COMPUTER HELP!!

“One more time
it's too early in the day!”

“What kind of snake was that?!”

“Help for cindy_lu...

”

“don't know. someone sent me the picture.”

“plastic?”

“thanks, ski.
what I know and what I type aren't always the same :)”

“nope. the user called a tech cuz her computer hissed, crackled, smoked, and stopped running.”

“I got all sorts of SGL errors when I tried your first link, cindy_lu. I should have checked again for your link before posting the pic.”

“I just got a new Seagate 160 GB hard drive and want to set it up as my boot drive and keep my old one for backing up data. The software that came with it for copying the disk is of course inadequate.

I have 3 partitions on the old drive and want to set my new one up the same way: a system partition, a data partition and a separate one for my page file.

I tried cloning it several times using Norton Ghost but can’t get it to boot. Several times I got the /system32.hal.dll missing or corrupted message. By cloning each partition separately (setting up partitions using Partition Magic 8.0) I have it so now it boots to the XP welcome screen but sits there looking at me.

I really don’t want to use my recovery CD and take it back to factory fresh state because I have several days worth of software to load/update and customizations even though that is probably a good idea on my year old machine.

Any tips?”

“have you tried aluminum foil?”

“I don't think you have a Ghost issue, I think you may have an XP issue. It seems that I remember that XP "knows" what hard drive it is on, and won't boot on another drive.

You might try contacting Micro$oft and try to convince them all you've done is copy your XP over to a new drive that you intend on using in the same computer.”

“I think you need some FM.”

“I had the same problem when I did the same thing last year and found that if I shut down before Ghost rebooted the machine and hooked up the new drive as a stand alone, it worked just fine. Now that trick doesn't work.

Maybe one of Bill's 'updates' 'fixed' my 'problem'.

What would Microsoft be able to do for me bit? Give me some procedure or code?”

“I think so...I believe there is a way to transfer your XP from one drive to another, but you have to have their permission and help.

I wish I knew more...I've never done this with an XP drive, just read a few things...”

“I have XP and had no problem ghosting my hardrive (maxtor). Are you sure the jumper settings are correct?”

“Yeah - I've they are both on cable select.

I did this last year going from an 80 GB Seagate (with a 2 MB buffer) to an 80GB Maxtor (8MB buffer) and got it to work with that shutdown trick. The Maxtor is a noisy drive and I wanted the extra storage so I got a deal on the Seagate and plan on keeping the Maxtor in storage in case of disaster and using the smaller Seagate as my backup.

How's that for redundancy?”

“I would try posting a thread on myITforum, Windows Workstation OS”

“Thanks ski - Are you saying posting this question on a backpacking board is pointless?”

“No Violin, I'm saying that there are countless geeks over there that have probably run into exactly the same problem you're having.”

“So you're implying that I might happier with a bunch of geeks?”

“What does this have to do with WMDs and President Bush?”

“Violin, for dealing with this particular problem...yes. Although I thought bitpusher gave (and always seems to on computer issues) good advice. I know Microsoft monitors myITforum, but usually for an early heads up on bugs and stuff.”

“That becuz I R an in-guh-neer...”

“I'm posting from my new drive (no thanks to this forum).


The trick was booting from my Windows cd to access the repair console and running FIXMBR and FIXBOOT. I don't know if I needed to FIXBOOT or not but it worked so hey...

I researched this on several computer forums and Microsoft's knowledge base. None of their solutions worked but led me in the right direction.”

“Did you manage to save any of the trolls living on your old hard drive?

If not, I'd like to be the first to dub it the "trollocaust".”

“I have no idea what you're talking about.”

“Yeah, I can be a little obscure at times.


[/Ultrasacrasm]”

“Can't say I'm too keen on the so-called M$ 'knowledge base'. I don't know how many times I'd get an error message about one of their files, but as far as they were concerned it didn't exist.”

“What would this board be without fiddle boy's trolls?”

“I told you MyITForum should have answers. Hope it helped. It should have if you posted your question.”

