The Official Computer Tech Support Thread

[Freebase Dali]

Originally Posted by Vanilla

Freebase, can you please direct me to a program that will help me turn a CD music track into an mp3? There is a song I want to put on you tube but the song type isn't supported by a movie maker program.

If you have Windows, simply load the CD into your CD bay, open Windows Media Player, and rip the CD to the highest quality WMA. Then download an audio format converter.
Or just google CD to MP3. The first result I got was:
FreeRIP: CD to MP3 Converter, MP3 Converter

I never rip CDs anymore, so I'm sorry if I couldn't be of more help.

[Scarlett O'Hara]

Originally Posted by Freebase Dali

If you have Windows, simply load the CD into your CD bay, open Windows Media Player, and rip the CD to the highest quality WMA. Then download an audio format converter.
Or just google CD to MP3. The first result I got was:
FreeRIP: CD to MP3 Converter, MP3 Converter

I never rip CDs anymore, so I'm sorry if I couldn't be of more help.

Thanks you were very helpful!

[TheBig3]

So here's a question that I'd pay for help on.

I was downloading movie-player software from what I assume was a german site (another forum I'm on) and while doing it, crazy **** started to also download (or it looked like it was). Given that I couldn't stop it/close it/ect. I just ripped the power sourse out of my computer.

Since then, weird things have been going on. I'll start my computer and it won't get past a certain screen. When I shut it down (manually) and restart, it attempts to repair and ultimately restores things to a previous point.

From there, it always wants to delivery updates upon shutdown. But when I'm actually in using the computer, certain programs work, and certain ones don't. For some reason my iTunes files are there, but when I go to open the actual program it can't find it.

Its as if **** just went haywire and is stuck in an infinite loop of restoration, update, failure.

[Freebase Dali]

Originally Posted by TheBig3

So here's a question that I'd pay for help on.

I was downloading movie-player software from what I assume was a german site (another forum I'm on) and while doing it, crazy **** started to also download (or it looked like it was). Given that I couldn't stop it/close it/ect. I just ripped the power sourse out of my computer.

Since then, weird things have been going on. I'll start my computer and it won't get past a certain screen. When I shut it down (manually) and restart, it attempts to repair and ultimately restores things to a previous point.

From there, it always wants to delivery updates upon shutdown. But when I'm actually in using the computer, certain programs work, and certain ones don't. For some reason my iTunes files are there, but when I go to open the actual program it can't find it.

Its as if **** just went haywire and is stuck in an infinite loop of restoration, update, failure.

Yanking the power cord from the wall is probably the reason your computer is all jacked up, and you probably also have a virus in addition to that.
I'm not going to go into detail about how your computer writes to the registry when you're installing something and why you shouldn't power-off during this process (even Windows Update tells you not to shut your computer down during installations), but suffice it to say, it would have been less of a hassle if you had just let the software finish installing, then uninstalled it and run a virus scan.
Because now, you've likely screwed up something important. At this point, you may as well just back up any important data and reinstall the OS. That might seem like a drastic step, but if you did mess something up, no matter how many band-aids you put on this, you're going to live with problems down the line. The safest bet is to just start over again.

Also, if you somehow didn't know this, Windows 7 (assuming that's what you're using) has a backup capability. When you get your computer working nicely after a new install and all your data gets thrown back on it, and everything is perfect, use Windows Backup to create an image of your computer, and store it on an external drive that is large enough to hold it, which will be entirely dependent on how much actual data you have on your computer.
Set a scheduled task to back up your computer and overwrite the previous backup like monthly. This way, should anything ever happen, you simply insert your Windows installation disk and restore to the most recent image, which quite literally puts everything exactly as the way it was during the period that image was taken.
Restoring from a restore point is not that effective. It saves a system state, which means settings and things like that. System restore won't restore your data. So, if you're smart, you'll implement a backup plan that will not only keep your data redundant, but also let you restore it quickly and with minimal effort, which is completely possible by default in Windows 7.

If you don't wanna, then see you next time.

[Trollheart]

Freebase, will this work for all connected drives, incl external ones? I have three: two 1.5 tbs and and 1 tb, plus the installed one (also a tb) -- will the backup system copy all the data from the four drives (assuming I have something large enough to copy it to)? And does it compress the files, or do you literally have to have 1:1 in terms of data space?

