned is an example of the sort of thing to download and use, though myself I use Macrium Reflect, which also has a free version available, and the same can be said about Easeus Todo. A full system image is actually the best backup, as this contains the operating system, all partitions if any, all installed programs, as well as all data such as music, video, photo's ETC. Once the existing hard drive packs up, buy and install a new drive, then using the image and a rescue disk (Created as part of making the image) you install the image onto the new drive, and the whole computer is then back up and running just as it was at the time the image was made. If needing help with using an imaging program, KenB or myself can as far as Macrium Reflect is concerned, as we use it on all our machines. Nev.

That is actually my next advice as the machine should be covered by its warranty, so yes do take it back and complain. If there is any comment made regarding software not being covered, the operating system should be, considering it has never actually started, as it will not have been activated or validated. Nev.

Hi PC49, If it were me, I would again use copy and paste of just the English version to a word document and then print that. Or another way would be to use a screen capture tool and create a JPG image to be printed. Nev.

Hi, as far as the two drives, have you had a look inside (all power off and anti static precautions taken) and checked the cable connections? remove one then push it back, do the same with all connections, this will help make sure of them, it could just be a connector isn't quite connecting. As for the other issue, I have seen it, but didn't answer as I also don't have a clue, but have you tried removing all cookies? it could be a corrupt one. Nev.

If you do come back to take a look Tunna, whatever happens, do not mention corned beef!!

Hi Lukemac47 and welcome to Extreme Tech Support - Free PC Help. Has it ever worked and started correctly, or is it like this from new? If it did start up OK, is there anything you can think of, that you did prior to the problem starting? If it will start in and run in safe mode, have you tried a system restore back to when it did run OK? Nev.

Hi and welcome to Extreme Tech Support - Free PC Help. If you can tell us what your needs are, example game playing and to what level, or perhaps video work and editing, we may better help you if we have that knowledge. Nev.

Hi Jay and welcome to Extreme Tech Support - Free PC Help. I must say this is a strange one. try this, in Computer, right click on the Sata drive, and select "Eject" which drawer comes out then? try the same on the IDE drive as well, let us know please. If that works correctly, you can also create a desktop shortcut to each drive from that same right click menu, which should also allow you to access both drives. Nev.