Parrotgeek7

Not really unless you use a 3rd party program to merge to adjoining partitions.

Acronis True Image Use the free version, works like a champ

Have you tried booting into safe mode yet?

Windows XP Shared Computer Toolkit We BETA tested this new package and it seems pretty effective and easy to use. We use it to maintain the computers accessable to the public with some of our clients. If you do any admin work with public computers you may want to check it out.

and make sure you actually have something shared on each computer.

The key won't work, its an oem key for that machine and won't work on a different cd. Unless the pc came with a seperate XP cd , which it doesn't appear to have. I don't think MSFT would have a problem with you reinstalling it as a plain vanilla setup, although, technically it might violate a OEM agreement with the manufacturer of the pc.

Turn it into a blazing heap could it? Probably not but you could crash out your system. (unlikely. The test disables tests which your system can not obviously run)

have you tried booting into safe mode to run the sfc /scan nowcommand?

AHHH...politeness, civility, gratitude....these are starnge words for most people (unfortunately). I agree , it would be a nic habit but we (people who help on message boards) have been fighting that losing battle for years. If only wishing made it so huh?

...from your first answer.To me that seems to indicate you thought it was a desktop, not a laptop. Thats all I was saying. Its not hard at all to replace things on newer laptops, thats why they are modular by design. Beats the hell out of the old one where you had to pry up the keyboards and loosen the screen to do just about anything.

Manual (in pdf) for your laptop click on upgrades/replacements on the left and scroll down a few pages for the complete instructions. ...except he has a laptop and you have a desktop, not exactly the same thing.

How does half of a drive go bad? Which half is it? The top or bottom? Left or right? Its generaly smarter to get he replacement or reccomended replacement part rather then just trying to match up whatever is on sale at your local Big Box store. Laptop drives, unlike desktop optical drives are NOT one size fits all. On a desktop, almost any drive will replace whatever you have, on a laptop, not the case.

The exception there being if he purchased an OEM package with multiple licenses. (5,10,50,100 etc). Then he could give away a license for free if he choose to.

Me thinks you need to get out more.... You don't live in a commune by chance do you?...j/k p.s. we all went by the original info provided, don't expect people to know details you haven't included....not many of us are mind readers you know.

You complain that you hate their software yet you steal it. Either buy a license for it or switch to something else. It will reactivate with a current activation code, a free phone call to msft wil get you that...since you seem to feel entitled to everything else free you might as well take them up on their offer of a free phone call.

I think your computer guy stole my margarita machine and had a few too many. (Is there a 12 step program for outdated tech advice?) As vulnerable as Windows is, sp2 and the crtical updates and patches make it less so. Period. I sincerely doubt "hackers" could get access to those servers and cause a major disruption. I have sp2 on everything and al the updates and no prroblems so far.

The only thing that works well with ME is a sledge hammer. Don't waste your time. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Not true, a gallon of gas and a match works nicely too! ( I shouldn't complain, Compaqs running Windows ME have paid for the better part of my oldest daughters college fund...heh:) )

Did you change a setting to clear your recycle and temp folders etc when you reboot or shutdown?

Groovy....

You can put the drive in as a second or slave drive but not as the primary drive to boot from (unless the hardware on both pcs is damn near identical). If you slave it in, you should be able to access the data and copy it onto a new hdd.

Just reactivate it and tell them you had a hdd crash and had to reinstall. No big deal....just watch out for the MSFT Cops...

There is a reset button on the back of the router which will clear all passwords etc and reset the router to the factory default settings. Consult your local manual for exact location and how long you need to hold in the button for. 10 seconds is usually more then enough.

If she wants to route the internet traffic to the 2nd router, with a different subnet, then she should point the first router at the default gateway of the 2nd and then forward those ports also. Although, I agree, having 2 subnets makes it more cumbersome. Thie first router should be able to handle all of the dhcp so there really is no need for a 2nd one. She can set the static ip to something like 192.168.X.50 and the dns server to be the gateway address of the router and it should work.

On your wireless router, instead of forwarding 5800-5900, try just forwarding port 80, since your wireless is actin only as a switch and you need to access the internet thru port 80. Just a hunch.

Clear out your cache, temp files and cookies and see if that helps.