Help wanted: Computers

[DaveR]

I endorse that advice! I use twin External 1.5TB Hard Drives and automatically back up from one to the other every day. They easily connect to your PC via a USB port and there is a lot of free backup software that will back up from your pc to the hard drive at a set time every day.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Digital-Elements-External-Desktop/dp/B003IPC21Y/

[suepp]

My PC is only a couple of years old, It's an Acer M3400 with windows 7 etc.

I recently had to do a system restore after problems booting up, and for a while could only do this using the "Ram Raid" facility (whatever that is) 
Since the restore to an earlier date, booting up is fine, but loading some  pages from the internet is slow, as are photos and videos on this forum,  facebook, and Youtube etc and the connection often times out. I've done disc cleanup, have got virus protection still active and have sent all my photos to an external hard drive, any suggestions?

[TheMedz]

Sue
It sounds like it could be the network connection and possibly not the pc.

Try running http://www.broadbandspeedchecker.co.uk/

Alternatively try unplugging the router for a a couple of minutes then plug it back in and reboot.

[dwsi]

are all the drivers installed or any errors/warnings showing up?

1. Go to Device Manager, Right click on 'My Computer' select 'manage'. (Start->Control Panel->System->Hardware->Device Manager)
2. In the left pane look for 'Device Manager', double click on it.
3. Errors are usually shown immediately, but take a look under 'Networking', any "!" or yellow icons over any devices indicating an error?

If the above shows up then you'll need to download the appropriate drivers.

[Pendragon]

A friend of mine called George from Penmaenmawr is fantastic at fixing computers.  He's also very reasonable on price.  I wouldn't use anybody else.  If you need any computers or laptops fixing PM and I'll give you his number.

[suepp]

thanks everyone, I've tried those things and it seems to have improved, I also realised that I should have uninstalled Norton before installing my new anti virus package 

[Micox]

  Tried hoovering my insides but the pipe got stuck.

[Bellringer]

I also realised that I should have uninstalled Norton before installing my new anti virus package 

I recently changed from Norton to a "free" one and was told to make sure that I had cancelled the possibility of my subscription being renewed. To do this I contacted Norton/Symantec and advised them and ended up after about 10 mins. with a "renewal disablement number".
I shall monitor July's bank statement closely to make sure it has been disabled.

[hollins]

Can anyone help me with a computer problem please.
When I switch on my acer notebook computer and after a couple of minutes on the internet the computer tells me that one of my disks needs to be checked for consistency.
It is Windows XP.
It checks through and these are the things it seems to be doing,
First allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
Non valid link.
Cross link resolved by copying.
Removing trailing folder entries.

I am absolutely hopeless on computers if anything goes wrong. Can anyhting be done to stop this?
Thank you.

[TheMedz]

Try entering   chkdsk /f   into the command prompt. You will get a message saying this cannot be done now but it will do it next time you reboot. Reboot the computer and it will run a checkdisk hopefully fixing any problems it finds.

[hollins]

Thank you.
The problem is it does the disk check and the reboot of its own accord almost every time I switch the computer on.
It says I can press any key to stop it but strongly advises me not to do so.

[TheMedz]

It's the /F that fixes the problems. Is it possible to go into safe move by keep pressing F8 during the booting up processing. Once in Safe mode you should be able to do the Chkdsk f.

[cygnusx-1]

If your hard drive is the C drive then try this by clicking START then RUN and enter:

chkdsk C:/r


which will attempt a repair of the hard drive.

Have you got an external drive attached by USB?

 

[hollins]

Thanks both for your help.
I have tried both ways.
The one with the f it said it couldn't find.
The one with the r said this,
File type is Fat32
Cannot lock current drive.
Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another process.
Would you like to schedule this volume to be checked the next time the system restarts Y/N


I didn't answer!
The file system is C.
I do not have an external drive.
If it is possible to help further I would be very grateful.
Thanks.

[cygnusx-1]

I would not expect FAT32 file system on XP it should be NFTS.

What size is the hard drive as FAT32 only works up to 32GB?