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Archive through August 14, 2005

The TVClubHouse: General Discussions ARCHIVES: 2005 Jun. ~ Aug.: All Things Technical: The Help Desk ARCHIVES: Computer Problems? Ask Here (ARCHIVES): Archive through August 14, 2005 users admin

Author Message
Texannie
Member

07-16-2001

Monday, August 08, 2005 - 9:44 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
So, is it unanimous that the ONLY way to fix my defrag problem is to get XP??????????

Draheid
Board Administrator

09-09-2001

Monday, August 08, 2005 - 12:42 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Texannie: I can only suspect you may have too little disk space left for defrag to work for you. I believe the requirement is at least 15% of your drives total capacity must be available before defrag will work. You should also perform a scandisk to check for errors. If you cannot get scandisk to run successfully in Windows, try restarting your computer in DOS mode and run scandisk from there.

Upgrading to Windows/XP is not required to be able to defragment your hard drive at all.

Hope this helps.

Texannie
Member

07-16-2001

Monday, August 08, 2005 - 2:37 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Thanks for replying, Dra. I think I've got plenty of disk space. DOS instead safe mode?

Draheid
Board Administrator

09-09-2001

Monday, August 08, 2005 - 2:48 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Texannie: Yes, to check for errors, DOS would probably be the most effective way since you don't seem able to run either program in any windows mode right now. DOS absolutely does not have any programs associated with windows running so you should be able to complete a scandisk in less time too, hopefully.

Texannie
Member

07-16-2001

Monday, August 08, 2005 - 5:54 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Great! I can get into DOS by pressing F8 right?

Jan
Moderator

08-01-2000

Tuesday, August 09, 2005 - 12:03 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Dra, I mentioned a while ago about my friend with mouse problems. The mouse doesn't work - which is a big problem!!

We have now tried three different units (is it mouses or mice??with these) and none of them work.

Someone mentioned to me that maybe the mouse driver is gone???

What does this mean and is there anything I can do?

PS today I also could not get the start menu to pop when I depressed the windows key. Maybe she just needs a new hard drive?Her's is really, really old.

Draheid
Board Administrator

09-09-2001

Tuesday, August 09, 2005 - 12:08 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Texannie: Yes, I believe pressing F8 during startup should give you a menu to select DOS mode.

Jan: If you turn off the computer, connect the mouse, then turn it on, Windows should recognize the mouse and enable it for you automatically. In fact, if I remember correctly, older versions of Windows actually warned you when it couldn't find a mouse at startup. Are you seeing any messages like that? I should also ask, is the mouse, whichever one you're using, connected through the mouse port or to a serial port? (mouse port = round with 6 little pins, serial = 'D' shape with 9 pins in two rows). That shouldn't make any difference but it doesn't hurt to know.

Jan
Moderator

08-01-2000

Tuesday, August 09, 2005 - 12:50 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
the first mouse was connected to a port that looked like a printer port but maybe a bit smaller (ie had the two side pieces you have to screw on) . THe last two mice were in the mouse port.

I didn't turn the computer off and on for the third mouse I tried but I did for the second one and got no messages - it still didn't work SIGH

[PS : Just today I did learn how to shut down without a mouse. Always before we got stuck going through scandisk everytime we rebooted because windows was not properly shut down . Last time I did CTRL ALT DEL then ALT S for shut down since the windows key wouldn't open START]

Texannie
Member

07-16-2001

Tuesday, August 09, 2005 - 1:13 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Dra..F8 got me to safe mode, which I have been using but I didn't see a DOS prompt. What is another way I can restart my puter in DOS?

Whoami
Member

08-03-2001

Tuesday, August 09, 2005 - 1:48 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Just a minor annoyance so far, but....

My mouse pointer is being funky. When I pick up my mouse to re-position it on the mouse pad, the pointer on the screen drifts left and then on down to the Start button.

I don't have "smart move" enabled.

I have a Logitech MX 700 cordless optical mouse.

Anyone know of a setting that may have gone whacky? I haven't changed a thing in my mouse settings. Today is the first time I've noticed this happening.

