Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with laptop and xp

Law-abiding civilian wants to kinda remove personal info from a laptop

salvia — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 14:41:33 -0800

What are the basic steps to remove personal information off of a hard drive? (XP Home, SP3) I'm trading up a work computer for a newer one. I'd like to make sure to erase things like my frequent flier password, browsing history and downloaded docs, emailed files, and documents I created myself.

I realize many people would find it easiest just to reformat the hard drive, but I'd rather not do that myself, as I don't know what I'm doing or have the disks, plus that'd look more suspicious than leaving behind a few non-work files. I'm not concerned anyone is going to run file recovery software or investigate me, and I don't have any confidential client data that I need to protect. I don't use this for much besides work, and I never save bank passwords, and they're probably going to reformat the computer right away, so I'm not that worried.

I just don't want someone to open a folder and accidentally stumble across some doc I forgot about ("FindingANewJob.doc") or some cached NSFW pic or pdf download that I clicked on in Metafilter, or some embarrassing google search term, or a personal essay a friend emailed me on Outlook that I edited over the weekend. I'm looking for a middle ground between the Department of Defense seven-wipe wiping standard and/or total reformat, and just leaving behind entire folders full of potentially-personal things.

What's a reasonable way for me to clean files and browsing history off of the computer? Is there a good checklist of folders to empty out? Is there a way to know which folders have exclusively system files and which have user-created documents? If you delete a file, then empty the Recycling Bin, is that pretty good or is there one step further you need to take to keep someone from accidentally encountering TMI?

If it matters, I am one of three users on the machine, and I don't know if I have full admin privileges, but I can add and remove programs.

I realize this is a pretty common question, and I've found some decent eHow articles, but I trust AskMe more than my googling skills. Thanks a bunch for any advice you can offer.

install Windows XP on Vista laptop

gigimakka — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 22:43:49 -0800

Trouble installing windows xp on a vista laptop (Acer 6530) I wiped my acer 6530 laptop hd, and upon attempting to install windows xp, it only recognizes 131 GB of the 250 GB hard drive.

Is this because I did not install the Win XP BIOS before I wiped the drive of Vista? (I have the XP bios on a flash drive, downloaded from the Acer site.) I did change the original Vista bios settings from AHCI to IDE, and boot order to DVD ROM drive first.

I'm considering 2 plans: 1) Install Win XP on the 131GB space I do have, and then install the Win XP BIOS, re-wipe the HD and re-install Win XP, or 2) Re-install Vista, replace those Vista BIOS with the XP BIOS, and then re-wipe the hard drive and do a clean install of Win XP. Which would you recommend?

Alternatives? Thanks...

Local Profile Not Found...Wha???

too bad you're not me — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 15:56:42 -0800

I recently logged onto my computer (Windows XP), and it said "profile not found". Help, please! Today I started my laptop, and at the welcome screen it said that my local profile was not found, so I was logged onto a temporary profile. All my personalized settings were gone (i.e. desktop picture, menu settings, default internet browser, etc).

I tried to google the problem, but haven't been able to find anything super helpful, and the only AskMe question seemed to be about a work computer that was connected to a server. Mine is a home laptop not connected to a server.

I'm fairly certain all my files on the hard drive are still there, but is this indicative of a problem with the hard drive?

Has anyone had this happen? Why did it happen? Basically any info would be great! Computer savvy people...come to my rescue! :)

Pixels not included.

_dario — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 13:02:44 -0800

I'm at my wits' end trying to find a suitable LCD monitor to use as a secondary screen for an oldish Toshiba laptop. I have an laptop, a Toshiba Satellite A30 with an intel 82852-GM graphic chipset. I would like to buy an external monitor to use it (mainly) to watch movies. My size and price requirements direct me towards a 22" flat panel, so I looked into the market for those. Speakers are not a requirement since the audio output from the laptop is hooked to a hi-fi system, and the input port should be the classic VGA.

First disappointment: I saw an LG panel that looked great, (WG2234, apparently not marketed in the US) but - turns out - the laptop is not able to drive the panel with its native resolution (1680x1050). A little research on forums pointed out that there are many laptops with that same problem - apparently all those that have that graphics chipset which - besides Toshiba - was used by Dell, Acer and others.

A possible solution that was presented would be to download a developer kit from Intel and compile a custom driver for the resolution/frequency of that specific monitor. I don't want to do that, since success is apparently not guaranteed and I'd need the monitor anyway to make tests, etc., with a sizeable chance (I think) to damage it or void the warranty by feeding it the wrong res/freq values.

