Synapse

Just a case of checking for updates and allowing the download and install.

ITV Player is compatible with Android 2.2 onwards, so....in theory all should be ok. What version of Android is installed? Also have you been in to Settings and updated the firmware?

Also, there is a help page for Vista based scanning here http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c03517151&tmp_task=useCategory&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en&os=2093&product=61561&sw_lang=#N321

After some thinking and Googling I have a theory that either the external drive is faulty, or possibly the USB interface that is built in to the external drive. The description of the drive showing as FAT brings back memories of external drive issues, and looking at the thread as a whole it almost confirms my thoughts. The only real way around it that I can see is to return the drive as a warranty claim, or if out of warranty, take it out of the external case and connect internally to check it that way.

Adobe Reader will allow you to do this. Open your pdf in Adobe Reader, click on the Add Text near the top left hand side. Go to your web page or Word document or wherever you need to copy text from, select your text and copy to Clipboard. Come back to Adobe Reader, paste in text, adjust, tinker with etc and print when happy.

Hi John, I have had a read of the motherboard manual and can see the description of the RAID controllers and the hard drive connectors. The manual says that if you have a drive connected to a RAID controller, as a single drive, it will behave as a single drive, as long as it is set to IDE in the settings. The settings may be in the BIOS itself, or the RAID controller settings, that will be in the BIOS too, under RAID controller. So, there is no problem with running a single drive on a RAID controller. What we need to know is what drive you have connected to what connector on the motherboard, and could do with knowing if you have IDE or SATA drives as your board supports both. When you have that info, can you show us what you have in Windows, ie which drives are showing, Disk Management screenshot will probably do for now.

Hi John, You have me a little confused here. Which drive currently has your OS installed, is it the 500GB or 80GB drive? I ask because of this Plus your screenshots show the 80GB capacity. You have also mentioned not losing any data from the 500GB drive. I don´t get how you have any data stored on that drive, can you explain please. If say, hypothetically, you had the 2 drives in an array, striped that is, you can´t split them and then retrieve the data, they would need backing up before splitting. I do not think the RAID controller will cause issues with your DVD drive, it would be useful to know the motherboard make and model so I can have a read of the manual and have a bit of a think.

Indeed they do, and what do they use old versions of Windows for? Certainly not for me to answer. Users of legacy versions of Windows will not be everyday people, browsing, shopping, using social media. Why? Well, try using a browser on Windows 95 in todays online environment. Up to date browsers just do not run on legacy systems, nor do media rich plugins. Never mind issues with security, the hardware platforms are not powerful enough, and the software just will not run. Your comments related to Windows XP, and explained how you think owners of these systems can continue running them securely after the April 2014 update deadline set out by Microsoft. Starbuck summed it up nicely....

Indeed they will be reluctant, spending money they see as wasteful does nothing for business profits. However, that does not mean business will stay with XP, most if not all will migrate, perhaps the only caveats being those systems running legacy software, especially bespoke and engineering software that have no need for Internet access. Remember the potential of the Y2K bug? Business splashed the cash to ensure their computing platforms remained online and running. Once news gets out of even one high profile company running XP after April 2014, and getting in to some kind of security difficulty, you can put your money on it that most others will be migrating to Win 7 for fear of similar embarrassment. To my mind, many home PC users do not have the knowledge or the expertise to notice the workings of a virus, or piece of underhand spyware, and nor do business users. Home PC users rely on the security of the OS plus AV add ons, programs updates (eg Adobe Reader, Java), and Windows security updates to fend off the majority of intrusions. Business end users rely of a team of IT professionals (even if the team is only one person) to maintain their systems, and those end users are mostly interested in their applications rather than security. Both groups rely on outside sources to maintain security. What a job that would be, if the security risks were unknown due to the home PC users and IT experts not being security experts. It is a risky business, most will opt for using the collective knowledge of Microsoft security experts, in conjunction with well rounded AV systems. A wise choice I would say. Also consider neither XP nor Vista support Microsoft´s latest incarnation of the Office suite. Perhaps not a problem in the short term, but as the years go by, more recent versions of Office will become the standard, and older XP based versions of Office will also become a security risk. Not acceptable in the business arena. It is a few years since I regularly maintained XP systems, and once in while I rebuild XP for someone. What a hassle, SATA floppy drivers, base system, updates, drivers, updated drivers, networking add on´s. Drop a Win 7 or 8 DVD in the slot, and off you go, I should think my kids could just about install Win 8. Sandboxie is not a catch all security system for outdated OS´s, it is just another security tool.

You can´t do it. Word needs more than files to run. When you install Word it links itself to so many parts of your system, eg your browser, your email possibly, plus it installs a mass of registry entries to get each component talking to the others, with the correct settings and at the correct time. There are programs you can buy that come with a cable to connect old and new computers together, which will scan and transfer software to a new system. I have not had good experience with transferring licensed software such as Microsoft Office programs. Plus you are probably moving to Win 7 or 8, which is another unknown. You would also need a stable old system to run any potential transfer.

There used to be an ISO of the XP Recovery Console, that is bootable, but no install XP install files. Found it... http://www.thecomputerparamedic.com/files/rc.iso It is a direct download link.

