*sigh* My apologies for vanishing on you. The shared PC actually had a virus and needed to stay at the shop longer then expected. The techs didn't do a good job with the fan so it got send back again and replaced with a new one. As for the laptop, about two months or so and no blue screen of death.

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The Life and Times of Shad Staydamind PPG fic; finished. part 1/3
Dual Minds Think Alike PPGD fic, part 2/3; finished (trilogy is on an indefinite hiatus)
Hidden Angels Original, ongoing fiction. (also hiated. Stupid college!)

Ah. So I was at least right about the virus.

Regarding the laptop: glad I could be of some assistance. Let me know if you have any more problems.

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@Ruff... office thing. Technicians are tight ass. This never happened until he came. No other ways? really?

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Generally it is not a good idea to push the boundaries of tolerance when it comes to your system administrators. They can block out your account and report you to their supervisors and they will be entirely justified.

The only way I know to re-enable USB on a workstation (other than hacking tools) is to log into the server as an administrator and reconfigure domain policy to allow them; I would not recommend this option to you as a "regular" user and employee of this organization. Worst case scenario, you could be fired and/or face potential criminal charges.

Usually the reason that people disable USB drives on their network is to prevent the spread of viruses, which is a considerable risk. A single breach can ultimately cost a company hundreds of thousands of dollars depending on the severity, and--as is becoming increasingly more prevalent--viruses and Trojans are often "backdoor" programs that can allow remote access by unauthorized users who can then steal or destroy company data.

As I said before, it's probably best if you use a burnable CD. But be careful, because you don't want to be the source of a network infection.

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Assuming they haven't also removed the CD drive of course. Ironically I've read that sys admins will sometimes advise you to transfer files to an online host like e-mail and download them onto the workstation... because e-mails are SO much more secure than USBs.

Well there's a big difference. Email servers have antivirus and can scan an Email before it gets to someone's Inbox. The average user who uses thumb drives at home may not have antivirus (usually because they think that if it's free it isn't good, or else they think it's too expensive). So, someone bringing a flash drive from home may be a lot less secure. Also, USB drives can be accessed by viruses automatically. CDs have to be "manually" burnt to write to them (with some exceptions). Although, you certainly can burn an infected file to a CD. It really is more secure to use Email or cloud file servers.

Also, Email is usually limited to about 5MB per Email because of bandwidth constraints, which makes it less of a viable option if you need to transfer a lot of files, but it's still significantly more secure.

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So. . . . .What would you do if you're the admin on your Comp but forgot your password

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I got friends on the other side ~

If there's another administrator on your computer, get them to log in and reset your password. If this is your personal computer, log in with Safe Mode and use the Administrator account to reset your password.

To find out how to do that in Windows, do a Google search for "how to reset a local password in windows (version; seven, xp, etc.)". If that doesn't help you out, let me know.

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Yeah, I was going to suggest you just use dropbox or something if you get internet connection.

If not, idk, tell them you want to dig a floppy drive out of the warehouse please lololol

(rewritable CD's are cool too but there's definitely a convenience factor missing imo)

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Twitter | Transistor Glamor | Tumblr | MAL

Thanks ruff that worked great!

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I got friends on the other side ~

No problem O-D-J.

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Thx, for the advises. Sadly, no CD drive either. Just USB ports. I heard that you can use a PS2 to USB cord to get through but i dunno how that works... gotta know before I buy one.

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Can you do without your files from home at work? Can you perhaps download them from a file server? MediaFire allows for free use for a relatively short period of time. If there's a small file you need at work, you can Email it, or if it's something larger, you can try MediaFire, etc.

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My laptop got ultra fucked.

My user profile, when I logged in this morning, had completely reset.

Strangely, after scrounging through my files, I noticed all of the files were still on the hard drive.

They just weren't linked to whatever profile I was on.

Google chrome refuses to open, despite trying to download it, which instead feeds me bullshit about not being able to cache the download.

Finally, I had to root around in a help wizard to actually my the aero theme stick, or it would just go back to shitty classic.

Any advice?

Sounds like someone probably needs to scan their computer for funny business.

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One time when I was high, I thought I was in an ambulance dying. Turns out I was just eating sherbert.
-stufflikehearts-

Did.

Found nothing.

I think it's just old.

I should probably buy another one.

Nope. I had an XP laptop for six years that I regularly maintained, and apart from cosmetic damage, it works fine. I still have it but I'm not using it.

I think I have an idea what the problem is. Lemme research a bit and I'll get back to you.

ED: Also, you are running XP, right?

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Windows 7 home edition.

I see. Okay. Here's what you do.

