CptMurphy

There's no way to repair the HDD yourself. From the sounds of it, it seems like your HDD is about to kick the bucket. Better backup all your docs and look for a new HDD.

I use download.com and softpedia.com I'd list other sites but they may not be allowed on here.

Until M$ changes the EULA in Vista, there's no way I'm dropping any amount on that OS. Specifically I'm talking about the rule that says that we are only allowed to reinstall the OS once. The problem is that if they define what constitutes a "new PC" to strictly, I may have just spent too much money on a pretty graphics OS. I'd LOVE to have DX10, but I'm not payin $400 for it.

One word: Active Directory Google it for a ton of resources.

This guy is a really good pianist. Check out his website: http://nerdpunk.com Take a look at the vids page and scroll down to where Dana Vinson is singing the popular Space Camp song in her own way, sounds even better.

Well, legally I'm not allowed to have any connection with that stuff anymore . Sorry.

It's actually 98628. Still alot considering.

Could you post up a screen shot?

LMAO Man that was good. I like the one about the not farting to conserve oxygen.

Actually, one other good way is to try and be clever, but ignorant at the same time. This one trick sinched it for me. When I was in HS I was working at the library as a class. It was a light day, as it was everyday, so I decided to look up some pranking on PCs. I've already learned the basics, so when I came across the net send command, I was excited at what I could do with it in a LAN enviroment. Well, being typical, I got on a PC and entered net send * THE LIBRARY MAN IS WATCHING YOU. I put that because our librarian had a program to spy on the PC's at the library, and remotely control them. I sent it out, and to my surprise, it went out to EVERY SINGLE PC in the network, with the exception of the main office's PC's because they where on a different network. The router stopped the flood, just not within that LAN. It was awesome, I fessed up, and the admin just laughed. It was there that the relationship opened up, he lessened my restrictions.

First things first, he didn't "hack" anything. All he had to do was point and click. Now, like the others have posted, password the admin account, don't add a hint, just use some random alphanumeric key, like a combination of your social security number and your last name. Something that's easy to remember but that he would never guess. Adding his account to the limited users section wont do anything really, besides limiting what he can configure on the PC. Do what I do and limit his access to the folders. First we create an account for your bro, since he doesn't have one. While logged in as admin, or your account, right click My Computer and click Manage->expand the Local Users and Groups list->without selecting any of the names in the box, right click in there and select New User->Enter a name and leave the password blank, if you want->Hit OK->double click the newly created account and go into the Member Of tab->Delete the group that's in there (IIRC it should be Power Users, if it's users just leave it there) and click the Add button->in the text box, type Users and click the check button. It should add something like "PC_NAME\USER_NAME". Now we get rid of the simple file sharing by doing this: Go into My Computer->select Tools in the toolbar->Folder Options->click the View tab->scroll to the bottom and uncheck the selection which says "Use Simple File Sharing" Now we do the hard work. I'm going to assume that your programs are all in C:\Program Files. Change the directory as needed: Go into C:\Program Files->Right click the folder which contains the program you want to block->Goto Tools->Folder Options->Click the Security tab->Click the Add button->add your brother's account. Do this for every folder, main folder where the program is, that you want to block him from. NOTE:DO NOT ADD THE USER GROUP, ADD ONLY THE SPECIFIC ACCOUNT. In this setting there's no need to block the whole group, just the specific account. If needed, I'll post up screenshots for the steps.

Windows XP manages memory just fine. Those "memory defragments" are absolute trash. Anyone recommending them needs to learn a thing or two. No offense intended. None taken. I would like to know your reason for thinking this way though, I guess I'm just used to using these programs since win2k, when ram that was used then wasn't showed up as used.

Sorry man, still working for me. Are you selecting where you want to download the files? Or are you just saving to the default location? It's also possible that you are running low on space.

Why don't you read nitroshift's post and get back to us.

Well, you have 768MB of ram, what games are you running? Download a memory manager like freeramXP.

Are you sharing the folders? Also, you could go into command prompt and enter: \\PC_NAME_HERE\c$ You could change the C to whatever drive you want to access. Just enter the admin user and pass when prompted.

Yep, go for a sataII version.

Works fine for me.

And if found out have your accoutn locked, suspended from college, total access restictions...many different concequences of trying to be clever. not something i would recommend. i did that and am lucky not to have a criminal record Well that's just cause you don't know how to cover your tracks. But I was being sarcastic though.

So you've tried known working devices and they don't work? It may be that your USB ports are fried. Have you tried to plug in these devices while in safe mode? One at a time? Also, are you pluging them directly into the back USB ports? Or on the front? If it's in the front, check the cables that go from the mobo to the front I/O panel. If it still doesn't work than it looks like you'll need to get a new mobo, unless another member has a better suggestion.

Do you have other USB devices to test out? Did you install any new hardware/software at the time this failure started occuring? How are the devices connected, i.e. are they each on their own USB port or are they on a USB hub?

Well, doing a quick google search brought me these instructions: I don't know if it's permanent though. Here's the page's link: http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~jhalderm/cd3/ BTW, I'm pretty sure the protection your cd's have is MediaMax.

I'm 98% positive you can't take that off unless you edit your registry.

IE7 is out only for XP, 2K3, and of course Vista. 2K and lower clients will not get an IE7 package. Righto, thanks for the reference.