Q–My problem is the frequent activity on my hard drive. These bursts of spinning happen so fast that there is barely enough time to light the indicator light on the front of my computer. The spinning takes place every 30 to 60 seconds. The incessant little noise is Chinese water torture, and frequently I turn off the machine just to get rid of it. I would certainly appreciate any help you can provide.
You’ve already helped us a lot. As a result of your recommendations we enjoy PhotoVue (picture display software), Dazzle (video capture hardware), the BackPack (CD-rewriter drive), MusicMatch Jukebox (MP3 music file manipulation), DataViz (Macintosh to PC converter) and a host of less-used but excellent software you brought to our attention; and our machines run a lot smoother than they otherwise would.
Jim Donndelinger @earthlink.net
A–Wow, you’re clearly a veteran reader of these columns and a very close one as well, Mr. D. As the Ask Jim Why column marks its three-year anniversary this week, I am delighted to get such a note from somebody who has been here along with me from the get-go. It’s been a great ride. Here’s to three more years.
As to your “problem,” however, that’s not a bug; it’s a feature. Hard drives are supposed to continue to spin at a steady rate while your computer is active. If the drive were at a dead stop you computer’s response time would be seriously degraded waiting for it to get up to speed each time you initiated a command.
You can set your machine to stop spinning the drive after 3 minutes by right-clicking on the desktop, picking Properties then Screen Savers, then Settings and then changing the setting marked “Turn off hard disks.”
Q–I was wondering if you have any suggestions how I can get my Outlook Express unlocked and start reading my e-mail once again. When OE loads, it immediately locks up. I can’t receive or send mail. I can’t do anything because it is locked up immediately after loading. The only way to get out of it is to Control+Alt+Delete.
Dee Webb @earthlink.com
A–The outlook for your chances of getting e-mail depends on getting a fresh start by refreshing that e-mail software, Ms. W. I fear your best hope lies not in e-mail but in snail mail. You see, Outlook Express isn’t actually a stand-alone program but rather a module of Microsoft Internet Explorer. So you have to not only replace the version of Outlook Express that is vexing you, but also excise Microsoft Internet Explorer from your machine and then reinstall completely fresh software.
You can’t do this by simply downloading the latest version of the Microsoft Internet Explorer Web browser, because those upgrade downloads simply augment existing code, and your existing code is sick. So you’re going to need to get a $10 CD with MSIE and use it to completely write over the browser/e-mail software now on your machine.
To have that CD mailed to you, log on to www.microsoft.com/windows/ie. After it arrives via snail mail and you’re wired for e-mail once again, drop me a line with the news. Good luck.
Q–My Internet stock portfolio tracking software, Microsoft Money 98, quit working the other day while I was online and trying to update the numbers.
I have two years of data I don’t want to lose. All of the rest of the Money program works OK, including paying bills and online banking.
The following message appears: “This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down.” In details it says “MS Money caused an invalid page fault in module
unknown at 0000:4946462c.”
How do I solve this problem?
Herman Haase @prodigy.net
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A–You need to reinstall Money in hopes that a fresh version will repair whichever component of the software became corrupted and keeps trying to make the same call to the Windows operating system at the wrong address, creating that invalid page message. That’s the gobbledygook, Mr. H., but it really doesn’t matter which technicality is acting up. What matters is that you must back up your data before taking any other step whatsoever.
Fire up Money and then chose the File menu and Save As. Stick a floppy disk in the A: drive and save your Money’s current data file to ensure that you have a safe backup.
Next you’ll want to uninstall Money in hope of deleting the offending dollop of code causing those crashes. Click on the My Computer icon and then Control Panel and Add/Remove Software. You will find a list of all of the programs now loaded on your machine, all ready for obliterating. Nuke Money.
Now restart your machine and insert the Money CD-ROM for a reinstall.
The final step will be to select File and Open once Money is reinstalled and the machine restarted. Load the data from that floppy and keep those fingers crossed; there are two good years of bull market portfolio data at stake.
Q–I maintain a small network of PCs at our school and have tremendous troubles because three of my computers will go into standby mode, which then throws the computers off the server. Sometimes, the computer freezes and I have to reboot. The computers are Hewlett-Packards and run on Windows 98 SE. I have gone into the energy-saving features and have chosen “Never” for System Standby, Turn Off Monitor and Turn Off Hard Drive. Any suggestions? I could really use some.
Linda A. Bock @ride.ri.net
A–A great many PC users benefit by discovering how to disable those energy savings settings that all too often trigger shutdowns and system crashes instead of delivering the power conservation promised by the sponsor, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
As you know, and as many other readers should know, the settings are reached by right-clicking on the Windows desktop and selecting Properties from the pop-up menu. Pick Screen Savers from the next display, then Settings in the display next to the “Energy Star” logo you will see in the next box.
You missed fixing your own problem by just one more mouse click at this point, Ms. B. You need to set your HP’s Power Scheme settings to Always On instead of Home/Office Desk as is the default.
You know the drill well, because the setting is at the top of the page you used to ice the System Standby setting. One more click should get your network out of the woods.
Q–The brilliant folks at Microsoft Network have apparently decided to ruin a perfectly good Web service by emulating the worst features of America Online: substandard e-mail. I mistakenly tried to download their MSN Explorer Beta 2 software and was dismayed to find that it automatically shut down my long-standing popmail account and replaced it with Microsoft’s Web-based Hotmail.
Please write something about this. MSN is off their rocker forcing their customers to go to Hotmail (and abandon perfectly good Outlook software).
Dave Trebacz @hotmail.com
A–Your note arrived the day I had a briefing from the Microsoft Network’s project manager, Brian Gluth, and I let him know emphatically about your misgivings, Mr. T. He promises a fix.
That’s great because the new MSN interface now in beta and set for November release is a superb addition to the Web experience, even if the Hotmail transfer ploy is a bit heavy-handed. MSN offers massive improvements everywhere from a stunning comparison-shopping search engine to that very Web-based e-mail that you don’t like but a great many beta testers, myself included, apparently do.
Anyway, Gluth assured me that your complaint and that of a “significant” number of other testers has been heard and that Microsoft will post a patch to restore MSN accounts to popmail on the www.msn.com site in late October.
I’ll keep an eye peeled for that patch, as I know you will.
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Contact Jim Coates via e-mail at [email protected] or via snail mail at the baiduhai, Room 400, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60611. Questions can be answered only through the column. Add your point of view at chicagotribune.com /go/askjim