First of all you need to create a new administrator account. In the Start menu, click "Control Panel." In the Control Panel window, click "User Accounts." Click "Manage another account." Click "Create a new account." Type an account name (it can really be anything, doesn't really matter, just not "Administrator") and click the bullet for "Administrator," then click "Create Account."

Log out of your current account and log into the new administrator account. Open up your Computer from the Start menu, and navigate to C:\Users. Find your username in the list of folders. Rename that folder with ".old" at the end (for example, if it says "yog" rename it to "yog.old")

[NOTE: If it doesn't let you rename the folder, you must restart your computer, log in as the administrator account and then try the above step again.]

Now log out of the administrator account and into your account. The account and all its settings should reset one last time. All your desktop items will also be gone for the moment. Log out one more time and log into the administrator account. Go back to C:\User and open up the .old folder.

Now what you'll be doing is copying and pasting all the folders from there into your regular account. There also might be some hidden folders you'll need to copy. If you see any semi-transparent folders, skip this paragraph and go to the next. Otherwise, press Alt and click Tools > Folder Options. Click the View tab and make sure that "Show hidden files, folders and drives" is selected and that "Hide protected operating system files (Recommended)" is unchecked. Then press OK.

Select everything in the .old folder except any files that say "ntuser" (ntuser.ini, NTUSER.DAT, etc) and press CTRL+C on your keyboard (or right-click and Copy). Then, navigate to your regular username folder and paste those files in (CTRL+V or right-click and Paste).

Now log out of the admin account and back into your regular account. Everything should work okay now. It may be a good idea to go back to User Accounts and remove that admin account after you make sure everything works. Let me know if you have any problems with this.

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Thanks Ruff.

It worked like a charm.

This



keeps popping up.

My parents don't seem to concerned about it and I've rebooted a couple times to see if that fixes it.

Norton doesn't seem concerned about it and Norton's pretty damn good at knowing when to panic.

What do you think?

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"Hmm, the more you look into it the more flaws you see, just as it is with everything."

If Windows is detecting these errors it generally means there are non-security related read/write errors on the disk. This can be caused by some bad sectors on the hard drive, which is not something that can really be fixed, but running CheckDisk will find those bad sectors and annotate them on the volume bitmap so programs don't try to write to them. I would recommend running a CheckDisk from a command prompt for the C drive with the F, V and R tags and rebooting your computer during a time when you won't need to use it for a couple hours.

If you're using XP, go to the Start menu, click Run, type CMD and hit Enter, then type C: (if it doesn't say C:\(Folder) already) and hit Enter, then type CHKDSK /F/V/R and hit Enter, then type Y and hit Enter. Then reboot when it is convenient to do so.

If using Vista or Seven, click the Start menu button, type CMD into the Search field (don't hit Enter), right-click the "Command Prompt" icon that appears in the results field, then click "Run As Administrator." In the Command Prompt, type CHKDSK /F/V/R and hit Enter, then type Y and hit Enter. Then reboot when it is convenient to do so.

If that doesn't take care of it, let me know and I'll make another recommendation.

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Just to clarify do you want to me to turn it off for a few hours then turn it back on or restart it and leave it on for a few hours without using it?

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"Hmm, the more you look into it the more flaws you see, just as it is with everything."

You'll need to restart it and keep it on for a few hours while the CheckDisk program runs. It starts up before Windows finishes loading and usually runs for two or three hours depending on your hard drive, processor, etc.

Usually if I run CHKDSK, it's at night, before I go to sleep. Then in the morning I check the Event Log to see if it found any errors. But in this case, it should just fix your problem altogether.

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So...out of nowhere (as in, it was just fine literally JUST THIS AFTERNOON!!) this stupid I/O device error showed up, blocking all access to my 1TB portable hard drive. Fearing that this would be a repeat of my old one that suddenly stops working altogether, I unplugged it and plugged it back in, hoping that it was just a red herring. It was...or not. Suddenly the taskbar says something about reinstalling device drivers, the USB icon shows up...and "Computer" doesn't see the external! Its definitely there because I can use the "safely remove hardware" option is still doable but UGH!!

Simply put, I think the drive suddenly lost its letter assignment and I want to give it back. It used to be the G: drive and I'm hoping that nothing got wiped. Regathering the contents is almost impossible.

EDIT: I guess I should also add that at the very least Disk Management sees something off. Apparently the external is now Unknown, Unallocated, and Not Initialized. Whatever that means. Again, I hope the files within are safe and that someone here can help me troubleshoot this barring a wholescale wipe.

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The Life and Times of Shad Staydamind PPG fic; finished. part 1/3
Dual Minds Think Alike PPGD fic, part 2/3; finished (trilogy is on an indefinite hiatus)
Hidden Angels Original, ongoing fiction. (also hiated. Stupid college!)