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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

The Network Is Down – No Internet Access

January 2, 2012 By

I sat down at my computer recently to finish writing my newsletter, only to find the hated words “Not connected.”

Windows 7 was informing me that I had no network connection. Not just no Internet access, but not even access to the other computers on my home network. This was a horrible morning.

Everything worked fine last night when I went to bed. It was time to put on my Debugging Hat…

My first step was to reboot my cable modem and my router. The process was easy and seemed to be fine. Unplug the power to the cable modem; unplug the power to the router; plug in the power to the cable modem; wait for the cable modem to download it’s configuration data from the cable Internet service provider and stabilize it’s lights, plug in the power to the router so it can make its connection to the cable modem and to the other computers and the Gigabit Ethernet switch connected to it.

But, it didn’t solve the problem…

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Filed Under: Communications, Networking, System Repair, Terry's Computer Tips, Web browsing, Windows 7 Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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

Reinstalling Windows XP Upgrade On An Old Computer

June 10, 2010 By

Subscriber Louis Zarowin wrote this week to ask for some guidance. Louis needs to reinstall Windows XP on an old computer that had been upgraded to Windows XP.

At a time like that, we always worry about whether we’ve found all the needed disks and files, so we can make sure that all our software and hardware works again.

Terry:

I have a somewhat older computer I still use (Dell Optiplex GX-110) and I recently was told by “Dell Tech. Suport” who was on line screen sharing with me that I need to re-install the operating system on it all over again.

It originally had a “Windows 98 S. E. on it” then before I actually got it, it was upgraded somehow to “Windows XP Professional” but the problem with just going ahead and re-installing the “Windows XP Professional” all over again is that the “Drivers/Drives” aren’t directly there, so I was advised that if I can re-install the “Windows 98 S. E. again” then “Upgrade to Windows XP Professional” this would be fine as the “Drivers/Drives” for that older operating system can simply be downloaded from the “Dell Website” as they still have them for that older operating system, but they don’t have them for “XP Professional” from what they told me already.

Microsoft will be sending me the “Disc to Upgrade to XP Professional” shortly but I need the “Windows 98 S. E. Original Disc” and that may be difficult to find right now.

Do you have any further information and/or possible suggestions that can help me?

I trust that you will reply to me about this issue when you have a chance and thanks for the assistance in this.

Yours Very Truly,

Louis R. Zarowin

I wrote back to Louis to suggest that he try to get a replacement Windows 98 SE cdrom from Dell. That’s his best bet if he can’t find his original Windows 98 SE cdrom..

Whether you have to install Win98 before installing WinXP or not…

Continue reading Reinstalling Windows XP Upgrade On An Old Computer

Filed Under: Operating System, Software, System, System Repair, Terry's Computer Tips, Usability, Windows Updates, Windows XP

Wireless Problems Solved with New Router

June 7, 2010 By

Readers of my online newsletter will remember Bev’s problems of several weeks ago. Bev upgraded to Windows 7 Home. However, she was no longer able to get to Pogo.com to play games…

I had corresponded with Bev and made sure she had updated to the latest verison of Java (from www.java.com). But, Bev continued to have problems.

My last request to Bev had been that she write to tell me how she ultimately solved the proble.

This week, she wrote back to report that the problem was solved — and in a way that was quite surprising to me:

Hi Terry, Just wanted to update you on my Pogo.com issue that I wrote you about.

I ended up talking to Microsoft and they remotely assisted but after two days they couldn’t resolve the problem, called Linksys who wasn’t any help as router is outdated, called Pogo and they didn’t have any answer and called my ISP.

I finally called my friend who is super busy as computer tech and he did a few things like trying to download update firmware for my router of which wasn’t available any longer and his last fix worked, buy a new router as Windows 7 did not like my old router. So he had me buy a Netgear WNR2000-100NAS.

I did the switch and setup all by myself as their setup disc is so simple and by golly everything is working great besides being fast router for desktop as well. Thank you Terry for all your help, you are a trooper for sure. Happy Thanksgiving early.

The solution was surprising, but perhaps should not have been. Linksys has had a lot of versions upgrading and improving their WRT54G router that Bev used. Her’s was about …

Continue reading Wireless Problems Solved with New Router

Filed Under: Communications, Networking, System Repair, Terry's Computer Tips, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, Wireless

A First Look at Windows 7

November 15, 2009 By

Well, the install was a pain. Not really — but my initial install worked extremely smoothly until Windows rebooted.

At that point, it simply failed to boot with an ambiguous error message that was less than helpful. It told me to reboot the installation DVD and select the Repair option.

When I did selected Repair, there were five new options that showed up. Fortunately, one seemed appropiate — automatically fix the windows installation (or something like that). Unfortunately, it didn’t work. The only good thing was it told me that it was unable to fix it.

Here’s what the real problem was, which was not identified by the Windows 7 RC installation: I was trying to install Windows 7 on a Logical drive within an Extended partition. So far, every Windows version has required that it be installed in a Primary partition.

Continue reading A First Look at Windows 7

Filed Under: Operating System, Software, System, System Repair, Terry's Computer Tips, Windows 7

ReImage for Windows XP

June 8, 2009 By

I received a question from Adam, a Terry’s Computer Tips web site visitor recently, who was having problems with two of his computers:

Hey Terry, just read your XP SP3 woes, got another one two for you. i have a small home network running with shared internet connection. When SP3 came out both computers immidiately downloaded the update. on PC1 the same happen to as did to your previous writer with the dvd-rom issue (gave up and bought another) on PC2 my onboard network adaptor, uh, mulfunctioned and my computer no longer registers any outside computers from my network port. i do not want to use system restore point. is there a way of repairing online? SP2 cd does not work

I wrote back to Adam to tell that there is a new online service about which I have been reading, that might be what he was looking for. InformationWeek, NetworkWorld and eWeek had very interesting articles about it. I also advised him that I have not tried ReImage yet.

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Filed Under: Driver Corruption, Operating System, System, System Repair, Terry's Computer Tips, Windows XP