“Thanks ski. I didn't post mine but searched their archives along with a bunch of others. None had what worked for me but got me thinking in the right direction.”

“My cousin can do amazing things to and with computers, so I had him fix mine when it started wierding out on me. He ended up having to reformat and reinstall to get everything working again. The problem is, now all my fonts and icons are smaller than they used to be. It's not just a problem that can be fixed by right clicking on the desktop and changing the font size. The next size up makes it too big then. For instance, the words on trail talk are always about the size of words that you would write into superscript or subsript normally. Any ideas how to get it the way it comes from the store? Restore disk is not an option.”

“Try changing your screen resolution. It's painless. Go to Start --> Control Panel and then select Display. Under the Settings tab increase your resolution from what it is now to what you want it to be. That should fix your problem. Its not about your font size, it's how your font size relates to the motion of the ocean, etc. Anyway, that ought to help”

“Yeah, I thought that was the same as when you right click on the desktop, but I'll give it a shot. Thanks.”

“No dice. Tried font size, dpi, everything in the settings and appearances tabs. The desktop words are bigger, as is the title at the top of the Explorer window, but actual font size is still smaller than average in Explorer.”

“It still sounds like a resolution vs the font size. Why don't you post the setting of resolution, font size, etc. That might give us some insight.

You do know that under "appereance" there are multple setting under "scheme and item".

Lastly, the font you have choosen might be some unusual font, a "10" Arial could be a completly different size then a 10 San Serif. Try a different font.”

“I have a nasty spyware/hijacker program on my computer called CoolWWW. I have both Spybot and Spysweeper on my computer. Spybot says my system is clean, but Spysweeper finds the program and removes it, until I reboot my computer. I'm running Windows 2000 Professional and have run Spysweeper on both my normal login and my administrative login; both failed to remove the program. Next I rebooted and started up in safe mode and ran Spysweeper again. It found and removed the program, but it came back once I restarted my computer.

Does anyone have any ideas?”

“i have a question too:
on XP, under task manager/processes
what is:
image name svchost.exe
user name system
memory usage (varies)

what are these and are they slowing down my system?”

“Hmm, this guy isnt' very lucky either: http://www.computing.net/security/wwwboard/forum/9661.html

I didn't read it all, but I think this gives you uninstall instructions (at least I hope so):

http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/aug05/snt8.asp”

“it's the time and date!”

“heeheehee scorchtfire! I just downloaded the program, and it tests and removed this darn spyprogram! Lumberzac, here the link again:
http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/cwschronicles.html

their free program will remove it”

“It went bye bye. Thanks”

“go get nortons 2004 virus load it
get rid of the others”

“Ok, I was gonna post this on the "defeating spyware" thread, but every time i opened the thread my browser would close, ever heard of that? it's like this spyware doesn't want me seeking help about spyware.

Anyways, i have no idea where it came from. I run ad-aware and it finds something and i delete it but it doesn't help, it doesnt' go away. As far as I can tell all it does is change my homepage to "http://epumbx.outhost.info/" and it won't let me open up the "defeating spyware" thread, but it's annoying as hell when i can't have my own homepage, anybody have any ideas? I've deleted it several times with ad-aware, i see no suspucious programs running in my task manager, i see no other programs loaded onto my computer... help me”

“I run ad-aware and Spybot Search and Destroy.

I used to get the home page switch too, only mine would go to "zestyfind.com" Sounds festive don't it.

Once I ran the spyware stuff though it went away. I have notice that ad-aware and spybot each find diff problems. Even when run back to back.

I can email you the exe file for spybot if you want.”

“You might try deleting all the cookies. Right click on the internet e icon. Goto properties, and in the middle of the window that opens click delete files, and then delete cookies. Might also try clearing your history.

Hope this helps”

“i've deleted cookies, i've deleted history, i've deleted everything...

the file that ad-aware keeps finding, that keeps returning is called "clear search"

ahh, it doesn't matter, i'm bringing the computer home in a week, then i'm gonna format it, it really needs to be cleaned out.”