O/T - Computer Problems, help needed!!!
O/T - Computer Problems, help needed!!!
Author
Discussion

Graham.J

Original Poster:

5,420 posts

290 months

Wednesday 26th March 2003
quotequote all
I know most PH'ers are in IT so I was wondering if you could help me.....

On booting up my PC after dinner it got about a quater of the way through it's boot up process, the screen went to a full black screen with DOS style text and told me:

"Registry details cannot be found.......(and something else which I can't remember)"

I left it as it was still "chuntering" and it went to the scan disc screen..............

4 hours of scan disc later and it tells me my graphics drivers are dodgy or something so I do what it says and do the windows update, reboot and all is fine

Is this likely to happen again?

And does anyone know where I can get a backup disc for Windows ME from? As I - oddly - don't seem to have one.

Thanks in advance

Graham

>>> Edited by Graham.J on Wednesday 26th March 02:17

plotloss

67,280 posts

301 months

Wednesday 26th March 2003
quotequote all
Its just got its knickers in a twist Graham, should be fine now...

Try running scanreg /fix as this will refresh the registry from a data file thats right in there.

Matt.

Bruce Fielding

2,244 posts

313 months

Wednesday 26th March 2003
quotequote all
How DARE you! I don't think 'most' of us are in IT at all!

Come on, non-IT people - back me up here!

Bruce Fielding

2,244 posts

313 months

Wednesday 26th March 2003
quotequote all
...However, I have an IT question, too. How do I stop the stream of porn, viagra, septic tank, loan etc. etc. from ever hitting my email. It currently goes straight into the deleted folder, but I'd rather not see it at all. is there anything that can be done?

moleamol

15,887 posts

294 months

Wednesday 26th March 2003
quotequote all

Bruce Fielding said: ...However, I have an IT question, too. How do I stop the stream of porn, viagra, septic tank, loan etc. etc. from ever hitting my email. It currently goes straight into the deleted folder, but I'd rather not see it at all. is there anything that can be done?
If it's the same addresses all the time you can block them. If not it's a bit more awkward, the best advice really is never to sign up to them. If you get anything you are not sure about asking for your email address just don't give it. It's also rather dubious when the offending emails offer to take you off their database by clicking a link. This usually validates your address.

Another trick is have a few toy web based email addresses, if you do need to sign up for anything enter these.

agent006

12,058 posts

295 months

Wednesday 26th March 2003
quotequote all

Bruce Fielding said: ...However, I have an IT question, too. How do I stop the stream of porn, viagra, septic tank, loan etc. etc. from ever hitting my email. It currently goes straight into the deleted folder, but I'd rather not see it at all. is there anything that can be done?


Various things to do:

the golden rule is never reply to any of them, it just proves your address is live, and you'll get more.

be vary careful who and what you give your email address to, most unsolicited mail comes from people buying address lists.

if you're on hotmail/yahoo/aol etc, get a new address with someone else. There are so many people on theose suppliers, that spammers can guess an address and it'll probably exist.

ErnestM

11,621 posts

298 months

Wednesday 26th March 2003
quotequote all


Is this likely to happen again?


Just make sure you have system restore activated. I have found this to be invaluable for the times when some dim bulb in my office has loaded dodgy software with no permission...

ErnestM

PS: To use it, you just restore a registry backup from previous days when everything was working proper

BCA

8,651 posts

288 months

Wednesday 26th March 2003
quotequote all
The best thing about banging your head on a wall is when you stop. The same applies to using windows...

bruce fielding

2,244 posts

313 months

Wednesday 26th March 2003
quotequote all

moleamol said: If it's the same addresses all the time you can block them.


Sounds great... how's it done?

And the reason I get masses of junk is that I foolishly used my own email address in an ad for Pipex when I helped launch the service back in the 90's! there's no going back now...

Big Al.

69,336 posts

289 months

Wednesday 26th March 2003
quotequote all
If your using MS Outlook Express
When a mail come in from an erroneous source,
Select that message then using the Message drop down menu select Block Sender. This adds it to a list and that sender will be blocked in the future.

I was getting a lot of Spam and porno about six months ago, gradually blocked them all, I may get an odd one or two now a month instead of 10-20 a day.

Graham.J

Original Poster:

5,420 posts

290 months

Wednesday 26th March 2003
quotequote all
Thanks for all of your help everyone.

The ironic thing is that I was booting up the computer to make a Master CD in case anything went wrong

All seems to be working fine now.