Browsing the list of resolutions the graphics card is capable of, turns out that no 16:10 resolutions are supported, while 16:9 resolutions as 1920 x 1080 are, so I turned my search into 16:9 screens, such as this Samsung 2233SN (apparently marketed as SW in the US), which looks good and has the right resolution.

Second disappointment: I had the monitor ordered from the store and took my laptop to check if everything matched, just to be sure. Despite numerous attempts by me and the guys at the store, there was no way to have the laptop and the monitor hook up correctly: even when the laptop resolution on the secondary desktop was 1920x1080, the monitor would have two black lateral bands, and all icons and such would be horizontally compressed, so in the end I had to leave it at the store.

My only hunch is that the 1920x1080 res. from the laptop is actually a lower resolution, which is then supposed to be stretched to a 16:9 factor by the display, but other than that, at this point I'm out of ideas. Can you suggest alternative models or - preferred - a way to have the (Samsung) monitor work as expected?

Why can I install Ubuntu but not Windows?

spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 07:54:58 -0800

Why can't I install Windows XP Pro on my Dell laptop? I get an error message that says "acpi.sys is corrupted". I can install Ubuntu 8.04 just fine. I've searched various forums for this issue and haven't seemed to make any headway. I used (retail) disc to successfully install XP Pro on my sister's Gateway laptop just to see if it was a problem with the disc. It wasn't, and the install proceeded normally.

I updated the BIOS to the latest version and that didn't do anything. I've searched every BIOS setting for anything related to ACPI but can't find anything. I know ACPI is a power management setting, but there's nothing in the BIOS that says ACPI anywhere.

I've tried pressing F5 during the install to change the Hardware Abstraction Layer. I've tried every option there with no luck. I finally tried to install Ubuntu 8.04 and that worked perfectly. I just need to be able to install Windows to run a couple of applications that can't run under WINE/Crossover Linux/Other Emulators.

It's a Dell Precision Workstation M65 with 2 GB of memory, with the A10 BIOS version (formerly tried under A04 and got the same error). It used to have a corporate image of Windows XP Pro on it, but when I lelft my job I was locked out of the laptop (I used a live CD to back up all my data and then reformatted the drive). After that, I can install Ubuntu but I can't install Windows. Weird.

Any clues? I'm getting by with Ubuntu and Open Office, but I'd really prefer the option of running Windows here.

I love Vista, hate the way it handles flash drives. Obi-Wan, Help Me!

damiano99 — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 08:51:06 -0800

I love Vista, hate the way it handles flash drives. Obi-Wan, Help Me! I use a Vista laptop and an XP desktop for work. When I copy anything from the XP machine on my flash drive and use it on my Vista Laptop, it won't let me delete or re-save it after editing, saying the file is Read-Only. Even if I copy something to it from the Vista machine it always asks to confirm things. I know UAC is a pain in the neck but is there anyway around it's behaviour on flashdrives?

7200 rpm or 5400 rpm laptop drive.

dancestoblue — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 10:31:13 -0800

7200 rpm or 5400 rpm laptop drive, that is the question. I've got a pretty dang nice Dell laptop, 2 year old Inspiron E1505, top of the class when I bought it; OS -- XP media center (MCE), intel T2300 core duo 1.66GHz. The best lcd Dell offered then, it's perfectly beautiful, great for watching DVDs or whatever. A nice machine. I upgraded/updated from one to two gig of ram recently.

But -- I am the last person on the planet to buy a laptop with a 40gig hard drive. Seems that it's choking and gagging and I'm thinking that the stumbling point is the bitty drive, considering upgrading to a faster and larger drive (250 gig 7200rpm hitachi) and reloading the OS and other software that's on the machine.

It'd be nice to have all the mp3s local and some of the other media also, make it easier to keep track of it in one place. Maybe dual boot with some linux OS, find out what all the fanboys are jumping up and down about, maybe even get myself a linux hat or t-shirt or something to make certain that I'll never get laid again... so maybe I won't get the hat or tshirt after all and won't talk about it to anyone other than online people and this one techy buddy of mine.

But the question for the hive -- replace the drive with the faster one or not? Is it eighty bucks well spent? (I could easily get 250gig for fifty bucks or less but not as fast, 5400rpm rather than 7200rpm, so I guess it's really only an extra 30 bucks, as going with a larger drive really is inevitable.)

Thanx in advance.

