Hardware

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)

Infopackets Reader Walt H. asks: " Is it possible to create an image [backup] of your hard drive to an external USB hard drive? If so, what limits are there in creating the image and restoring it? I can't add another hard drive to my laptop, plus I ... thought a portable USB drive could allow me to image more than one computer. " Side note: USB is short from for Universal Serial Bus. It's a small port usually located at the back of your computer and is pretty much the standard connection used for external computer peripherals today (such scanner, mouse, keyboard, printer, etc). My ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Reza M. asks, " Can you tell me, how I can update my computer's main board BIOS? " My Response: Flashing a BIOS simply means to update the BIOS. A BIOS is a computer chip which contains simple instructions required for operation ... particular to a device. Since not all main boards are the same, the steps taken for flashing a motherboard BIOS can only be generalized. I will attempt to explain the procedure, but must first advise: do not flash your BIOS unless you absolutely need to (IE: an update is required to have the device function properly). The reasoning for ... (view more)