FF:WA Need stuff, advice, and/or general help

Ill do it just give me a couple of days to get some other things down

 

Cheers dude!

 

upto you, but current ETA is 1hr 30, if you want to get it tonight. Not trying to steal anyones thunder, I just dont have anything to download right now

[edit: eta of the file, not myself]
[edit: got it..]

 

You rock SJ! But unfortunately we are without transport and wouldn't be able to come and pick it up. Although Soup can "borrow" a car from work tomorrow and possibly swing by and pick it up, if you have any spare time that is? Can you PM me your number and I'll get him to give you a call.

 

I'll be in until 10 and then again later (for safety call it 2-3pm) onwards. Yep.. a busy day.. sigh

 

or around 11 I'll be near the Westnet building in Osborne Park

 

That's like right near where we live. We're on the opposite side of the freeway from it though. I've given Soup your mobile number so he can give you a call. I know he wants to spend as much time as possible out of the office today so he should be able to get a car, it just depends on when he gets my e-mail.

 

I've recently started getting an error message for something called Dr Watson Postmortem Debugger. I don't know what it is, or why it's suddenly started popping up. I've done some google searches on it and people say that a virus is behind it, but I don't understand the ways they say to get rid of it.

Has anyone else discovered this... whatever it is? Any basic ways that I can get rid of it? Anyone know anything about it at all?

 

Dr Watson's a part of Windows in recent versions. It's nothing to do with any virus, though it's possible a virus could be causing the problem that Dr Watson's picking up. It's basically a utility that keeps information about system errors etc. If anything major goes wrong it pops up with details but usually you never see it. If you're getting messages from there, it's a symptom of one of any number of problems. Can't help any more than that without more info unfortunately.

 

Dr watson is a standard windows error reporting tool. Its potentially a bad thing, as it saves everything in memory to 'error report' files (which incidently, I have no idea how to read, hence, they're useless). Generally these files build up and build up and just take up stupid amounts of space. In previous versions of Windows (prior to XP), you could turn it off, but XP just seems to run its check when you run the program, so other than removing the files/registry keys Im not certain how to remove it. (never had to) However, you if it's apparently a virus that affects this programs general running.

Please use the Link below and get Kaspersky installed,make sure to get the Extended Database!
here

Once you have Installed Kaspersky and Have scanned just as described,please download and Install these 2

Sygate Personal Firewall:
here

SpywareBlaster:
here
Update Immediatly!

Once those 2 are Installed and Updated,Run MSCONFIG and enable everything in the startup area. To get to MSCONFIG, click on Start -> Run -> type in MSCONFIG -> click OK!

Under the "General" Tab
Make Sure Normal Startup is Checked!!

Click Apply>>Close>>Follow the Prompts to Restart!!

Restart Normal and have the PC Scanned here:
here

(ps - except for the bit at the top, this was copied from another forum, see if it helps)

 

My new mobile phone can play MP3 ringtones and I'm attempting to make some of my own from the millions we appear to have in our collection, but I don't want them to take up too much of my precious space (11546KB) so I was wondering if there is a program that will reduce the size of my MP3 without reducing the quality too much. Any ideas?

 

Any Mp3 compression program is good, just take them down quality wise (frequency and datarate), until you find something that's a good balance for size. Off the computer I don't tend to go below 192kbps.

For Mp3 players, unless you have something with extreme audio quality (iRiver or iPods - not sure about the iPod, but I know iRivers are very very nice quality audio), mostly 128 is a good balance. Then try something like 44khz, but not much lower if you want to keep the quality reasonable.

 

Hands up who's good wit da computer?

Someone wanna come over and take a look at mine? It's giving me the willies and I'm bout ready ti chuck it out the door...

 

I'm sure Kart could help.

someone on here must have the know how!

 

Stinky: Cheers for that.

Nat: What is it doing to give you the willies? There are plenty of people I on here that are brilliant with computers (Soup, Stinky, Kaustin, Kart etc). Depending on what is going on, I might even be able to help you out. But either way, you'd have to be a bit more specific than "giving me the willies".

