Machine slowly dying. Lots to copy and print out today.

[Paper Roses]

Anyone know if it is possible to copy "Favorites"?

Have a recent machine given to me by my son-in-law. I know it has Norton. Should I install Revo right away and ge rid of Norton or is a better route?

Any advice is appreciated.

I heard a funny noise coming from the machine last night. Sounded a little like a grinding. It now runs very loud. I hope I have time to do what I need to do--Now I have to figure how to use this flash drive thingie. There are no instructions with it. Lovely.

Phooey.

[blogslut]

1. A flash drive, if I understand you correctly,

...is nothing but blank media that can be read from a USB port. When you insert it, your Operating System should automatically detect it and install the proper drivers for it. That is, if your OS is no older than Windows 2000.

Some flash/jump drives come pre-installed with file systems and other stuff, which I promptly delete by formatting the drive (from My Computer) the same way I would an old Floppy disk (right-click > Format).

Like I said, your Operating System should be able to detect the flash drive right after you plug it into the USB port. Give your system a minute and see if it doesn't pop up some dialogue boxes that say things like: "Detecting Hardware", "Looking for Drivers" and finally, a box that opens, asking you whether or not you want to view the contents of the drive in Windows Explorer.

Once you get your system to see, read and write to the drive, all you have to do is open Windows Explorer and copy/paste files/folders from your hard drive to your flash drive.

EDIT ADD: If by flash drive, you mean a Compact Flash disk, the same stuff applies except you plug it in via you CF port.

[Paper Roses]

2. Hi, Machine does not want to recognize this flash drive.

I have tried and no message appears, no icon, no message...nothing.

I think I can proceed without trouble if this machine would be a little cooperative. Could I be missing something that will cause no recognition? I don't have too much to copy and it is a 2GB unit. Very frustrating. Have been to various help sites, nothing is helping.

When I plug the unit into the port, a blue light comes on on the flash drive itself. Nothing else happens that I can find. I expected something to show on the desktop. Zilch. 'Bout ready to put this machine away and sometime later try and figure this out.

[blogslut]

3. Have you opened up My Computer

...to see if your flash drive is listed? It would have a letter assigned to it, usually "E", with "A" being the Floppy, "C" being the hard drive and "D" being the CD and/or DVD drive.

[canetoad]

4. Make sure your speakers are turned on

Then plug the flash drive in. You should hear the signature XP sound 'boing-boing' of a new device being plugged in.

If you hear nothing, try a different USB port. You may have USB on a number of locations; front, rear top, rear bottom. If the front USB ports are not working, the rear ones might be so try your flash drive on all the USB ports.

On the offchance that your sound is not working and you can't hear the new device sound, open my computer and double click on any new drives that you find there (that is apart from your regular C drive, your CD/DVD drive).

You could also try plugging the Flash drive into the computer then rebooting the machine to see if it finds the Flash drive that way.

On edit: If you do get the flash drive working and manage to copy your stuff, don't just pull it out of the USB slot. There is a chance that you could lose the files on it. Let us know and we will talk you through 'Safely Remove Hardware'.

[struggle4progress]

5. If you've got a desktop, that horrid computer noise might be easily fixed. It could be a system fan

and they're usually easy to replace

It might also be a cpu fan or a powersupply fan. The cpu fan is probably trickier to replace than a system fan, but it's not terribly hard to replace. You probably shouldn't mess with a powersupply fan: a professional might repair it, but small powersupplies are usually cheap and usually not hard to replace

Another real possibility is that the harddrive is dying

I suppose some real problem might also generate noises from a floppy or optical drive, but I'd guess that's less likely

[Occulus]

6. bad fan was my first thought, esp. since it got louder

Real easy for a bearing on a fan to go bad; fortunately, they're very cheap. Unless it's the PS fan. Those are expensive because you need a whole new power supply if that's the case.