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Unable to Write to Flash Drive

October 18, 2011 By

Jerome Safer wrote recently about a problem with his USB flash drive:

Terry,
I have a 4GB USB flash drive I am trying to use in my USB 2.0 port on the front of my Compaq Presario computer.

When I try to save something to it I get a message “I don’t have authorization for this drive”, “Contact the Administrator”. I am the Administrator and I am logged in that way.

Do you have any suggestions on this.

Thanks,
Jerome Safer

First, I wrote back to Jerome to ask if he was a subscriber – I don’t normally respond to questions from people who don’t subscribe to my free newsletter. If they’re not interested enough to subscribe, I don’t have time to provide free consulting for them.

So, I asked Jerome if he was a current subscriber? I don’t see this email address subscribed to my newsletter. I see an old “bellsouth.net” one subscribed, but you’ve apparently moved to a different ISP.

Jerome responded…

Continue reading Unable to Write to Flash Drive

Filed Under: Hard Drive Recovery, Hard Drives, System, System Repair, Terry's Computer Tips

Acronis Releases New Acronis True Image Home 2009

January 21, 2009 By

Acronis has now released their latest version of their hard drive backup utility — Acronis True Image Home 2009. We had some hints that something was coming. The new version is here…but do we need it?

First, what’s an image backup and why should I use one?

Tech Tip
An “image backup” is effectively your own “recovery disk” or “recovery partition”, complete with all your installed programs and data files, too. You can back up onto DVD’s, to external hard drives, to other computers, to another partition on the same hard drive, or to another hard drive in the same computers. Of course, not all of these destinations provide the same level of reliability — if you back up to another partition on the same hard drive, it can save you from a “brain freeze” problem, but not from a hard drive failure!

Some image backup programs can work only with the entire partition, either backing up or restoring the whole partition. Other programs can back up entire partitions, and can also back up only the files that changed since the last full backup. Similarly, some can restore entire partitions, and are also able to restore individual files and folders of files from the backup file.

I’ve used disk imaging for system backups for my computers since about 1995, starting with DriveImage 2 from the former PowerQuest. Ultimately PowerQuest Corporation was purchased by Symantec in 2003, who used Drive Image 7 as the basis of its next Norton Ghost version.

Continue reading Acronis Releases New Acronis True Image Home 2009

Filed Under: Backups, Hard Drive Recovery, Terry's Computer Tips, Vista, Windows Vista, Windows XP

New articles at Terry’s Computer Tips

December 30, 2008 By

There are a bunch of new articles at Terry’s Computer Tips:

Filed Under: Communications, Hard Drive Recovery, Hard Drives, Networking, Software, Terry's Computer Tips, Windows Vista, Windows XP

Windows XP Screen Freezing

October 13, 2008 By

Reader Steve Sturgill wrote to ask about screen freeze problems he was having:

Mr. Stockdale, My OS is XP, my ISP is MSN and I connect through broadband. My problem is, any time I right click, as in attempting to access dropdown menus, my screen freezes. Also I am unable to click on any of the tools in the top, left corner of my screen – i.e. File, Edit, View, etc. This has been going on for several weeks! I have looked extensively for a solution online – to no avail. Several sites suggest using a program called ShellExView, which I downloaded and tried, several times, in vain. Nothing seems to work. Can you please advise me? Any and all suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks very much, in advance, Steve

I wrote back to Steve to suggest some actions to try to resolve his problems.

I’ve seen some strange effects like that before – not those exactly (except the apparent freezing on right-clicking for a context menu).

Continue reading Windows XP Screen Freezing

Filed Under: Backups, Bug Fixes, File system repair, Hard Drive Recovery, Hard Drives, Other, System, Terry's Computer Tips, Windows XP

Preparing An Old Computer to be Recycled

July 13, 2008 By

Recently, Agnes Brach wrote to me with a question that, eventually, applies to all of us:

Hello Terry,
I enjoy your newsletter very much. I have a question that has been on my mind for a while. I have an old computer which i would like to recycle, but have absolutely no idea how to wipe the machine clean. Could you please give me some ideas of what i can do. Have to tell you that I can work the computer pretty well, but do not have a deep knowledge of the inner workings of the machine.

Thank you.

Agnes Brach

If you’re going to donate or sell your old computer, or even throw it away, you have a basic decision to make — how bad do you want to wipe out your personal history and data on the drive?

None of the disk wiping systems are convenient, easy nor fast. In order to wipe the disk, they have to overwrite every spot on the disk multiple times with different characters.

Continue reading Preparing An Old Computer to be Recycled

Filed Under: Hard Drive Recovery, Hard Drives, Hardware, Software, Terry's Computer Tips

Second Hard Drive failure with Windows XP Pro SP2

March 14, 2007 By

I hope it’s just coincidence, but I have just suffered my second hard drive failure with Window XP SP2 — in two months. Fortunately, I can avoid the cost of a hard drive recovery service, since I back up my data nightly across my network to my Linux box.

Both failures were internal hard drives. Both hard drives were installed in their respective computers.

The drives have been running XP Pro for at least 2.5 years, and Service Pack 2 since it became available. So, they didn’t fail within 2 months of starting use, but within 2 months of each other.

Read more in Second Hard Drive failure with Windows XP Pro SP2

Filed Under: Backups, File system repair, Hard Drive Recovery, Hard Drives, Operating System, Terry's Computer Tips, Windows XP

Backing Up My Data

October 11, 2006 By

Back in the days when I made backups of individual files on floppy diskettes, I had learned what I called Murphy’s Law of Backups. This was: “You will always need one more backup copy than you have.” This taught me the importance of backing up my computer.

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Sometimes that rule applied to backing up a drive onto a bunch of diskettes and running out of diskettes. Other times, it applied to actually using the backup diskette itself, instead of copying the data to the hard drive and then using the file. This was the guaranteed way to make the same dumb mistake with the backup copy ;).

In today’s world, there is one tool on which I rely for backing up individual files, and that’s Karen Kenworthy’s Replicator program. At my house, it backs up the data files that are on my notebook, my desktop, and my wife’s desktop to different machines. Most of these end up on my Linux computer that functions as a file backup site and a web development platform.

It doesn’t matter whether you’ve got your data scattered in folders all over your hard drive, or all stored in My Documents. Either way, if you haven’t backed up your data, you’re rolling the dice.

As a friend says, “there are two types of hard drives — those that have failed and those that haven’t failed yet.”

Read more in Backing Up My Data

Filed Under: Backups, File system repair, Hard Drive Recovery