More like WRONG arrow key, amirite?

Rhaomi — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 19:52:28 -0800

My laptop's right-arrow key is remapping itself. Any tips for diagnosis or repair? The right-arrow key on my laptop is behaving badly. It seems to be wildly remapping itself several times per second, varying between a few keys. After a little testing, here's what I found out:

- Inside a text field, pressing it will produce either "n/ " or "b". It varies between the two randomly with repeated keypresses. Example:

n/ bbbn/ n/ / bn/ / n/ n/ bn/

(Yes, I realize it typed "/" twice in the middle there -- no clue why)

- When it does type "b", it also minimizes whatever application I'm using.
- When testing in Notepad, pressing the arrow also displays the little underscores under "File", "Edit", etc. that usually appear when you press "Alt", suggesting this key is getting selected, too.
- To see exactly how the key was working, I brought up a driving game that has an area in the menu to test the controls -- pressing the acceleration key will fill up a bar slowly to the maximum speed, for instance. I mapped this function to the arrow, then pressed it. Instead of filling the bar smoothly, it caused it to jitter around a bit but never increase, as if I was lightly tapping the key over and over again.
- Lastly, and most puzzling: the problem comes and goes, seemingly not tied to any one program or process. It'll be there when I boot up, disappear for awhile, then return for no visible reason.

I thought the problem was rooted in a Windows Update I had recently added that XP had been nagging me to install, but rolling back to the pre-Update (and pre-problem) state via System Restore didn't fix it. Rebooting does nothing, either. And I don't have any spyware or viruses, to my knowledge -- my AV software hasn't given me any warnings lately.

My laptop is a Dell Latitude D820, running Windows XP SP2.

Any thoughts? Are there any Microsoft diagnostic tools I could run to repair this irritating little problem?

Automagic Update Ate My Connection

geekyguy — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 09:41:06 -0800

WindowsXP laptop, performed an XP automatic update on itself and has since had no internet connectivity. Despite connecting and receiving an IP address. It connects to the wireless router.
It connected to the wired network I have access to.
Neither time does it have actual connectivity.

System Restore worked once but I failed to shut off the Automatic Update, (Honestly, I don't think I had selected it), and it updated again at 3AM. System Restore no longer works. Even attempting to use the same System Restore point that initially worked has proven fruitless.

I have loads of homework and don't have time to nuke it. Please help me restore the connection. So glad I have a Wubi Ubuntu on here, the connection is fine over here.

Should I reinstall XP?

Kiwi — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 00:38:37 -0800

Should I reinstall XP to speed up my laptop? After a couple of years of use, my laptop is starting to run a little slow. I've heard that uninstalling and reinstalling Windows XP and all other programs can speed things up dramatically. Is it worth the hassle of doing this? How long before it starts to slow down again?

Ram with a View

Iteki — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 12:43:07 -0800

Going to try "downgrade" my new laptop from Vista to XP. Most painless method? Software to identify all drivers or other methods? The providor (Packard Bell) doesn't offer downgrade disks it would appear, and while the support page for the unit describes most (all?) the drivers they have for Vista, I am thinking there might be a simpler alternative? I googled for driver identifier software but what didn't seem dodgy seemed to be pay. I am terrified of missing something and not knowing what the yellow question mark refers to. For the actual install I am gathering that booting with the XP disk in is the business?
All hand-holding appreciated, and sorry for the lame title.

Best US$1K laptop?

bodega — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 07:43:41 -0800

Best US$1000.00 Windows laptop? This is mostly for word processing, email, and browsing, but I'd like to get the best value possible. And, even be able to run a game or three.

Other requirements:
* Would like to order online today or this weekend
* OS should be included - XP preferred, but not essential
* Ability to game (WoW / Hellgate / Civ) important, but not essential
* Reasonable portability (~15" screen?)

Here's a baseline (refurb) machine from Dell for about $920:

Vostro 1500 Notebook: Intel Core 2 Duo T5470 (1.6GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, 800MHz FSB)
Operating System: XP Pro
Memory: 2 GB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz (2 DIMMs)
Hard Disk Drive: 160 GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)
Video 128MB NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS
Media Bay 8X DVD +/- RW w/dbl layer write

Any other suggestions?

Help me lock up some laptops.

bartleby — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 14:26:50 -0800

Need to protect sensitive data on laptops taken out to the field. Something like Bitlocker, but for XP maybe? So my organization does financial auditing now.
They're doing more and more work in the field, taking laptops out to a client, filled with the client's sensitive financial data and coming back with more of the same.

