@Shadowed: Are you hearing any strange noises from the drive when you plug it in? Clicking, things like that? If not, then we'll move to the next step.

Try plugging the drive into another computer. If it comes up fine there, then we can assume it's just your computer and we can go from there.

If it works, then what might be the issue---from my cursory understanding of what's going on---is that the driver has become corrupted somehow (there might be other problems, but let's go with the simplest thing right now). It may be a good idea to uninstall the driver for the hard drive and then reinstall it (probably from Windows Update). Can you access the device properties for that drive?

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Ugh, I oughta be a bit more attentive to this thread. Funny story. The very next morning I decided to plug it back in the laptop. Suddenly, IT WORKS!! As if nothing ever happened! Problem is, I'm too scared to use it unless absolutely necessary so I'm basically crossing my fingers that a retailer or something calls me back so I can finally parry up enough money of my own to get yet another hard drive. I think 1TB Western Digital drives are about $90-100. Feh, to think I paid $140 for one of those years ago.

Actually, not so much lessen its use but not leave it plugged in for almost half the day. Seriously, I have no idea what the hell happened aside from possible random corruption. Still, there was no strange buzzing noise like the other one (which I switched out and backed up in the nick of time years ago, by burning a hole in my wallet).

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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!)

Good to hear it. I used to have an external SATA-USB drive that failed. I pulled the drive out of my case and plugged it into my desktop and it worked. Sometimes the USB controller on there just fries--or sometimes the drive overheats in an improperly cooled enclosure (ones with no vents are the worst) and won't work again until it cools down. Good to know that you got yours working at least.

Next time something like this happens, let me know and we'll see if we can't get a better picture of the issue.

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Slow startup.

Something called dirmngr.exe stopped working and keeps ending unexpectedly when trying to start it.

Internet refuses to work (the dependency service or group failed to start so I can't even properly research this problem LITERALLY OUT OG NOWHERE!!

Most services won't work, from Task Scheduler to System Restore (claims there's no restore point despite Windows Update making one before updating).

Some message fron the taskbar says the following: Windows could not connect to the System Event Notification Service. This problem prevents limited users from logging on to the system. As an administrative user, you can review the System Event Log for details about why the service didn't respond.

This shit occured right after opening the laptop from sleep mode last night (it was JUST FINE then!! WTF?!)

With no restore point, brother suggests wiping the laptop to factory settings (the day I first got it). I'd like this to be the last resort. That, and I have no idea how to do that.

Finally, this is all being typed from my 3DS. The shared PC has its own problems; none of the USB ports work (declares anything plugged in as 'damaged'). Guess which port the mouse uses...

tl:dr HELP!!

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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!)

Try here http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/wind ... 648cd85478

Also try the related links.

dirmngr.exe is part of GNU privacy guard, does that program sound familiar?

System Event Notification Service is stuck on "starting" with no way of stopping or restarting it. As for dirmngr, I knew nothing about it until this issue popped up from thin air. Furthermore, I use Windows Vista and the first page of responses alone aren't very reassuring. Apparently it comes and goes but the solutions don't seem to work for everyone and I saw a few accounts of this problem coming up more often after a hard drive reformat or every three restarts.

Also, whenever I try to start dirmngr through services, it fails, saying something along the lines of the program terminating itself unexpectedly. This issue is going on two days now. I scanned the whole drive with Ad-Aware and found/deleted/quarantined a few threats but that didn't do anything. Still, at least a virus isn't responsible...I hope.

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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!)

Okay, so it turns out one of the tips in that thread worked. Restart something called "Winsock" in safe mode. This worked, but for him it seemed to be a temporary fix and I don't know how long before I have to restart and hope this doesn't happen again. I'm typing from the comfort of my laptop, is what I'm saying.

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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!)

It kinda sounds like a really stealthy virus. There are viruses that can even elude the most sophisticated AV programs on the market. Don't get freaked out tho, that's just speculation. It could very likely be something else.

