When switching the power on at the power outlet, to which my computer is connected, the computer starts automatically without having to press the ON switch on the computer case. Shutting down the computer works correctly, as the machine automatically powers-off and does not start again until I press the ON switch. The computer is running Windows XP. (more…)

Every time there is a phone call the computer turns itself on. I have heard it is possible the computer is infected with a virus, but several scans with Norton Antivirus do not show any viruses. (more…)

When cold booting the computer (i.e. starting from a power-off position) a BIOS error always appears, notifying the computer settings are wrong and giving me the option to run with the factory default settings or enter the BIOS set up. If I enter the BIOS setup the date is 2002 and the CPU speed is incorrect. The computer is a two-year old Pentium 1.7 GHz running Windows XP Professional with 512MB RAM. (more…)

Recently when my computer crashed I attempted to restart the machine. During bootup a message appeared saying there was suspected damage to the hard drive and that all important data should be backed-up as there is likely to be an impending collapse of the system. We have now attempted to boot the computer again but without success. There are very strange noises coming from the machine, so there is clearly an internal hardware problem. During the start up process a DOS prompt eventually appears asking for a boot disk to be inserted. After inserting the boot disk I am then prompted to insert the master CDs (which I know will restore the system software). I am not keen to go down that path yet, as I want to try and save the material already on the old system. I suspect the data may be irretrievable and that we will need to be looking at a new PC purchase. Is there anything that can be done at this point to achieve a normal boot-up so that we can retrieve some important material from the hard drive? The computer is an HP running Windows 98. (more…)

I have configured a batch (.BAT) file on a DOS boot disk to run overnight backup jobs using Norton Ghost. The backup procedure works perfectly, but after the backup has completed I want the computer to automatically power-down. This seems like an easy to accomplish task, but after much research I have not found a program which achieves this task. (more…)