My Floppy disk has stopped working. When I put a disk in and select floppy drive, the light on the PC by the disk opening does not light up any more. When I select the floppy disk drive in 'my computer' it hangs for a while then eventually a box appears to tell me to insert a disk in the drive when there is a disk already in there. I have Win ME, 256 ram, 20 gigabytes hard disk. 1000mhz processor. I have not downloaded anything recently apart from a couple of music files. Can anyone help?
Bruno - Wallington - Sat Jun 15 19:50 2002
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My Floppy disk has stopped working. When I put a disk in and select floppy drive, the light on the PC by the disk opening does not light up any more. When I select the floppy disk drive in 'my computer' it hangs for a while then eventually a box appears to tell me to insert a disk in the drive when there is a disk already in there. I have Win ME, 256 ram, 20 gigabytes hard disk. 1000mhz processor. I have not downloaded anything recently apart from a couple of music files. Can anyone help?
Bruno - Wallington - Sat Jun 15 19:49 2002
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Did you ever get an answer to this? I suffer the same problem Cheers Brian
Brian Carroll - London - Mon Aug 26 16:16 2002
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Did you ever get an answer to this? I suffer the same problem Cheers Brian
Brian Carroll - London - Mon Aug 26 16:16 2002
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hi can u tell me how to remove freeserve from my pc its not listed in add and remove ty
phil - leeds - Sat Jun 15 14:41 2002
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What part of Freeserve are you trying to remove? Do you you mean the Dial up, the branding or e-mail?
Iain Wolstencroft - Accrington - Tue Jun 18 09:56 2002
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all of it m8
phil - leeds - Wed Jun 19 15:33 2002
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Hi there, I have lately came back from down under on holiday for a month. For the previous 2 months i have been an loyal suporter of the Web-User mag as it seems to explain everything in plain english, not like some others i have read. To let you all understand my problem, well in fact it is stupidity on my behalf. While i was sunning it down under and came back to use my Lap-Top PC and i have fogoten my Windows logon password ( the one where you press CTRL+ALT+DEL ). I have tried all the ones that i can remember but nothing. I have some important documents and do not want to go down the road of re-installing WinXP Pro againg as some people have highlighted. Is there some other way to resolve my problem or have i lost all my stuff forever!!.I wait in antisipation for an answer please to all you wizz people.
David Grahame - Anstruther,Fife - Wed Jun 12 23:59 2002
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Try "http://www.cotse.com/tools/password.htm" (without the quotes). you may be able to download a programme to reveal your missing password.
Rod Shinkfield - Chorley - Fri Jun 14 20:17 2002
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OOOOOps!!!!! On the Home Edition, there is a password reminder where you log on. I think its the ? in the box. I'll be honest, I don't have a logon box!
One of my colleagues suggested this

If you have entered a password to enable you to logon, you should make a PASSWORD RESET disk.

To do this:

