Hardware

Recall -- Last week, Chris L. asked if it was possible to print out the filenames of all his music files which were stored in a single folder on his computer. I suggested using a DOS command to do the trick, and also asked Infopackets Readers for an ... alternate freeware solution. Print Music Filenames? Many users recommended KarenWare's "Directory Printer". From the web site: " No more fumbling with My Computer or Windows Explorer, wishing you could print information about all your files. Karen's Directory Printer can print the name of every file on a drive, along with the file's ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Brandon L. writes: " Dear Dennis, My computer has this really serious problem. I don't know what is causing the problem, but it only started happening recently. The whole day yesterday, my computer was frozen with a black screen ... at startup. You know: the first screen that says 'Press DEL to enter Setup'? I tried restarting my machine and left it there thinking that the problem would go away, but after a few hours, nothing changed. I decided to go into the computer BIOS and selected 'Load optimized defaults', and like magic, my system appeared OK. I don't understand why ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Chris L. writes: " Dear Dennis, I need your help please! I have all of my music files on in 1 folder, and I want to print all the file names for future reference. Do you know how I can do this? Thank you very much for your time ... and help. " My response: A simple DOS command (Disk Operating System) can capture the file names in a directory... which can be saved into a text file, and printed on paper. This may not be the easiest method available, but it's certainly quick and dirty and won't take long to do. Ensure that your Path is displayed in the Address bar in an ... (view more)

Yesterday's feature article was about file recovery after a hard drive crash. File recovery after hard drive crash? In a nutshell, I outlined some steps one might take in order to recover files from a corrupt hard drive. I also asked Infopackets ... Readers if they knew of any good freeware or commercial file recovery software which could undelete / recover lost data. Here are some of the responses I received: Haukur B. and Pippe both recommended a program called "PC Inspector File Recovery". From the web site: " PC Inspector File Recovery is a data recovery program with support ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Darlene M. writes: " Dear Dennis, My hard drive crashed and had to replace it. Unfortunately, the techs did not install any of my old programs onto the hard drive. I don't know much about the computer and I want install my ... programs again. What can you suggest? " My Response: You will need to acquire and reinstall all of your programs (IE: setup.exe / run-time executables) onto your new hard drive. You cannot copy over the old programs and have them run on your new drive: they need to be reinstalled onto Windows. I while back, I wrote an article entitled, "The ... (view more)

Today I received a very interesting question that deals with extracting vocals from a song. Infopackets Reader Lori J. writes: " Dear Dennis, I like reading your newsletter, even though I'm still kind of a computer 'newbie'. Is there a free or low ... cost software application that you know of that removes vocals from songs on CD -- such as for Karaoke? Thanks in advance for your help! " My Response: First, let me say that I know absolutely nothing about this subject. Until I researched the topic on Google, I didn't think this was even possible ... at least, not without knowledge of ... (view more)

The last newsletter sparked some interesting discussion from readers. George P. from Lakeland, Florida asks: " I have created my own downloaded CD Discs that contain movies I got from Kazaa. They play absolutely perfectly on my monitor, but I'd like ... to be able to play them on my 27 inch TV. How can I play the same VCD on my TV instead of on my monitor? " My Response: There's a few things I need to address before answering George's question. First of all, George made reference to something called a VCD, which is an acronym for "Video CD." Video CDs have been around for ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Frank R. asks: " My machine has Windows XP, a DVD ROM drive, and an ATI Radeon 9000 video card with S-VIDEO TV / OUT. Can I play DVDs from my computer and watch them on my 61" TV? What kind of cables do I need to attempt this? " ... My Answer: Yes you can! Go to your local Radio Shack and purchase the following cables: #1: Male S-Video to female RCA cable. This will plug into the back of your video card and convert the S-Video output into RCA output. An S-Video cable by itself is usually much more expensive than its RCA counterpart and provides roughly the same ... (view more)

Last week, Ben M. from Australia wrote about a problem he was having with his 40x CD burner not being able to write at maximum speed under Windows XP. Ben's main problem: both Roxio Easy CD Creator and Nero Burning ROM (CD burning software) only ... allow the burner to write at 16x instead of 40x write speed. Ben's computer is running Windows XP with 256 meg RAM on a 1.7 GHz machine and a 40 gig [7200 RPM] hard drive. In short, here's what Ben has already tried: Replaced the burner with another (same model / brand); Changed the buffer size for CDFS (CD File System) under Windows XP; Updated both ... (view more)

Ben M. from The Land Down Under (Australia) recently told me about a problem he's been having with his 40x CD burner. In a nutshell, Ben can't get the writer to record at maximum speed and asked me for some troubleshooting suggestions. Ben writes: " ... Dennis, I religiously read Infopackets 3 times a week! Thank you. As a computer technician, I find your newsletter a valuable troubleshooting resource. Unfortunately, I'm having a problem that has got me stumped and was wondering if you had any suggestions? I recently purchased a new computer (Celeron 1.7GHz) with 256MB RAM, 40GB hard drive, ... (view more)