Recently when I attempted to connect an external USB hard drive to the computer a message appeared saying “USB device not recognised” with the additional explanation that the device has malfunctioned. The same message appeared when I tried connecting a variety of different USB flash drives. The upshot is that I cannot access the drives on the computer. Each of the drives was tested on a different computer and they work fine, so the problem seems to be my computer. It certainly creates a lack of confidence if important data is stored on external hard drives to which access can be refused so randomly. The computer is running Windows XP. (more…)

I organise my media files by renaming them in capital letters. Recently, a dialogue box appeared telling me the file could become unusable if I continue, so I chose not to rename the file. Why is this happening? The computer is running Windows XP. (more…)