Opt,

In my fiddling around I sussed out which was the .pst file I did my import from my old laptop.

I clicked 'Close' on it and it went away - and has not come back. The other file is the one with the larger number of contacts and a huge (deliberately unarchived) diary.

I seem to be have cracked the problem.

Thanks for your interest and help.

TP

Klal,
Epsom SX200 being knoked out at 40 at the moment.
Multifunction (no fax) four inks,card readers.Does more than I
can use.
Was 80.
Got mine from Argos.

My current favourite printer is an HP OfficeJet 7600. It does FAX, scans PDFs directly to computer (via Ethernet) and claims to be cheaper than a colour laser. It uses four cartridges (CYMK). It cost 190 from Staples.

I also have a colour laser from Lexmark which is truly great but ruinously expansive to run (60 per colour cartridge). Other printers on the home network include an elderly HP LaserJet 4000 PS which is also the mainstay for our mono printing requirements.

tyketto, MM - thanks for your inputs.

I've always favoured HP products. The 720c printer that I bought nearly 9-10 years ago is still going great. The only headache is that I am currently using a laptop and I can't connect the HP printer to it. Tried one of those USB-Parallel Port cables with no joy. Budget is max 100. Nearly bought HP 4580 - waiting for stock to arrive at my local Tesco (where else!).

I've got a Dell "All in one" printer/scanner wotsit attached via a USB cable. It's not used for printing as we have plenty of other printers on the network, but it is handy to have for scanning.

My problem is this:

It had been correctly installed and was working fine using the Dell drivers. A week or two back, there was a Microsoft Update with a new driver for the printer/scanner which was accepted. After installing the new MS driver, the printer software crashed on loading. A browse of the internet quickly suggested that MS should stick to software as their printer drivers were cr@p and the solution was to un-install the MS driver and re-install the original Dell driver.

We've tried to do this, but the original Dell driver will now not install correctly. Every time the PC is booted it detects new hardware and tries to copy the driver files into the correct folder but can never successfully complete the operation.

Despite this, the printer/scanner is being recognised and we are able to scan from it using the Microsoft Scanner and Camera Wizard. Being perfectly honest, this is a lot easier than it ever was when using the correct Dell driver, so we would like to continue using this method if possible.

How do we go about stopping it detecting and trying to install new hardware and copying driver files as part of the boot sequence though?

Hilary

Use system restore to put the machine back to what it was before the MS update. This process is reversible, but will delete any other updates or programs that have been installed since the restore point.

A great plus on doing this, is that you shouldn't lose any new data files introduced since the restore point.

I've only had to use it twice myself but I do think System Restore is an excellent facility and a really useful feature.

Thanks, Opti.

I have installed other things since then, so it's a bit more tricky than it might otherwise be. I also looked at the Device Manager which suggests that it's properly installed using the Dell driver.

So why, if it thinks it's already properly installed. would it detect new hardware on boot????

Hilary

I suspect that one feature of the printer is not detected as working properly, so it keeps attempting the to reinstall.

I still think that system restore is your best option even if you have to reinstall a few programs but otherwise, you could try:-

Check in device manager and if there are any devices assocoated with the printer that are not working then dissable them.

and/or

Force a manual hardware check in device manager and see if it will give you the option to ignore that device in future.

and/or

Uninstall the MS and then the Dell drivers completely and then to reinstall.

Before you try any of the above, set a new system restore point.

Best of luck!

Thanks for that tip, Opti.

Device Manager shows it as appearing twice. Once as an imaging device with succussfully installed driver and once as a printer without driver installed.

I've disabled the printer now, so we'll see what happens on a re-boot.

Got a blue screen with atapi.sys apparently identified as the problem. (Whatever
that is.)

I cannot restart the PC in any mode without returning to the blue screen.

Can anyone help please?

Alan

Alan

I suspect that it issome form of hard disk fault.

How you fix it depends on how much risk you want to take with the disk.

The safest way is to mount the disk as a secondary disk in another machine, backup all your data and then run chkdsk /f . That will fix any errors although you may possibly have to repair the system using the install CD.

It is worth checking the connections to the disk and possible pluging it into a different socket.

The other way to recover it, is to boot from the install disk, let setup detect your windows system and then select the recovery option. This will open a command prompt where you can run chkdsk /r (and if you know what you are doing a lot more). This will fix any errors although you may possibly have to repair the system using the install CD if there are any corrupted files. Don't try this if you have a pre Win XP SP2 disk and your hard drive is larger than 120GB.

The other thing to check is that the CPU fan is OK.

Thanks Optimist.

All a bit technical for me..... It is a Dell laptop and I'm not confident about opening
it up.

I'll see if I can find a local engineer who speaks English. ;)

Alan

Alan

Most laptops have a panel at the side where the hard disk is. All you ave to do is undo one or two screws and slide it out. It's best to remove the battery first but you don't have to access any other part of the machine and you can't put it back the wrong way.

Got the disk out OK. All looks clean. Reseated it but still no joy.

On my Dell (Inspiron 9400) there is a Media Direct button which loads video
features etc., When I load that it allows me to access pics I have on my
hard disk to view OK but when I exit that it is back to the blue screen.

Alan

As I understand Media Direct, it loads a reduced OS that is inn this case not affected by the corrupt file. It still points to some sort of disk corruption, but clearly most of the disk is OK.

Simple question , one of the kids has an Acer Travelmate 2410 laptop and wants more memory added.

When I check on different sites what memory to buy I'm getting two different answers , some say DDR2 PC2 5300 and others say DDR2 PC2 4200.

Any idea which one I should get ?

Cheers

I think (but am not certain) that those two are interchangeable in which case you may as well go for the 5300.

Try going to www.crucial.com and run their memory checker. If it's the wrong sort then they should replace it.

They were one of the ones that said the 5300 .

I'll just go for it , cheers Optimist.

Dil: I get all my add-on memory from Crucial (at my age, you need all the help you can get).

Never had a problem with them, great outfit, quality product.