Click Start | Control Panel | User Accounts
Open your account
Under Related Tasks on the left, select Prevent a forgotten Password. This will bring up the Forgotten Password Wizard and will ask you for a floppy disk. A bit of a stable door job, but worth remembering
Iain Wolstencroft - Accrington - Fri Jun 14 09:01 2002
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Thanks Iain for your prompt reply. You have given me some good feedback, but am i right in saying that i have lost all my files and will have to re-install windows??. When it was suggested to me that i re-install windows by using some system disk on floppy and my winXP CD i noticed that i have no floppy disk.How can i accomplish this is my computer days over now as i have spent a lot of money on this. To maybe help you i have a Toshiba T9000 ( WinXP Pro 1.2Ghtz )note book with DVD/CDR and some PCI slots ??? whatever they are. Hope this info is some help to you and preferably me.
David Grahame - Anstruther,Fife - Fri Jun 14 13:44 2002
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Xp prefers not to use floppy discs preferring to use the Cd drive. I would imagine that the notebooks' BIOS will have been configured to Boot from CD. You will find out if you insert the XP disc in your drive and boot up the computer. If it is configured to boot from the CD Drive first, you should get a message similar to Press any key to boot from cd rom. If so, come back and I'll lead you through the rest of the procedure
Iain Wolstencroft - Accrington - Fri Jun 14 15:06 2002
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Iain, I re-booted WinXP from the cd rom and over written the previous XP. I have WinXP fully installed now with all the origonal programs that i had previously but i have lost all my documents, it was a price to pay but we must go on. The only problem is that i seem to be missing some drivers ???? as it keeps asking to update them and when i try to play a DVD i keep getting an error saying that WinDVD unable to play untill i set my screen resolution.I have tried every combination i have on my Lap Top using low res colours and frequencies. On searching through the Troubleshoot comands it was highlighted that some of my devices have yellow question marks ( does this mean there is a problem). I know my computer can run XP as it came with it when i bought it and it also could play DVD's.Sorry to gloat on you Iain.
David Grahame - Anstruther,Fife - Sat Jun 15 16:58 2002
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Windows Messaging has disappeared (since recent updates?) and now I have no fax software - any ideas?
Ed - Canterbury - Wed Jun 12 22:53 2002
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Download it again?
Peter Dantick - Oslo - Fri Jun 14 14:49 2002
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Windows Messaging has disappeared (since recent updates?) and now I have no fax software - any ideas?
Ed - Canterbury - Wed Jun 12 22:49 2002
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Can anybody help? The User icon(2 little heads) has disappeared from the Control Panel on my PC, which is operating under Windows Me.Can it be restored and if so how?
BRIAN WOOLLEY - SOLIHULL - Wed Jun 12 17:42 2002
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Brian,
try this first
Go to Start | Run | Type in control inetcpl.cpl users

