Hi, Carey.
I work at a small private christian school where I am responsible for our website. Last Tuesday, I changed a page. When I got back to work on Thursday, the My Webs folder that is usually in My Documents was completely gone – along with my website files. I thought someone might have deleted it by mistake, but it was not in the recycle bin. I know I did not delete it. How could it just “disappear” without a trace? Is there a way to put it back?
Undeleting files may be possible with the addition of software that does such, however, adding such software may over-write the area of the hard drive where the data once existed. IN fact, just using the computer may result in that area being written over by the swap file or other temporary files.
In short, getting the data back if it has been deleted may be impossible if the software that undeletes files was not previously installed and if the machine has been used since the files were deleted.
This is why so many people (including myself) emphasize the importance of making back-ups.
If you had any idea how often I hear stories like this, you’d understand my frustration at convincing people to do it who have not yet experienced any loss.
Carey
Windows cannot initialize the device driver for this hardware. (Code 37)
All of a sudden out of the blue my CD-ROM and DVD player can no longer be loaded.
I get a yellow exclaimation in the device setting dialog.
I tried uninstalling and reinstalling using restarts, shutdowns, etc.
I tried uninstalling and disconnecting the drives all to no avail. It seems the CDROM is seen in the BIOS, and works if you use it as a boot up disk but stops working onces WinXP is loaded, so I think its a software issue.
CAN YOU HELP PLEASE?
Yes I tried turning off firewall and virus software also (Norton 2004 internet security) Can I reinstall windowsXP without screwwing up all my other programs?
G
This arises if additional software has gone missing – usually that from a CD burning program that has been uninstalled, but let pointers to it in the registry. Get a registry patch file, cdgone.reg, from www.aumha.org/downloads/cdgone.zip and merge it into the registry and reboot – you should then find the drives and will need to reinstall whatever CD burning package you wish to use.
Carey
Many thanks to Alex Nichol – MVP – for help on this topic.
Carey Holzman owns and operates Discount Computer Repair (602-527-9723) in Phoenix, Arizona, where he offers repairs, upgrades, custom built PCs and network wiring at highly competitive pricing. His networking tips have appeared in David Strom’s book, The Home Networking Survival Guide (McGraw/Hill), and his own book on PC maintenance is currently available at local book stores, amazon.com or directly through him. His free informative web site can be found at http://www.careyholzman.com. Donate $30 to help maintain his site and you’ll get a free autographed copy of his book. Carey can be reached directly at carey@careyholzman.com.
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