Depending on how long you've had the computer, it could be that your hard drive is just failing. You can get new drives cheaply from Newegg.com. Depending on the size of your hard drive, I recommend this one. If your current hard drive is larger than this, let me know and I'll recommend another. If you do buy another hard drive, you'll need a Windows Vista installation disk that matches the version you have (Home Premium, Ultimate, etc, and 32 or 64-bit). If it becomes necessary that you buy one, I would actually recommend that you buy a Windows 7 retail copy rather than an OEM copy (OEM is less expensive, but they expect you to provide ALL your own support, etc).

But first, go to Start, Run, type "CMD" and enter "CHKDSK /R/V" then restart your computer. This may take a couple hours to complete, but you might see some improvement. It also might not, in which case let me know and I can suggest something else before you go and buy the hard drive. Let me know if you have any trouble.

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Why would you rec a 5400 RPM drive for anything other than a dedicated storage drive exactly Ruff?

I only recommended it as a replacement for whatever drive he has right now. Most store-bought laptops don't come with 7200 RPM hard drives because they tend to use more power (laptops are generally designed to have a longer battery life and be more energy efficient than desktops). If he has, say, a gaming laptop where power is not a major concern, then yes I would certainly recommend either an SSD hard drive or a 7200 RPM drive.

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So...

I left my laptop in hibernate for three days...

I press the power button...

And it doesn't turn on...

...at all.

I'm hours away from going apeshit.

EDIT: False alarm, that hard reset thing worked...though now the laptop has no battery in it. Incidentally, I have a fresh spare (came with the laptop years ago) but I'm not sure if its safe to put it in.

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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!)

Try bringing your computer to a normal shut-down state from Windows, and then experiment with the batteries to see if they work. The first one may have just gotten unseated and will need to be recharged. Verify that is or is not the case.

Generally, a battery that was to be used as a spare but doesn't have much use will slowly lose its charge over time, but that doesn't mean it can't be used/charged again.

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i wanna operate a server from my dorm.

needs to be atleast 500 gigs
fit in a small room
under $200

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"Small muscles, big brain, the heart of a lion."
—Anthony DiNozzo on Timothy McGee

You're asking for a headache trying to run anything out of a college just so you know, they have so many stupid traffic restrictions.

i know.

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"Small muscles, big brain, the heart of a lion."
—Anthony DiNozzo on Timothy McGee

Typical servers will fit in a space about 3-ft square, plus whatever type of console they are using to display the GUI, etc. But to make a small server computer all you need is a full tower with a full tower ATX motherboard that contains extra processor slots (not to mention high-performance processors), and extra Ethernet ports to bridge the internet to the file server (even if you plan for it to be the SAME server). You will need to set up main hard drive and a Raid with at least 2 disks (3 if you want to do Raid Level 5), obtain a switch and few standard routers, configured with different names each and obtain a switch to process the heightened data throughput. That's probably way past $200, probably more like $1,500 to $2000.

Of course, I might be assuming you're trying to do more than you actually are. What are your goals here?

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My laptop's touchpad occasionally stops working. Restarting my laptop typically fixes it but it's only a tempoary fix.

The help desk websites suggest updating my drivers for it but I have it set to automatically update when an update is available.

Any advise for this?

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

Go to the website for the company that manufactures your laptop, locate your model and download the latest firmware updates for your computer and driver updates for your touchpad. Sometimes the drivers are bundled together, but if you can find a stand-alone touch pad driver, use that.

Next, go to your Device Manager and uninstall the driver for your touch pad (you may have to plug in an external mouse for this step, unless you're good at navigating by keyboard).

Finally, locate the up-to-date drivers and install them. Restart your computer and test it out. Don't install the firmware yet (if you downloaded it). It may not be necessary.

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My dain is lost mikely bramaged.

I cannot properly express my anguish into words but I shall try.

Ever had one of those days where your fixing a door but the door keeps distort your reality so you are unable to do such.

Yea, that's what I'm going through with this GODAMN touchpad.


HP doesn't have any drivers for my mouse as far as I can tell.

