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FAQS!
FACTS! FAX! 338 (05/11/02)
Q
I have a 6.4 Quantum hard drive, which crashed whilst
installing a program. When I try to boot (even with DOS boot disk) the message
is that the FAT is not valid and I have to start with fdisk and so on, but I
know that if I do it I restore the disk but I will lose all the data on it. I
set it up as secondary drive on another machine and I can only view the
contents of the drive using Norton Diskedit. However, this program was too difficult
to me to use to perform a decent recovery, without making a mess so I installed
a demo copy of R-Studio from a computer magazine cover disc. The results looked
good, I was able to recover a few files but the demo has a file size limit of
64kb. Everything appears to be still on the crashed disk. Is there such a thing
as a free and simple recovery program or should I just give up?
Sergio Zaniboni
A
There are several shareware and freeware recovery programs
on the market, and some of them are quite good, but the more attempts you make
the greater the chance that the data on the drive will be permanently lost or
corrupted. Since you have been getting promising results with R-Studio it makes
sense to stick with it. Presumably the data on the disc is worth a great deal
more to you than the very modest Ł32 being asked for the full program, and
believe me, you can pay a great deal more for data recovery software and
services!
Q
Having
purchased a
new computer I thought I would keep the old one to experiment on. It is
a
P166MMX 16Mb Memory, 1Gb hard disc loaded with Windows 95. It has
become increasingly slow despite having defragged the hard disc
and finally although I can switch it on and get to the Windows Desktop
it hangs
on the egg timer. I’ve tried leaving the machine on for an hour or so,
but
nothing changes. I had hoped to get into the Start menu and clear off a
lot of
obsolete programmes, games etc. in an attempt to speed it up. I realise
it
is not really worth bothering with, but I do enjoy learning about
computers and
thought this was one way of doing it without corrupting my new one.
Would it help if I took Windows 95 off
and re-loaded it?
Susan
Thistlethwaite
A
Don’t give up it’s a great way to learn what makes Windows
tick. If you’re able to boot to the desktop there’s probably not a great deal
wrong with it and the problem is almost certainly caused by something loading
with Windows. You should be able to get into Windows and start troubleshooting
by starting the machine in ‘Safe’ mode. Press the F8 key immediately after you
switch on and select Safe Mode from the menu that appears. Start by removing
all of the shortcuts from the Startup folder and try a restart. If that doesn’t
work you can try uninstalling unused programs from Safe Mode, rebooting each
time.
Q
In
the next few weeks I hope to replace my 5-year old PC. The old machine has
Windows 95, Smart suite 97, Quicken 2000 and is fitted with CD-ROM and Zip
drives. The new PC has Windows XP Home, MS Office and a CD-RW drive. My
question is: how do I transfer all my Quicken and Smart suite files?
Pieter
van Dijk
A
It
all depends on how large these files are. If they add up to less than 10 to
15Mb, say, it’s probably quicker to copy the lot using a set of floppies. Your
Quicken files will also certainly fit on one or two floppies, use the Backup
facility on Quicken’s file menu to export your data to a floppy in drive A.
Once you’ve loaded Quicken on the new PC use Restore (also on the file menu) to
import the backup files. As for the rest, you can use the disc spanning option
in the compression utility WinZip (www.winzip.com)
to copy across your Smart Suite folders. Other options include copying all of
the files you want to move to a Zip disc then temporarily install the drive on
the new PC. You could slave the hard disc drive in your old PC drive to the
hard disc in the new PC or connect the two machines together using a utility
like LapLink or a USB serial data transfer cable.
Q
I downloaded an
article from the Internet and saved it in "My Documents" to read
later. I can't read it and I can't delete it. Whatever I try it comes up. Explorer caused an
invalid page fault in module wzshlexi.dll. and will now shut down. How can I
get rid of it?
Terry Mason
A
I can find no mention of that file but there is a
Wzshlext.dll, which is part of WinZip. If that’s corrupt, and the downloaded
file was zipped’ then that may explain the error message. Try uninstalling and
reinstalling WinZip. Otherwise, if you just want to get rid of the errant file
restart your PC in DOS mode and use the following commands:
‘cd\’ (without the quotes, then press Return)
‘cd mydocu~1’ (press Return)
‘del xyz.zip’ (where ‘xyz.zip’ is the name of the file you
want to delete) Press Return and it will be no more.
Q
I have recently upgraded to Outlook Express 5.5 to enable me
to run a tax calculator/Return program. Ever since OE has taken much
longer to open and it can take up to about 15 seconds to access any one
folder. Once they have been opened it is possible to move around
them without this overlong delay.
Is this a problem with OE 5, is something wrong with my
machine or is there a setting within OE, which allows all the folders to
open or at least load when you launch the program?
David Thomson
A
There are at least three possibilities, two involving
corrupt files in Outlook Express and the other concerns a conflict with McAfee
Virus scan. Have a look at Microsoft Knowledgebase article Q235300, which shows
you how to replace those iffy files. The simplest way to access the article is
to type the number into the Find field in a search engine like Google (www.google.co.uk).
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