 

There are plenty of people I on here that are brilliant with computers (Soup, Stinky, Kaustin, Kart etc).

I better be in the etc list!!!!!!!!

 

'puters r tos tings wid nobs and bits un it.. rite?

 

Mostly the net bit - I figured out something, but if I can get the stupid box off when I check my outbox it would be great. If I get it off, then it disconnects me from the net when I next check it. Basically, when anything goes wrong with a computer, I feel like tearing my hair out, evn if it's a simple thing to fix.

Anyways, thank to the tech guy that helped me fix the problem. I think his name has Kaustin. Thanks dude

I feel inferior compared to yous dudes.....

 

Yay! i helped someone heheh

 

To SP2, or not to SP2 - that is the question.

Or something like that. I'm wondering if I should re-install XP Service Pack 2 or leave it off when I reformat the computer. I've got vague memories of reading somewhere that SP2 caused a lot of problems (and I don't remember having the Dr Watson thing until after SP2 was installed) and I was wondering if this was true or not?

Also, remember that virus that kept restarting your computer after every minute? How it infected your machine as soon as you reconnect to the net? Does anyone remember what I need to do before connecting to the net so that we don't get that virus again?

What is the best virus scanner? Do you have a preference at all? We've always used Norton, but I don't want to upgrade to the latest version because it didn't seem to have the Norton Protected Recyle Bin (unless I missed the option to turn it on) so we're still using 2003 Pro.

Cheers

 

SP2 is your own preference. It does fix a few bugs, vulnerabilities and exploits. However, compatability is always an issue. Best idea is to backup your most important files (if you choose to do it) before installing. (sound advice when doing any windows update).

Nortons is not a bad virus scanner, however, it isnt the best. I think there were a few names thrown around of various types of scanners somewhere in the last few weeks. which I completely failed to find.. lol, I use AntiVir. Free, good (actually warns you about javascript thingies on webpages, not even big name scanners do that, and that is kickass). Only downside (and it's hardly a downside) you have to manually click on update button for it to update, it doesnt do it by itself. So far better than nortons and Trend micro whatever online scanner m'jiggy.

If you're trying to get rid of a virus and dont have something to hand to get rid of it, try that online scanner housecall. Its good, as you should try not to install a v-scanner onto a system that is infected. As some cases the scanner will be dead before it even starts.

As for the Nortons recycle bin, I believe it's an option you can turn on and off in Nortons settings. Just check it isnt turned off. (Dont remember where it is).

As for which scanner is right for you, I think a lot of them are good enough, it's just a matter of preference and convenience.

 

Hopefully someone can point me in the right direction here.

I'm trying to format my desktop at the moment ( a western Digital WD2000JD-00HBBO if it helps ) with an NTFS file system and the damn thing won't let me format. I've tried a couple of suggestions from my old man but either he's wrong or I didn't get the gist of what he was saying.

Any help would be great.

 

If it isnt your OS hard disk,

then go to administrative tools (can be hidden, check start menu options by right clicking taskbar, properties, press customize on the start menu tab, advanced, scroll down the list and check the admin tools to be shown)

Go to administrative tools on the start menu, when the window loads, click on Disk management on the left, then right click the hard disk you want (MAKE SURE IT IS THE HARD DISK YOU WANT). Should have format under that list.

If it is your OS hard disk, depends what OS you are running. If you are running Winxp, then just boot up off the OS cd, and ignore the 'OS already detected' thing, and choose the C: (or whatever letter it is) and soon after then choose format, ntfs etc etc...

If you're not running winxp, what are you running? (oh and if theres any errors when trying to format -if not the os cd- probably best to list them too)

 

This should be called the "Ask Stinky" thread!

 

Now posting from the desktop again.

In the end I downloaded some program from the western digital website which worked after I restarted with a ms-dos boot disk.

lots of screwing around but it's working now so thats the main thing.