I really should do this: I have such bad luck with PCs it's happened before and will surely happen again.

Thanks
TH

[Freebase Dali]

Originally Posted by Trollheart

Freebase, will this work for all connected drives, incl external ones? I have three: two 1.5 tbs and and 1 tb, plus the installed one (also a tb) -- will the backup system copy all the data from the four drives (assuming I have something large enough to copy it to)? And does it compress the files, or do you literally have to have 1:1 in terms of data space?

I really should do this: I have such bad luck with PCs it's happened before and will surely happen again.

Thanks
TH

You can dictate which drives you want to back up separately, or have them all included in one backup. I would recommend doing each drive separately, because it's not likely they'll all fail at once, and if/when a single drive fails, you won't have to restore everything, and just restore that one drive instead.

As far as backing up external drives, I would assume it would. I don't use externals all that often, so I haven't tried, but it will be apparent when you go to run a backup. The external(s) will either be included in the list of what to back up or not.

Regarding backup compression, Windows will compress whatever is able to be compressed. Whether it will make a significant difference will depend on what you have on your system. If you don't like the size of the backup(s), you can try to compress the image after the fact with something like Winrar or 7zip, where you can modify the compression settings, but this will require you to have to decompress before restoring from the image. Whether or not additional compression will make a significant difference is subject to experiment.

HTH

[TheBig3]

Originally Posted by Freebase Dali

Yanking the power cord from the wall is probably the reason your computer is all jacked up, and you probably also have a virus in addition to that.
I'm not going to go into detail about how your computer writes to the registry when you're installing something and why you shouldn't power-off during this process (even Windows Update tells you not to shut your computer down during installations), but suffice it to say, it would have been less of a hassle if you had just let the software finish installing, then uninstalled it and run a virus scan.
Because now, you've likely screwed up something important. At this point, you may as well just back up any important data and reinstall the OS. That might seem like a drastic step, but if you did mess something up, no matter how many band-aids you put on this, you're going to live with problems down the line. The safest bet is to just start over again.

Also, if you somehow didn't know this, Windows 7 (assuming that's what you're using) has a backup capability. When you get your computer working nicely after a new install and all your data gets thrown back on it, and everything is perfect, use Windows Backup to create an image of your computer, and store it on an external drive that is large enough to hold it, which will be entirely dependent on how much actual data you have on your computer.
Set a scheduled task to back up your computer and overwrite the previous backup like monthly. This way, should anything ever happen, you simply insert your Windows installation disk and restore to the most recent image, which quite literally puts everything exactly as the way it was during the period that image was taken.
Restoring from a restore point is not that effective. It saves a system state, which means settings and things like that. System restore won't restore your data. So, if you're smart, you'll implement a backup plan that will not only keep your data redundant, but also let you restore it quickly and with minimal effort, which is completely possible by default in Windows 7.

If you don't wanna, then see you next time.

Well ****.

Alright I'll have to find those discs.

Thanks.

[Trollheart]

Question for Freebase (or anyone): is there any way to make a normal CDRW disc writeable as a drive? In other words, to be able to save files (text) to it from within a wp prog rather than have to keep going into nero or whatever and re-burning the files? I want to use it as a removable backup for my journals, as the files have a habit of getting corrupted on the hdd, so this would be a way of ensuring I always had one working copy.

I remember it was possible to do something like set a CD up as a virtual drive once, way back in the mists of my youth, when recordable CDs were just getting going. But is it still possible, or practical now?

Thx

PS I tried it with a pen drive but somehow the same thing tends to happen... the amount of times I've had to rewrite reviews...!

[debaserr]

You've caught something (why would you download a video player, baddies always stuff crap into .exes).

You should do some safe mode antivirus scans and unsafe mode antivirus scans.

[Trollheart]

If you're using Windows, restore your files back to a point before you downloaded this piece of crap, and it should hopefully sort things out for you.

Also, run your virus/spyware scans

Also, never ever EVER EVER download video player software you're not familiar with, or that isn't known. What was the prog called?


Edit: when did you download itunes? It seems like the system has restored to a point before you had the prog. Just d/l it again I'd say.
What else doesn't work? Chances are there are dll files or updates that are required, were downloaded but since your restore are no longer seen. They probably need to be downloaded too.
Make sure you go through the registry and remove all references to this rogue program...