Synaptics is supposed to but I ain't seeing shit on their site, if you could even call it that.

My warranty has run out so HP is acting all sketchy to me.

I think my touchpad is Satan or at the very least a demon, I need that spray stuff people use to clean the inner workings of keyboards but mixed with holy water.

I may sound like I am joking but this constant metaphor creation is how I deal with pissedoffitude.

Tech life's a bitch.

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

Good news. I found the drivers you spoke of on the HP website after quite a bit of searching and establishing what my model number was.


Bad news. My mouse doesn't work PERIOD now.

On the plus side I have learned how to navigate with my keyboard for the time being, but ya it doesn't do anything now.

How does one "right click" with a keyboard?


Edit- NEVERMIND!

Upon re-restarting and turning it off for roughly 20 minutes the touchpad is now working.

It has only been 2 minutes of using it but so far no issues.

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

Glad to hear it. Let me know if you have any other problems.

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run a forum site and run a personal skydrivecloud service.

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"Small muscles, big brain, the heart of a lion."
—Anthony DiNozzo on Timothy McGee

...

So the touchpad on this laptop seems to reverting back to its previous condition of randomly halting its function.

After the hell I went through last time I am not going to dry that particular solution attempt again.

Any suggestions?

Detail: I don't know if this will help but when I use the laptop on my lap the touchpad freezes somewhat less than if I placed it on a table. But if I place it on the ground and lay down on the ground to use it, it never freezes. I don't even know.

Another detail: Hilariously the mouse froze right when I finished writing that last detail.

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

Ad-aware updated itself days ago but says I need to restart to complete it. I put it off until today.

Suddenly, THAT FUCKING BLUE SCREEN flickers during the restart and am suddenly told that...something went wrong with the hard drive or startup. I don't remember but it gave me the option to fire up something called Windows Startup Repair.

For God knows how long there's a black screen, follows by the mouse pointer being bigger then its supposed to be. After what felt like half an hour, a "normal" blue screen appears, followed by a window called System Recovery Options.

It tells me to select an operating system from the list to repair, then click next. THERE'S NOTHING ON THE LIST!! Implyin that I have no OS installed. HOW THE FUCK IS THAT POSSIBLE?!

The alternative is to click on Load Drivers, which I do, only to see a pop-up telling me to "insert the installation media for the device...". I have no idea what that means (I really hope it isn't the Vista installation disc. I don't remember if I ever got that) so I just click OK.

The System32 folder appears, telling me to open a setup information file. Incidentally, the only files that'll show up when browsing the su folders are what appear to be .ini files. I have no clue which ones should be opened but so far most of them appear to be in a subfolder called DriverStore. The 3DS I'm using is limited in the amount of letters/characters it can type per message so I'm afraid I can't list them just yet.The various names of the subfolders appear to clue me in, but only a little. I see words like battery, volume, usb, and other odd abbreviations.

tl;dr HELP! YET AGAIN!! Worst case scenario is taking the taking the laptop to the shop where I'll most likely be charged hundreds of dollars that I don't have.

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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!)

The easiest way if possible would be to run the startup in safe mode. Then heading over to the system restore and restoring your whole system and drivers to an earlier save point.

Then again, it seems that your computer might not be finding the operating system, which is odd. It might be an HDD failure.

Either way, the safest way would be to use your OS startup CD. I'm guessing you're running Vista (it's poor, next time try either Win XP or Win 7), in which case the best bet is to get your hands on a Vista startup CD, run your computer with it, and use the Operating System repair tool (if available) or simply re-install Vista on your old Vista (if repair tool is not available).
I've done that previously with my Win XP. And while installing a new XP over the old XP is not the "cleanest" way of fixing it, not only did it always work, it also seemed to keep all of the files/data and even drivers and settings.

I don't think the loading drivers option will get you far though. Unless there is something about Vista that is very different from most other Win OS types.

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This post is intended for information only. Please do not reply to this message as responses cannot be read or acknowledged due to the stupidity of the user.