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Adding a SATA Hard Drive to Your System

January 6, 2012 By

Reader Rick Goodier wrote me about the problems he was having adding a SATA hard drive to his new computer.


Hi, Terry. I am a new subscriber just signed on.

Perhaps I will have some suggestions for you as time goes on. I have been playing around with computers for more than a few years.

But today I have a question. I am working to max storage on a new comp I have built. 3 GHz processor, I GB memory, medium video card. I want to have at least two (three better) optical drives, so my ide slots were mostly used up. I put in an extra ide controller card I picked up years ago with an early large capacity hard drive I bought. So I am currently running three drives, one as primary, and two as storage on the extra ide card. Yet I would like to have that PCI slot free for another function, a video recording card.

So, because a 300GB SATA drive turned up at a great price, I got one, realizing that I had two SATA controller connections free on the mobo. I hooked up the drive and booted up, thinking I would see the drive as an unformatted drive in the drive manager function of “manage” under “my computer”. Not there. Bios seems to recognize it, because a new request comes up during boot up, asking if I want to set up a raid array. I tried Acronis Partition Manager, and even dusted off Partition Magic. But no joy while in Windows.

So, here’s my question, do I need to fdisk the drive first, before windows will recognize it? Or is there some magic software that will recognize it, even though windows doesn’t…

Continue reading Adding a SATA Hard Drive to Your System

Filed Under: Hard Drives, Hardware, System Repair, Terry's Computer Tips, Upgrades

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

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

Preparing An Old Computer to be Recycled

January 8, 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.

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 Drives, Security, Security Issues, System, Terry's Computer Tips

Serial ATA Drives and PC Problems

July 8, 2007 By

Reader Ian Holland wrote after reading one of my Special Edition Newsletters, which sometimes go to email subscribers:

Hi Terry,Just read your VERY absorbing newsletter, I have a ( moronic??) question about those SATA hard drives.

I recently ( 2006) built 5 pcs for the office ALL with SATA drives, and they are all the same spec as this one at home with regards to RAM ( 2gb) and processors ( all Pentium 4, 3.5GHz) . So, to all intents and purposes they should be more or less the same ( all ASUS mother boards the same make and type, all with the same version of XP Pro Corp) –except the ones at the office are all on a network to ADSL (yukk!) this one is on a small home network (4pc’s) to cable broadband ( much better!). </em></blockquote>

Continue reading Serial ATA Drives and PC Problems

Filed Under: Drivers, Hard Drives, System, Terry's Computer Tips, Windows XP

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

Hard Drive Replacement Time

February 20, 2007 By

In one of my Terry’s Computer Tips newsletters, I answered subscriber Peter Lieurance’s questions about reinstalling Windows XP.

The following week, I finally did the hard drive replacement that I had been planning. Ultimately, I returned unopened Seagate 200GB drive that I had just purchased and got a Seagate 250GB drive for the same price from the same vendor. Now, that’s a deal…

I decided that, even though I could use the Seagate software to copy my Windows installation to my new hard drive, I would rather do a clean install to get rid of any leftover junk.

Read more in Hard Drive Replacement Time

Filed Under: File system repair, Hard Drives, Windows XP

Adding a SATA Hard Drive to Your System

February 19, 2007 By

Recently, a Terry’s Computer Tips reader asked me about problems he was having in installing a Serial ATA (SATA) hard drive in his computer.

We corresponded back and forth until the problem was solved.

Read about the SATA problems and solutions in Adding a SATA Hard Drive to Your System

Filed Under: Hard Drives, Operating System, Speed Tweaks, Windows XP