Ian FG

This one is quite good: Alcohol This page checks the compatibility of your drive: Drive checker I have never used dual layer myself though.

Rob, The best way to carry lots of DVDs is to convert them from DVD (4.7 GB) to Divx (1.0 GB). I like IMTOO video convertor to do this ($45) The quality is pretty good. The best media player (IMHO) to watch them on is VLC (free). The best way to carry them is on a USB hard drive, the small ones without the power supply. I have a 120GB one. I am not sure if USB is fast enough to watch movies through, I will need to do an experiment when I have more time. Another way is to buy an iPod classic (I have a 160GB one) stuff loads of DVDs on it (I use EASY Video to iPod Convertor) and play them through your USB, once again, I'm not sure if USB is fast enough but it's too late to experiment now, I need to get some sleep. Ian

Steve, You either have a software or a hardware problem. Here's what I would do: First, open your case and make sure all connecters are properly connected and all cards, RAM etc are firmly in their slots. Next, update your BIOS, install the latest Windows Service Pack and get all the latest drivers for your hardware and update them. If that doesn't work format your hard drive and reinstall Windows (+ new drivers). If none of that works then you are probably looking at faulty hardware, the most likely being power supply or RAM, but who knows? The only way I know to fix that would be to try replacing each piece of hardware one at a time until you have found the culprit. Not really an option for most people, so it would probably be new computer time.

OK, then why not unplug all your hardware, uninstall all your software (don't really see why you can't buy a new computer and not be able to use your stuff though) and see if the problem persists. If it does, suggest mixed RAM as Jeff suggests or the video card, or maybe it's something else but at the end of the day it's not really your problem if the goods supplied are not useable. Tricky situation if it's a mate who built it for you, but being a part-time geek myself I would not take offence if I were in his shoes and I would try and sort it out.

A little out of my depth with blue screen problems, but there does appear to be a general issue with ATI drivers. I like Nvidia video cards myself. If you have not paid for it yet, why not take it back?

Try updating your ATI video card drivers for XP HERE or for Vista HERE

Sorry Cranfield, I made a mistake, Ccleaner does not delete files previously deleted normally, if that makes sense. It does not clean the unallocated space on your hard drive. For that you need Windows Washer which also deletes what is called 'slack space' which are file fragments. It costs £20.

The browser cache or Temporary Internet Files saves all the websites you have visited in anticipation that you will visit them again and the webpages load much quicker from your cache than from the site itself. This is not so important in this age of fast broadband speeds. I don't see an option to set Ccleaner to run automatically when Windows closes. However, after running Ccleaner it deletes your index.dat files at close and recreates new blank ones at start. To make sure Ccleaner cleans out the Firefox cache: Open Ccleaner, click on 'Cleaner' then click on the 'Applications' tab and make sure Firefox is selected. Index.dat files are Microsoft's hidden files which record the address of every website you have ever visited. Not such a great thing if you value some privacy. Of course if you are really paranoid you should know that deleted index.dat files (and all other deleted files) can be recovered. Ccleaner has an option to make this much more difficult, if not impossible. Here's how: In Ccleaner (I trust you have the latest version): Click on 'Options' Click on 'Settings' Click on 'Secure Deletion' Click on 'Secure File Deletion' Click on the down arrow Choose from 1, 3, 7 or 35 deletion passes. 35 being most secure of course....you need to be really paranoid for that option and best leave it running overnight, or longer! If you are interested in this subject then you could consider Windows Washer, which is even better than Ccleaner, very useful if you ever sell or scrap an old computer and don't want others recovering your personal data. Apparently there is a good trade in recovering data from old computers for the purposes of indentity theft.

Of course. How thick am I? I use a card reader myself and totally forgot to mention that.

Yes. To keep your cache clean download and run Ccleaner regularly.

Of course one option is glaringly obvious, upgrade to XP or Vista, costs money though of course.

If you have the technical knowledge you can download an NTFS boot CD and add XTree Gold to it, then set your BIOS to boot from CD and recover your files with XTreeGold. After that you can reload XP from an XP disc. If you don't know how to do all of this then you need to ask for help from your computer geek mate (everyone has one). Also some computers have a hidden partition from which you can perform a fresh Windows install, Acer for example where you hit Alt, F10 at boot up gives you a fresh install, your computer may have something similar. Another alternative could be to buy a Vista (or XP) disc and install that, expensive option tho.

You don't say why you can't play DVDs on your laptop. If your laptop has a DVD drive then VLC will play just about anything you throw at it. Failing that why not convert your DVDs to DivX? I use IMToo to do this, I also use Easy Video to iPod MP4 convertor.

Elton, yup that's a toughie, but I think p***s prefer their carrots un-cut. Intersesting to see how plate arrangement is important to you Oh how I laughed on the way to the tribunal.

Well done Judy but I never said to 'delete' Windows Update, I suggested turning it off (you can turn it off and on in the control panel) You can then 'Check for windows updates' manually (in the control panel) whenever you feel like it, I do it once a week. But of course I understand your reluctance because that means you go a week at a time without any essential security updates and many people would simply forget to do it Microsoft have recently issued SP1 for Vista so that means millions of people who have Windows Update turned on on their computers, connected to the Internet and then Windows Updates scans their system, downloads a 400 MB+ file and then installs it, mostly without the users knowing it is doing it. They think their computer is slow and faulty and go and buy a new one! Of course all this can be avoided if you leave your computer on and connected all the time. This is a serious option, we are not allowed to turn our computers off at work even when we go home, we can log off but not switch off, this is so the network peeps can update the systems overnight without the bothersome users calling them and complaining their computers are slow. Anyway, if you're happy with how your system now is then well done and you acheived what you wanted