I'd like to do something to protect the laptops (actually, the data on them) from loss or theft a la "Someone at the VA left their laptop on the train, so now your medical records are out there for sale somewhere".

I was thinking of something like BitLocker but for XP.
(but not so much, since BL seems to encrypt the entire drive and only decrypt file by file once you're in - which seems like it would slow every single disk operation?)

Require an encryption/decryption key on a USB stick, so if that's separated from the laptop, the information is inacessible?

I would just have them put the sensitive data on USB sticks, but I think they'd be even more likely to lose those. If they lose a decrypt key, at least I could give/send them a replacement and admonish them for losing the keys, rather than worry about having lost the data.

Suggestions?

Show Off (Mk II)

chairish — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 17:53:42 -0800

I need some (more) help to set up a presentation station for a school foyer. I have an elderly XP laptop and 17inch LCD screen mounted some distance away. I'm coming back in after asking the same question a couiple of weeks ago.

I have set up the screen and laptop combo but am still looking for a way to play photos, powerpoints and movies in a playlist. I want the end user to start up the laptop, click on one button and have the thing play solidly for eight hours. Then turn it off at the end of the day. And repeat daily.

VLC (which was suggested in reply to my original question is just too buggy. Windows Media Player will do photos or moveis but not both in the same playlist (not that I could work out anyway).

Help! Please!

New laptop with XP for under $500?

nzero — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 12:59:17 -0800

Is it possible to buy a new laptop for around $500 with Windows XP? I'm trying to purchase a laptop for my grandmother who lives across the country. She is absolutely insistent that she wants Windows XP instead of Vista. Since she lives so far away, I don't really have the option of buying a laptop and a separate copy of XP and installing it myself. I have searched all the usual places, and I simply cannot locate a new laptop with Windows XP on it. Do they exist anymore? Are there any places that would install Windows XP on a laptop before they ship it?

Did my new RAM kill my video adapter?

YoungAmerican — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 17:31:06 -0800

BSODFilter: I tried to install a RAM upgrade in my girlfriend's Dell Inspiron 1100 laptop, and got nothing on screen after powerup. So I replaced the old DIMM, and got the BSOD -- the file that was missing was a driver for the Intel video adapter. Long story short, it's still not working. I wiped the HD, reinstalled windows, reinstalled the drivers, and after some installing and re-installing, finally have the computer starting up in XP. But it's giving me the BSOD seemingly randomly every hour or two. This is with everything as it was BEFORE the troubles started.

I spent a number of hours on the line with tech support, they seem completely baffled. In typical tech support fashion, all they want to do is install and reinstall drivers. I've googled my rear off, but to no avail.

Could I somehow have zapped my video adapter when I installed the DIMM? Could they conflict somehow? Would replacing the video adapter fix the problem? Could I replace it myself, as someone who's never done anything more than replace drives and RAM?

If I start up with the new RAM only, I can get it going in safe mode, but with weird purple lines up and down the screen.

I was about to buy a new computer to replace this one, but part of the plan involved getting a few hundred bucks for the oldie-but-goodie, which won't work if it's an oldie-but-baddie. Help me mefites, you're my only hope.

One foot in the grave (ie XP)

MaverickX — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 07:41:30 -0800

Is this stupid: buying a Vista laptop intending to immediately install and dual boot XP Professional? So I'm in the market for a new laptop and most of the new models have an option for Vista or XP Pro. Now it feels counter-intuitive to order a brand new laptop with last year's OS, but XP Pro has proven to be both reliable and stable.

If I do get a Vista laptop (probably Home Premium, possibly Business?) I would have to install XP Pro and dual boot almost immediately since my law school administers tests via Examsoft's Softest (which has yet to have full Vista compatibility...plus even if it did, I'd be too fearful of it crashing or locking up while uploading/taking a test).

My question I guess is: should I expect to run in any problems using an XP Pro dual-boot installation from Windows installation gunk, hardware incompatibility, etc?

Help Me See What's In The "Hidden" Partition

Gerard Sorme — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 18:34:33 -0800

My laptop comes with a "hidden" partition that is approximately 1.5GB in size that contains drivers, configuration settings, recovery utilities, etc. How can I see what's inside and browse that partition? I have tried assigning a drive letter using Partition Magic - but that returns error messages. I would like to take a peek for a couple of reasons, but the major purpose would be to grab the drivers and perform a clean install of XP, free of all the "crapware" that is all over the C: drive. Any ideas?