If this starts your User dialog box, atleast we'll know that it is not corrupted, just the shortcut that is missing.
Come back and let us know how you get on
Iain Wolstencroft - Accrington - Sat Jun 15 23:26 2002
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Thanks Iain.Tried your suggestion which launched the Internet Properties Dialog Box---does this throw any light on problem?
BRIAN WOOLLEY - SOLIHULL - Sun Jun 16 10:49 2002
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I do a lot of video editing on my p.c, but have come across a problem when trying to render large sections (usually over 4gbs) and windows crashes. I`ve been told Win ME cannot handle anything over 4gbs. Does anyone know of any programme I can download to solve this problem? Thanks
chris - portsmouth - Wed Jun 12 16:40 2002
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Hi guys, sorry if this is in the wrong section - not really sure where it belongs. I am having problems displaying a certain website (not illegal - just my own celebrity fansite, http://www.victoriabeckham.2ya.com). I run Win98 and have Freeserve Hometime on a 56k dial-up modem. The site just wont display - it takes a while then I get a time-out message. This only happens with my Freeserve connection, other people (using NTL and BT) can still get my site to open and I can with my other ISP Freeola. This has left me completely baffled, any ideas? Thanks
Karl - Stoke - Mon Jun 10 22:52 2002
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Hi Karl, Just had a look at your first page which took me 17 seconds to fully load which is not bad i'm on AOL, 56k modem. If you are just talking about your first home page opening in Freeserve then there is something wrong indeed. have you tried testing the Freeserve connection? Try this url on all your internet providers for some guide on speed. http://bandwidthplace.com/speedtest/
Frank - London - Wed Jun 19 16:33 2002
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I don't wish to frighten AOL or Freeserve users....but have a quiet read of this article
Iain Wolstencroft - Accrington - Tue Jun 11 06:28 2002
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How do I convert wav files to mp3 files? I use Nero 5.5, Creative Playcentre 2.0 and Windows ME. When I use wave editor I cannot save as mp3 without my player saying the file is not valid!!
Mike - Warrington - Mon Jun 10 22:08 2002
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Can anyone help had a problem with scan disk not running on windows 98 second edition posted the problem a few month ago and was told to run my PC in safe mode and then run scan disk this did the trick, but now when I run disk fragmenter I get a message that there is an error on my drive which needs to be fixed when I run scan disk in safe mode there are no errors found, I have also found that if I run disk fragmenter on safe mode it runs ok. has anyone any ideas whats up? also when I run these two programmes in safe mode I find that when I reboot and check the task schedule the tasks are not recorded as being run
john t - kinross - Sun Jun 09 21:39 2002
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Can anyone help had a problem with scan disk not running on windows 98 second edition posted the problem a few month ago and was told to run my PC in safe mode and then run scan disk this did the trick, but now when I run disk fragmenter I get a message that there is an error on my drive which needs to be fixed when I run scan disk in safe mode there are no errors found, I have also found that if I run disk fragmenter on safe mode it runs ok. has anyone any ideas whats up? also when I run these two programmes in safe mode I find that when I reboot and check the task schedule the tasks are not recorded as being run
john t - kinross - Sun Jun 09 21:39 2002
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Hi, Has anyone out there installed Mandrake or any other kind of linux with windows (dual boot). I know i have too partition my hard drive but not sure if i should make a fdisk partition and install windows then install linux on the other half, or make a linux partition and install on tht first. Please help, tom
Tom - sunnydale - Sun Jun 09 07:52 2002
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Hello all; I have lost my 'open with' and 'new' options from my right click context menu. I have checked microsoft's knowledge base about this, and while I found an answer to the 'open with' problem, the relevant registry entry wasn't missing or different from what the article (Q218805) specified it should be. I had been trying - without much success i must say - to prune my right-click and new menus, but these two have disappered in the last few days. It is very stange and quite annoying! I have Windows ME. Thanks very much in advance.
Stan - Glasgow - Sat Jun 08 19:09 2002
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On the subject of leads I'm going to open up a can of worms and catch some flack (ok mixed metaphor). My Hi-Fi is approx. 4-5 feet away from my computer and is connected by a curly headphone extention lead and a 3.5 to 6.5 jack plug extention. I have no way of knowing if this is inferior to using a single lead or for that matter gold plugs but I am rather fussy about my copying/recording and I honestly can't say that using this makeshift arrangement (which saved me a few quid)has produced inferior recordings.
Keith - Oldham - Fri Jun 07 22:56 2002
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It only takes one weak link in a chain to make it snap & the more links you have, the weaker the chain, so my advice would be to junk the connecting extension leads & use the best single lead you can afford to buy. The improvement may not be much, but if you are concerned about it, you obviously have doubts! Just do it!
eddie - london - Tue Jun 11 19:40 2002