You will need your XP CD for this. Perhaps the best way is to repair the XP boot record, to remove the GRUB bootloader. Once XP is booting again, delete the Linux install. I´m not sure, you may have to use a third party tool to actually remove the Linux partition. The Easeus tool has worked for me in the past. There is an easy tutorial showing how to repair the bootloader here... http://www.wikihow.com/Uninstall-the-Grub-Bootloader-from-a-Dual-Boot-XP-System-With-an-XP-CD Partiton tool http://www.partition-tool.com/

Couple of things I can think of.... Have you tried printing different types of document, for ex a Word file or page and a pdf? Check the paper size is set to A4, sometimes US letter setting is the default and it can halt a print.

Probably a dial up modem, nothing to do with your current issues.

Hi Ray, Looking at your original post, the spec you have is marginal for Vista. Microsoft gives some blurb regarding the minimum spec for Vista, which they say is lower than your spec. In practice, minimum spec is rarely workable. Your CPU is really in the Windows 2000/XP era, you have enough memory for XP, but Vista needs 2GB to run anywhere near well, especially considering your CPU spec. Windows XP will lose it´s support from April 2014, meaning Internet use would be unfeasible due to security risks. XP will run much faster on your machine. Your question on choice between the two OS´s.......for me, I wouldn´t ever choose Vista, it was a step in to a new era for Microsoft, and wasn´t polished until Windows 7 came along. For now, I would use XP, and if lack of general speed and usability are issues, it may be time to look at replacing it.

The spec says 1280 x 1024 is the correct resolution, so it looks like Windows has it correct. At that resolution you will have the best picture. Do check the colour depth settings, hopefully it will be 32 bit colour.

As well as Ken´s advice, I am wondering what resolution your monitor should be running at. Lots of 19" LCD monitors run at 1280 x 1024 as their native resolution. A video card will tend to default to the native resolution of the monitor. Can you post the make, model and size of monitor you are using please. Regarding Google Earth, I would uninstall it, sort the video card drivers, then reinstall it. Probably come back to the Youtube issues when we have everything else sorted, the problem may or may not go away.

Ray, Have a look here http://www.nvidia.co.uk/download/driverResults.aspx/57502/en-uk The driver supports your card and 32 bit Vista.

Sorry, I should have explained further.. Your Jetway board has an AGP interface. This interface is designed specifically for video cards, unlike say a PCI slot, in which many different cards such as network or modems can be fitted. AGP came in four flavours, early ones were ´x 1´, and they gradually increased in speed and were denoted x 2, x4 and finally the x 8 spec. There are compatibility issues with earlier and later specs, so you are really looking at x 4 or x 8 AGP cards, and x 8 are the ones to go for as they are the newest and fastest, and perhaps best suited to your application. Later motherboards use an interface called PCIe, and all new design video cards will be PCIe, and not compatible with your AGP interface. It does not need to be a 6200, look for AGP, and preferably in the spec for AGP x 8. Also, look at the operating system compatibility. I had a look this morning, and found a few which looked good value, but were old cards and after checking the drivers, none were available for Vista. You will need something with Vista compatibility. If you need more help choosing, do let us know your budget, and if you find a card you would us to check, post the details, and perhaps a link and we can have a look.

The board is a Jetway V600, have a look here for more info http://www.jetway.com.tw/jw/motherboard_view.asp?productid=29&proname=V600DAP There are plenty of used cards for AGP x8 on the market but the problem I can see is that drivers only go to XP SP2 for example, circa 2006. As you have moved to Vista, that could be problematic, so for me the best solution is a new card, something like this http://www.amazon.co.uk/EVGA-6200-512MB-Graphics-Card/dp/B004EK7EQU/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top If you do swap it, uninstall the old video drivers, shutdown, install the new card, start up, then once Windows has sorted itself out, install the new drivers and restart again. All should be well at this point.

Hi Ron You are correct. The RAID array is setup in BIOS so that when Windows is installed, it only sees one disk. The RAID chip(s) do all of the work. Regarding installing two new hard drives, you will need to fit them in to your computer, then boot up. Some systems have a function key to acess RAID, say F11, some do it through the BIOS setup. Either way you will need to access the RAID menu. From there you will need to add both disks to a RAID array, this tells your hardware setup to use the disks as one RAID disk. Then you can rebuild with your previously saved image. If you need more detailed instructions, specific to your unit, let me know and I will look it up on the Dell website.

It looks like have RAID 0, striped disks if I have it correct? My experience of SSD is that the drive access times are much faster than mechanical drives, and any system I have swapped to SSD has demonstrated an apparent performance hike. Looking at your motherboard, I think you have a P965 Express chipset, so SATA 2 drive interface. Most newer drives will be SATA 3, in theory double the speed of SATA 2. You will not see the full performance gain of new drives. Personally I wouldn´t spend that sort of cash in pursuit of performance on an old machine. A couple of 1 TB mechanical drives would do more or less the same job, give you the capacity you require and for much less money. Alternatively, a single SSD would do the job. I´ve never cloned RAID, if I were to approach it, I would clone my current OS to an external drive as an image, create a bootable CD, fit the new drives, use BIOS to initialise and create the new array, format, and then use the boot CD/ image to rebuild the system to the new drive setup. I would probably use Acronis TrueImage for the task.

A possible solution.... Log in to your hub and find the wireless settings. I'm assuming your hub is set to choose a wireless channel automatically - change to manual and select a channel - say channel 6. Save the settings, reboot your hub and see how your wireless connection behaves.

Sounds like a good 'temporary' fix :) I once tried a passive cooling system, pretty much how you describe this one, big case fan running slowly, no CPU fan just a big heatsink. It worked until the CPU was used heavily, then all my great ideas went out of the window - overheating and shutdown!

Have I got this right.....it will boot to BIOS? Can you see the CPU temp in BIOS?