usb

An External Hard drive can come in handy for backing up files or freeing up some disk space on your PC. The only problem is they can be pretty expensive. An easy alternative is to buy a drive enclosure for about $20 and build your own using an ... internal hard drive. Building your own external hard drive enclosure can be done in as little as 5 to 10 minutes time, and without opening up your PC's case. Not only does assembling your own external hard drive save money, it provides flexibility in choosing the connections, capacity and style that fit your needs. It is also an excellent way to make ... (view more)

Booting Windows From A Usb Drive According to the author, "Microsoft denies that booting Windows off a USB drive works To put a long story short, this is exactly what I do now. However, it took me significant time to figure out all the painful ... little problems, and I was not fully happy with the current official guide by Dietmar (no pun, he was the first to make ANYthing public). I wanted an easy guide that allows creating a modified version of the Windows XP CD, for painless and transparent installation to as many systems as you want. This page is the result of my work. Have fun! http://www. ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Steve T. writes: " Dear Dennis, I have recently added a 120GB external hard drive to my Dell Dimension computer (via the USB port). Problem: whenever I turn my computer on (to start Windows), the external hard drive always tries ... to boot first. Inevitably I get an error message that 'operating system is not found' and I have to shut off the external unit and then reboot the machine in order to start Windows properly. For this reason, I am curious if my Windows XP crashes, would it be able to boot from the external hard drive? If so, how would I go about doing this? ... (view more)

Data Recovery DataRecovery will undelete accidentally deleted files, even after they've been deleted from the recycle bin. http://tokiwa.tomato.ne.jp/EN/dr.html Usb Autorun Suite APO USB Autorun Suite enables you to add autorun functionality to your ... USB drive. It provides an Autorun.inf Builder and a standalone portable Starter too. http://www.archidune.com/apo/ (view more)

Universal Serial Bus (USB) provides a serial bus standard for connecting devices, usually to a computer, but it also is in use on other devices such as set-top boxes, and game consoles. USB: Overview A USB system has an asymmetric design, consisting ... of a host controller and multiple devices connected in a tree-like fashion using special hub devices. There is a limit of 5 levels of branching hubs per controller. Up to 127 devices may be connected to a single host controller, but the count must include the hub devices as well. A modern computer likely has several host controllers so the total ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Paul H. writes: " Dear Dennis, I have a Kodak DX3600 camera equipped with a 'docking' unit. I upgraded the camera software (from version 1.2 to latest revision), but can no longer transfer pictures from my camera to the computer ... (I am using Windows 2000, by the way). To resolve this dilemma, I sought a local computer 'expert' to contemplate my problem, but he could not produce a solution. I have done everything that Kodak has suggested over at their web site with no luck. I am one of several people in my area who has the same problem with their Kodak software. Are you ... (view more)

XP SP2 Frequently Asked Questions: Continued from Part 1 ... Q: " I already have Norton Internet Security installed and running. Does it make sense to use the Service Pack 2 Firewall or should I stick with Norton? Should I use both at the same time? ... " A: It is not recommended that you run two firewalls at once, as this can cause problems with programs which rely on your Internet connection. I don't have any experience with Norton Firewall, but I personally recommend using Zone Alarm (free), as it is widely accepted among the Internet community as a very strong and secure firewall ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Ed M. writes: " Dear Dennis, I have a Broadcom 440x10/100 Integrated [Ethernet] Controller built onto my computer's main board. On the task bar (near my clock), I can see a computer icon with a red X on top of it. If I hover my ... mouse over top, it says 'LAN or High Speed Internet' is disconnected. Could you please instruct me on how to connect it? " My response: Actually, this sounds like a similar scenario I recently faced when visiting my friend Frank in Toronto, except he has an extra Network card in his machine that is currently not in use (rather than an extra ... (view more)

Recall Jack G.'s question from last week: " Every now and then my mouse is frozen when I boot up Windows XP. Is their anything I can do to fix this problem? " Since then, I've received a whole whack of suggestions from readers of the Gazette. In ... fact, I couldn't believe how many people share the same problem as Jack. Unfortunately, it would appear that there is not a one-set solution to this problem. So, I'll give you the best of the suggestions I received and hopefully it may resolve some of your problems. Suggestion #1: CTRL + ALT + DEL The most popular (temporary) solution was to ... (view more)

A few weeks ago, I was called to do an upgrade on an older, Pentium 200 (P200) MHz computer. The P200 was equipped with an old-style scanner that used a special interface. After a few years of good use, the scanner died and needed to be replaced. ... Since the Pentium 200 did not come equipped with a USB interface (universal serial bus), shopping for a new scanner was difficult. The options were to buy an old-style scanner which used the Parallel Port (Printer Port) as its interface - but this was not a viable option because it was extremely slow and would not meet the demand in an office ... (view more)