Replies

Have you tried updating or reinstalling the modem driver? Worth trying, if that is the source of the problem. Also, check Start>Programs>Accessories>System Information>Hardware and look at Conflicts/Sharing to see if the modem and soundcard come up together.

If it’s not too scary, go to DOS (either open one in windows or boot to DOS) and run fdisk. Select the option to display partitions, select to see logical drives in extended partition. The partition F: should be shown. If it appears as there, but 0 bytes, you could try deleting it. I would make sure you have backed up EVERYTHING first , ‘cos I certainly have no idea how it happened in the first place Won’t do any harm to just look, though.

What operating system are you using? Helps to know. Have you upgraded the o/s, or installed any new software recently? Any clues as to something that might have disabled cdaudio, etc.
Does your motherboard include any onboard sound? If so, can you try using that instead? It could be that there is a problem with the hardware itself. Do you get any other sounds?
Have you reinstalled the soundcard driver, or just the software? Try Control Panel>System>Device Manager, double click the sound card and select Driver>Update Driver. Unless you have recently upgraded the o/s to a version not supported by the cd-rom that came with the soundcard, use that as the source for the driver and reinstall.

Don’t know about HP call charges, but I have found them to be usually helpfull and reasonably prompt at responding to emails via the support section of the website.

Start>Programs>Accessories>System Tools should give you the Disk Cleanup utility (although not on my PC, for some reason; but that’s another story! ), which will clean out the temporary internet files and other clutter. Otherwise they accumulate more and more each time you go online and eventually fill your hard drive!

Sounds like she might need to reinstall OE. Control Panel>Add/Remove Programs>Windows Setup. Uncheck OE to uninstall it and then reinstall. To avoid losing all her saved messages, in OE Tools>Options>Maintenance>Store Folder, create a folder somewhere, eg in My Documents, and select that as the location for saved email. You need to close and restart OE for the change to take effect.
You can save the address book as a csv file through File>Export>Address Book, but if it’s corrupted, then you shouldn’t, even if you can! Worth having a backup of your address book for the future, especially if there are a lot of important addresses in it. Otherwise, it’s a bit like trusting Microsoft to look after your filofax for you!

Is your browser set to ‘single click to open’ (Folder Options>View)?

I have had lots of trouble with upgrades to Me in the past. Did your friend take the option of saving system files so that Me can be uninstalled? Might be simplest to uninstall and start again – unless there was a point at which Me was running smoothly, in which case Start>Programs>Accessories>System Restore (unless, like me, it has mysteriously disappeared from the menu! ) and see if you have a restore point from a time when the system was working properly.

Not so familiar with OE4. Have you tried upgrading it? Don’t know if Microsoft offer a downloadable upgrade, but it might be worth having a look. Alternatively, you could try switching to somenthing like Eudora, if you want a more flexible/powerful email program. Most cover discs (eg PCPlus) will have something. It’s very easy to choose a folder to save mail with Eudora, as it’s part of the setup process. I think it can do all sorts of other things as well, but cover discs don’t come with manuals, so I haven’t really figured them out!

I have found it useful to change the location for the OE folders through Options>Maintenenance>Store Folder and redirect it to a folder on a separate partition from the O/S. That way I don’t lose anything, short of a complete hard drive failure.

Who is your ISP? Some just don’t have enough severs to handle the traffic.

Win Me is part of microsofts campaign to get away from DOS, so if you want to work in DOS on a regular basis and the MSDos prompt in Windows won’t do, you’d be better off reverting to Win 9x!

Both of these problems seem to relate to the graphics card, so there may be a compatibility/driver problem. What card is it? The next culprit could be memory. How much does RAM does the system have? Also, right-click the ‘My Computer’ icon on the desktop and select properties to see how much RAM is shown – memory modules can come loose in transit.
If Me has been loaded as an upgrade to ’98, it is very easy to uninstall, through Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel; otherwise you wil have to reformat the drive/partition that it is installed on and perform a full setup from the ’98 cd-rom.

Have you installed anything else recently? Could be a conflict. Couple of things worth trying:
Start>Programs>Accessories>Sytem Tool>System Information>Hardware>conflicts/sharing. Check to see if your scanner or usb controller are sharing an IRQ or in conflict with another device.
Control Panel>System>Device Manager>Imaging Device>Properties>Driver>Update Driver. Re-install the driver for your scanner.

If you do a lot of Beta testing, then a Utilities suite like Norton or a specialist Uninstaller like Ashampoo will monitor the installation of any software and uninstall it thoroughly when you are done with it. Could save you a lot of time and trouble. Note that this post was some time ago. Did you get the formatting sorted? Can help, if not.