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VINYL to CD I want to record my vinyl record collection onto CD's. Can anyone tell me if I can and how to do it before I start dismantling my hifi?
Sally Atkin - Brigg - Fri Jun 07 19:12 2002
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Hi!. I am in the process of doing cassettes to CD before moving on to vinyl. I purchased Steinbergs CLEAN for Ł25 and wasn't sorry. Its a bit tricky at first but once you've found your way round it's great. I bought the basic package but if you have any spare cash they do a package with a specially adapted Pre-Amp specially for the purpose of boosting the signal from the record player to sound card. It's horses for courses really, it depends on the condition of your records and just how good a quality you are looking for.Good luck.
Keith - Oldham - Fri Jun 07 22:35 2002
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Thanks guys .... Dabs should be delivering CLEAN+ today. Can't wait to get home and get started!
Sally Atkin - Brigg - Tue Jun 11 14:13 2002
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Sally, on the assumption that you have a CD rewriter drive, this is how I did it. Firstly, you must move your hi-fi equipment close to the PC (sorry if I'm talking down to you). Then connect the cassette deck (or vinyl record deck, it's the same procedure) "audio out" to the "audio in" on the PC using a 3.5mm jack plug. A cable costs about Ł4 but I understand that better quality is obtained if you use one with expensive gold plugs. You can copy individual recordings (or tracks) to the hard disk using something like Musicmatch Jukebox which I use but I guess all the packages are much the same. Go into MusicMatch/Options/Source and select Line-in. Start playing your tape/record and click record. When the tape/record has finished click stop and then save it to your desired folder. Repeat this for each of the tracks. Use Easy CD Creator to copy from the hard disk to a CD-R. Remember not to use CD-RW's as they cannot be played on older household or car CD players. At this stage I enter track and artist names although I think Musicmatch supports it. Providing you don't close the CD-R you can add to it. This is useful if you don't have a lot of disk space, i.e. copy a few tracks to disk then to CD-R, delete them from the disk and repeat the process for a few more. I usually copy from hard disk to CD-RW first as it's easier to reorder the sequence or remove bad recordings, then finally from the CD-RW to the finished CD-R. Two things to remember, CD-RW's have to be formatted first and secondly, you cannot delete anything from CD-R's. Oh, and a third thing, you can buy CD-R's that are supposedly better, labelled "Audio Quality", although I've never had any trouble with the cheap ones. Make sure you have a good test run first to ensure you capture the music properly. It can be tricky to start and stop the recording at precisely the right moment and to set the recording level, etc. I suspect you could save directly to CD-RW from the "record" phase of Musicmatch and eliminate the copy to hard disk but I've never tried it. I hope this helps you.
Maurice - Croydon - Fri Jun 07 20:04 2002
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Hi,ca anyone help me please,i have a PC purchased from tiny,it has windows ME,it also has a programme called second chance.Recently i had some problems with java,so i uninstalled it then reinstalled it,and downloaded IE6,now when i run second chance and the pc is about to shut down and reboot i get the following error messages,VFINST9X.EXE,then KERNELL.DLL,followed by,SCTRAY.and finally.UTILFX>DLL.i hope somebody has some ideas as how to help,thanks,
KK - stirling - Fri Jun 07 09:05 2002
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Re previous message. It should read (invalid active X /com)
John Mills - London - Thu Jun 06 22:54 2002
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I hope someone can help me> Everytime i run Norton registry checker I get 15 problems in 1 category. it reads(invalid X/com) I run repair all and it happens again. Norton fixes it by deleting invalid registry entry. This is annoying, is there any way to cure it permanently? Thanks John, London
John Mills - London - Thu Jun 06 20:04 2002
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i have just went to save something on to my floppy disk drive and a message keeps coming up, drive A not accessable, it then tells me that its locked, i have absolutley no idea what this means and i have a load of college work to save. HELP MEEEE!!!
gary doyle - stockton-on-tees - Thu Jun 06 19:31 2002
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Have you checked that the erasure prevention tab has not been moved across on the disk?, to write to the disk the moveable tab needs to be "open".
Tim Baker - London - Thu Jun 06 21:56 2002
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ive checked that, the message is displayed with or without adisk in the drive
gary doyle - stockton-on-tees - Fri Jun 07 18:41 2002
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It will definately say "drive no accessable" with no disk in. If your college work will fit on floppies, have you considered emailing them to yourself at college?, you then have a backup copy in your email program.
Tim Baker - London - Fri Jun 07 21:20 2002
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look i dont know how to say this politely but ive checked all the obvious things. the problem is the disk drive is locked, what does this mean and how can i put it right, ive never seen or heard of this before please help me.
gary doyle - stockton-on-tees - Sun Jun 09 19:41 2002
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Chill, Gary!!! What O/S are you running? Tim was only suggesting the obvious, because, sometimes, it is the obvious that is the problem (Obvious to those who know!)
But seeing as the obvious didn't work, let's try the less obvious.