How can I display hours and minutes remaining on the Windows XP battery icon?

richardhay — Sat, 28 Jan 2006 06:50:46 -0800

WindowsXPFilter: How can I make the power meter icon on my new laptop display the time remaining in addition to the percent of battery power left? On an older Windows XP laptop, the battery icon in the system tray would display both the time remaining before the battery would die (in hours and minutes) and the percentage of charge remaining in the battery. On my new laptop, the battery icon only shows the percentage remaining. How can I add the hour and minute display? I've looked through all of the options that I could find and have Googled extensively, but couldn't find anything! Help!

Laptop XP Installation Hang

armoured-ant — Thu, 29 Sep 2005 07:15:28 -0800

Windows XP reinstall troubles. I'm fixing a laptop for a friend of mine, but in the middle of Windows XP Pro reinstall, the installer stops at 35 minutes remaining, while 'Installing Devices'. The installer stops at 35 minutes, though the 'XP Notes' text still cycles through its bits, and the green progress squares flash in their silly little squence. But even after a fe hours, nothing budges. No disc activity. Nowt.

I've tried several different XP CDs - some genuine, some less so. I've tried heading into the BIOS and turning off every component I can. Needless to say, all external devices are already disconnect. One site I found (via Google) alluded to an L2 Cache problem, but there's no means of disabling the L2 Cache in the BIOS (Even after upgrading to the latest firmware). It's a Fujitsu Siemens Lifebook C1020, 1700MHz P4/256mb RAM.

And I'm stumped.

WiFi connection problemon open networks

timnyc — Sat, 08 Jan 2005 10:18:47 -0800

Wi-fi woes. My XP laptop connects to the Web on my open home network, but I've had problems connecting to other open networks elsewhere. [MORE INSIDE] I'll get green bars, but no connection. This has happened in a local coffee shop w/ an open network. And a public library where I followed their directions on changing my settings. Both places had many other people happily surfing. I've also tried NetStumbler while driving in a car, finding an amazing density of open networks (this was suburban Chicago). While it's fun to see the names of the networks ("Alien Fast Food" was my favorite), I wanted to connect. (Not sure if this is legal... not that I really care.) Sadly the only time I (almost) had wifi connection outside the home was at the airport, where I connected to a Web page asking me to pay. No thanks. I'm looking for any good pointers or a good resource on connecting to open access points.

XP install: how do I find my sound card's drivers? And what programs do I really need?

twine42 — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 15:23:50 -0800

Laptop Clean XP Install:
1] My (on board?) sound card is unrecognised. How do I find out what drivers to use?

2] What programs do you really think I need? I already have VNC, VLC, Firefox, Thunderbird and AVG installed. What else should I add? (Freeware/OS appriciated but not needed.) VNC = Remote access program
VLC = DVD player type thing
AVG = AntiVirus

Whoops!

Mayor Curley — Sun, 26 Sep 2004 07:31:42 -0800

My girlfriend took her work laptop (running XP Pro) home, and I thoughfully messed with the settings when she left it on the table.

I switched the computer from her work domain to our home workgroup in an effort to transfer some mp3s from our central computer. Of course, the settings wouldn't take effect until I restarted. So I did. Now, I can't get past the login screen-- it tells me that it can't log in and to make sure that the domain and password are correct.

What do I do, besides make her call tech support first thing tomorrow?

Help me with my wireless

grumblebee — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 21:14:02 -0800

My laptop can no longer receive the Internet! The internet comes, via DSL, into my DESKTOP pc. The Desktop's DSL modem is hooked up to a LinkSys Wireless-B router, which broadcasts the Internet signal to my laptop. The lights on the LynkSys are blinking as usual. My desktop is receiving the web just fine. My laptop IS showing the little "connected" (two-computers) icon in the system tray, and when I hover over it, it says "Wireless Network Connection... Speed 11.0 Mbps, Signal Strength: Excellent." But when I start of a browser, I can't get to any page. I CAN get to the same pages on my desktop. Help! Both systems are running WinXp. My laptop is a Dell Inspiron 8600.

Wireless Network Setup Question (for PC)

scarabic — Wed, 24 Dec 2003 09:55:29 -0800

Twiddling my thumbs... wirelessly! I'm setting up a new Windows XP Pro laptop with built-in 802.11b. It seems to detect our Apple Airport (I) base station just fine, and connect to it. Just can't get any network services through it (ie: web pages are all 404s). Any suggestions?