Juju2bigdog
Member

10-27-2000

Tuesday, August 09, 2005 - 2:20 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Whoami, have you run a virus scan? Any time my mouse gets wanky, first thing I do is run a virus scan.

Whoami
Member

08-03-2001

Tuesday, August 09, 2005 - 2:54 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Thanks Juju! I'm doing that now in fact!

Peapod
Member

01-31-2004

Tuesday, August 09, 2005 - 4:36 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
HI-OK it's doing it again! When I get to the TVCH it says that I am logged in as"undef" but I can't go anywhere because that "user name is invalid". So I log out and log back in as me and then everything is OK. It's not really a big deal to me, but I thought you might like to know. Oh yeah its only on my Mac at home not the PC at work. Thanks
Peapod

Whoami
Member

08-03-2001

Tuesday, August 09, 2005 - 8:54 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
OK, well, I've run McAffee, AVG, Spybot, Adaware...uninstalled my mouseware software, reinstalled it, rebooted.....and its still doing it. Only now its once in a while. Also, sometimes the pointer drifts to the left and then down when I lift up the mouse from the mouse pad, other times it pops immediately to the Start button. This is now getting to be more than just a minor annoyance.

Jimmer
Member

08-30-2000

Tuesday, August 09, 2005 - 9:13 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Maybe the hardware is defective?

Whoami
Member

08-03-2001

Tuesday, August 09, 2005 - 9:18 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
OMG! I think I just found the problem! I thought the next step would be to see if the optic part needed cleaning. I flipped the mouse upside down and....there was a dog hair laying across the optic lense! Problem solved! It was all Bomba's fault! ....and a big on my part! What's that saying....I spent so much time looking for an exotic zebra, and it was just a common horse after all! Well, at least I have a nice clean computer!

Draheid
Board Administrator

09-09-2001

Tuesday, August 09, 2005 - 9:18 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Whoami: There is a page on Logitech's support site HERE that describes some possible explanations for this erratic behavior. Let me know if any of that applies or you need more research. I'm happy to help if I can.

Whoami
Member

08-03-2001

Tuesday, August 09, 2005 - 9:33 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Thanks Dra! We posted at the same time...you'll see my solution to the problem above. First thing I did with the mouse was do a cursory dust off with my hands. Never really occurred to me to turn it upside down and have a look. I did have to take my glasses off and have a good looksee though, cause the hair was very small (grumbles about needed bifocals).

So far, so good! We'll see as the evening progresses if I did solve the problem.

Juju2bigdog
Member

10-27-2000

Tuesday, August 09, 2005 - 11:24 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
LOL, Whoami. Yay, computer geeks!!! Now you can come in here and give that advice to other people.

Texannie
Member

07-16-2001

Wednesday, August 10, 2005 - 2:11 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Dra, I am having trouble restarting my puter in DOS. Could you please help? Thanks!

Draheid
Board Administrator

09-09-2001

Wednesday, August 10, 2005 - 6:35 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Texannie: Two possible methods to try:

1st method: Restart the computer and hold the [Ctrl] key during the initial startup (instead of F8) should bring up the boot menu where you select DOS mode.

2nd method: Click 'Start - Run' and type MSCONFIG in the window and click 'Ok'. On the MSConfig, check 'Diagnostic Setup' and click 'Ok' and Windows will prompt you to restart. On restart, you should see the startup menu.

Good luck.

Texannie
Member

07-16-2001

Wednesday, August 10, 2005 - 9:10 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Thanks!

Texannie
Member

07-16-2001

Wednesday, August 10, 2005 - 7:11 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Well, not sure what happened, but I did finally get to run disk defrag but never could get the puter out of safe mode and ended up having to reformat the whole @#@#$#@$$ computer....i lost everything!!!!!

Texannie
Member

07-16-2001

Saturday, August 13, 2005 - 7:19 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
OK..since i have reformatted, having weird issue with cookies. I have my puter set to prompt for cookies (always have) but now, some sites are letting me in, even when i totally disable and allow all cookies. Is there some other cookie setting I am not authorizing???

Texannie
Member

07-16-2001

Sunday, August 14, 2005 - 2:13 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Never mind, I realized that my firewall had a cookie filter too.