Windows Illiteracy Filter. Help me help my mother via long-distance to understand the difference between memory and hard disk storage, and how to access information on her Windows XP machine that will tell her how much memory she has, if there are any empty slots, what type of memory her computer requires, and how large her hard drive is, including used/available space stats. [more inside]
posted by Devils Rancher on Nov 29, 2008 - 14 answers

I need to change nearly all the drive letters on XP, including the system partition. How do I do this? [more inside]
posted by edbyford on Oct 6, 2008 - 9 answers

Can I use B: as a drive letter, on a modern windows PC, without messing things up? [more inside]
posted by penciltopper on Sep 29, 2008 - 11 answers

Can I get my WD external hard drive back to the way it was? [more inside]
posted by droplet on Aug 19, 2008 - 8 answers

How do I mount a digital camera as a writable drive (to the SD card) in Windows XP? [more inside]
posted by lattiboy on Mar 13, 2008 - 7 answers

I have a big external USB hard drive with three partitions for infrequently used files and backup. I was wondering what kind of file to make to have it automatically open a folder showing the drive when I power on the device and not ask me what I'd like to do with each of the other drives. [more inside]
posted by royalchinook on Feb 21, 2008 - 7 answers

short history: I started to get blue screens on my outdated laptop so I decided to just buy a new one. My new laptop came, I installed a fresh version of xp, rebooted, and plugged my old external in. I got the "Installing drivers for you new hardware" bubble in the task bar then after opening the external drive none of my files were there, but there was the four following: clean (Windows nt command script) install (folder ) windows (folder.. with a windows installation I didn't do!) $$ rename (text document) 230 gigs gone :( The only thing I can think of is the initial blue screens on my OLD laptop were caused by a virus that had infected my external drive? This had all my school notes, notes on books I've read, photos, backups of my old laptops partitions, all that kind of stuff from the past 3 years. I'm feeling kinda, sick, pissed off, and am wondering what the crap could have happened? Any help on this one would be VERY appreciated.
posted by debu on Jan 11, 2008 - 17 answers

How do I move everything from one OEM XP Pro PC to another? Confused by posts I've found. [more inside]
posted by penciltopper on Nov 26, 2007 - 8 answers

Sony VAIO SZ shutdown - startup issues. [more inside]
posted by trinarian on Jul 31, 2006 - 1 answer

Can I dual boot from an XP drive that came from older (dead) computer? [more inside]
posted by DZ-015 on Jul 10, 2006 - 3 answers

Windows XP Drive maintenance, recovery and restore tools. Looking for what's in your toolboxes. [more inside]
posted by filmgeek on Jul 6, 2006 - 3 answers

Windows XP crashes whenever it accesses a specific file. The problem: I don't know what file it is. What would cause such a serious error and how do I fix it? [more inside]
posted by monsta coty scott on Feb 18, 2006 - 8 answers

Firewire and Windows XP: I bought an external Firewire Drive on Ebay. When I plug it into a PC, it's not recognized, and the driver search does not go well. Similarly, if I start up my Powerbook G4 as a Firewire device, and hook it to my PC, Windows is again puzzled. What can I do to help Win XP succesfully work with these devices? Or should I send back the drive and pick my Firewire devices more carefully? [more inside]
posted by weston on Dec 12, 2005 - 25 answers

Is there any Windows XP utility that will tell me what program is accessing my hard drive? [more inside]
posted by crazyray on Nov 23, 2005 - 10 answers

I've taken the role as a graphic designer at a small company, and I also wear the IT hat sometimes. That being said, I'm more of a Mac Guru than (blech) XP. BUT, we have a small file server (40 GB, half full) of data we would like to backup nightly. #1: What's a good tape drive (or other media) for that much data, with room to grow, of course. #2: What software? #3: What's a "typical" backup schedule. I'd prefer just to do incrementals, but how often to rotate tapes/etc...? Thanks!
posted by Wiggo on Oct 6, 2005 - 11 answers

What should I do with my new hard drive? [more inside]
posted by jewishbuddha on Apr 21, 2005 - 11 answers

I've just bought a Lacie 160 gigabyte firewire drive. It's to be plugged into a Windows XP machine, but also to be written to and read by a Mac OSX machine. I want to format it with the FAT32 file system, but Windows won't let me. Is there a way to force the drive to format as FAT32? [More inside...] [more inside]
posted by skylar on Oct 28, 2004 - 5 answers