During the original installation of Windows XP on my computer the hard drive was partitioned into a 35 GB system partition (for the operating system and programs) and 170 GB data partition. This has worked well for the past two years, and I do regular housekeeping on the computer (such as defragmentation, antivirus scans, and antimalware scans). Last time I checked there was 16 GB of free space on the C drive and plenty of room on the D drive. However, suddenly the C drive has become full even though I cannot find any extra data on the drive. In fact, I had to uninstall several programs just to give the defragmentation utility enough space to run! Now that the defragmentation utility has been able to scan the computer it shows masses of red (non-contiguous) files and almost no white (empty) space. Do you have any ideas of what could be occupying all the free space? (more…)

Following your advice I usually reinstall Windows XP Professional every year or so, to clear out the cobwebs and get a nice smoothly running computer. However, each time I reinstall Windows I need to download and install all of the Windows XP updates. Is there a method to roll these updates into the installation of Windows so that they do not need to be constantly downloaded for each reinstallation? (more…)

I recently purchased a new Toshiba L300 laptop computer running Windows Vista. Since I prefer Windows XP, and have a spare copy of the software, I attempted to replace Windows Vista with Windows XP. I proceeded through the standard steps to install Windows XP – booting from the Windows XP CD into the setup. However, when the screen appeared asking on which partition Windows should be installed all that it said was “Unknown Disk” and it was not possible to proceed beyond this point. My research into the problem indicates that Windows XP does not have the drivers for the new types of hard disk. The disk properties are: “Intel(R) 82801 HEM/HBM SATA AHCI controller” and “Intel(R) ICH8M Ultra ATA Storage Controllers – 2850”. As far as I am aware, I will need to install the drivers for the drive (f6flpy3289.zip) at the F6 prompt during the installation loading sequence, which allows for the installation of third party drivers. Are you able to advise whether I am on the correct track and whether I could expect any other problems installing Windows XP on this laptop? (more…)

My Windows XP computer is currently experiencing three problems. First, during Windows logon the computer spontaneously generates an error with the message: “Windows - No Disk. Exception Processing Message c0000013 Parameters 75b67c”. The floppy disk drive usually lights up at this point and if I insert a disk and click “Retry” the message usually disappears. However, occasionally this has no effect and no amount of clicking on “Retry”, “Cancel”, or “Continue” will make the message disappear, and I have to drag it to a corner of the screen to get it out of the way as it will usually persist in whatever application I am working. Second, I have an external USB hard drive of 1 TB capacity which I use to archive various files. Recently I started receiving error messages to the effect that “Windows was unable to save all the data for the file E:\$Mft. The data has been lost. This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or network connections. Please try to save the file elsewhere” when accessing files in that drive. This happens after I have been accessing files in the drive for some, but varying, time already. When it occurs I am unable to access files on the drive and the files sometimes even disappear from their folders! At its worst, if I back out and try to re-enter the hard drive I can get a message like “E:\My Music is not accessible. The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable”. However, if I restart the computer the problem fixes itself although sometimes this is only temporary and I have to do it one or more additional times to clear the problem. Now when the computer first starts the Windows Check Disk application runs. It has been directed two or three times at the external hard drive and once so far at the C:\ drive. Lastly, I was having a problem due to a loose wire in the “master” of a pair of satellite speakers. At some point when trying to re-establish the connection the sound from the “slave” of the pair was lost. Rather than have them repaired I purchased an identical replacement speaker set and, although the “master” now works as it should, I get no sound out of the new “slave”. The LED indicating power on the “slave” does not light on either the original or the replacement “slave”. I have also replaced the sub-woofer and the connections. Does this indicate a problem with the sound-card or some other part of the computer’s sound functionality? (more…)

After using the computer for around 10 minutes the following message appears: “C:\Program Files\Common Files\supportsoft\bin\tgctisi.dll is not a valid Windows image”. How can I stop this message from appearing? The computer is running Windows XP. (more…)