Does the light come on the FDD when you boot up? If not, ensure that all the cables are securely attached inside, or try a new cable.

Ensure that the FDD is enabled in BIOS

Next, Reboot your computer, go to Control Panel, Click System | Device Manager tab. Expand the Floppy Disc Controller and click Remove, Reboot your computer.

Did you, by any chance, shut down windows whilst you still had your Explorer window displaying the contents of your A:\ Drive and then remove your disk. If so, close the Explorer Window and restart your computer.

What have you recently installed?

Finally be prepared to try a new FDD. These things don't last forever. But post back, and we'll keep trying
Iain Wolstencroft - Accrington - Mon Jun 10 07:37 2002
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Passwords: Running Win98 . I want to have a password to access my computer ? I have tried Control Panel/passwords.... and it gives you a password box to fill in at start up , but if you just close the box it still allows acces to the computer ! whats the point in that ? Any ideas how to do this correctly and so that there is no "bypassing the password" ? Thanks.
colin - Dawlish - Thu Jun 06 16:47 2002
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try setting a bios password(be sure to remember it as you have to type it before windiws can load) the bios password can only be bypassed by removing the battery for 30 minuites or more.no problem. sam
saam stabeler - Thu Jun 06 17:14 2002
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Somehow a program called GAIN/gator has been loaded on my pc, i have looked for it and cannot find it. How can i get rid of this because it is very annoying and keeps popping up everytime i log onto the net?
Mark Baldwin - Wigan - Thu Jun 06 15:50 2002
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you need ad-aware http://www.isfilesserv.com
mark - newcastle - Sat Jun 08 21:46 2002
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Hi everyone. I would like to be able to send/receive faxes from my computer but have no idea what is a good software package to buy and also at a reasonable price. I would also like it to be very easy to use as well! Can anybody recommend anything to me please? With many thanks in advance.
Caroline - London - Wed Jun 05 19:25 2002
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Caroline, I'm afraid I'm a bit of a cheapskate, as I don't use fax much anymore, and only to the UK and US, but to send faxes, I use this You're Always Connected which provides you with your own unique faax number (All of this for FREE), and is entirely web based
Iain Wolstencroft - Accrington - Thu Jun 06 08:11 2002
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Caroline, I'm afraid I'm a bit of a cheapskate, as I don't use fax much anymore, and only to the UK and US, but to send faxes, I use this Masterclick and to receive I use You're Always Connected which provides you with your own unique fax number (All of this for FREE), and is entirely web based, no software to download
(Would help if I got the links right

)
Iain Wolstencroft - Accrington - Thu Jun 06 10:50 2002
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Cool smiley!
Ralph - Manchester - Thu Jun 06 14:47 2002
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Iain, as always, many thanks for your invaluable advice...I shall take a look at both websites. Thank you very much. Have a good day!
Caroline - London - Thu Jun 06 13:46 2002
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My friend has recently purchased a USB printer. Her computer runs on Windows 98 and she has two USB ports at the back, however, in Device Manager these ports are not shown and there is no other ports than com2 and printer. When I tried to install the printer, the computer kept saying that there was no printer attached. I then tried installing new hardward (USB) but the computer is asking for Windows 98 disk to install drivers. My friend bought the computer from someone else and got no disks with it (unfortunately). Could anyone give me advice on how to solve this or where I could download the drivers for her.
Mrs Gibson - Dundee - Wed Jun 05 18:47 2002
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Hi Mrs Gibson Don't know if i am going to be much help but I had the same thing happen to me and I also run '98 so I called the Epson help line (my printer manufacturer) and they were great. I also did not have any discs etc and they said that teh information may already be stored in my pc and luckly enough it was so you could try your manufacturers help line?
PENNY - Wed Jun 05 20:05 2002
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Thank you all so much. There is no Universal Serial Bus in Device Manager either (sorry I didn't include that in original message) and the printer model is Lexmark Z13 Once again, thank you
Mrs Gibson - Dundee - Thu Jun 06 17:25 2002
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Sounds like USB has not been enabled in BIOS. Restart the computer, and press the Delete key on startup
Go to the Chipset Features Setup

You should see USB Controller in there, stating that it is disabled.

Use the TAB to scroll down to it, then use the page up key to change it to Enabled

Press the Esc key, then move to Save and Exit Setup

Save your changes, and reboot the computer. Windows should find the USB Bus Controller and install the necessary drivers
Iain Wolstencroft - Accrington - Thu Jun 06 23:10 2002
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Mrs Gibson,
The USB ports will not show except for a Bus Controller in Device Manager.

Go to the following site, Epson UK and download the necessary driver from there.

Once you have downloaded the file, ensure that the printer is turned on, ignore the add new hardware wizard. The reason for this is that the Epson program you have downloaded contains a number of useful utilities. Now double click on the file that you downloaded, and it will install the necessary drivers and the other utilities in one go
Iain Wolstencroft - Accrington - Thu Jun 06 06:40 2002
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I have listed links to the most popular Printer manufacturers driver sites below
Hewlett Packard
Canon
Lexmark (click Tecnical Support Link)
Epson
Iain Wolstencroft - Accrington - Thu Jun 06 06:53 2002
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I was being a bit presumptuous about your printer model, what product is the printer?
Iain Wolstencroft - Accrington - Thu Jun 06 06:43 2002

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