Troubleshooting your PC for dummies 2nd edition

Get Cash Back at eBay http://www.ebay.com/frontpage.jsp?r=sali88 Troubleshooting Your PC FOR DUMmIES ‰ 2ND by Dan Gookin EDITION Troubleshooting Your PC FOR DUMmIES ‰ 2ND by Dan Gookin EDITION Troubleshooting Your PC For Dummies®, 2nd Edition Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc 111 River Street Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774 Copyright © 2005 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana Published simultaneously in Canada No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600 Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Legal Department, Wiley Publishing, Inc., 10475 Crosspoint Blvd., Indianapolis, IN 46256, (317) 572-3447, fax (317) 572-4355, e-mail: brandreview@wiley.com Trademarks: Wiley, the Wiley Publishing logo, For Dummies, the Dummies Man logo, A Reference for the Rest of Us!, The Dummies Way, Dummies Daily, The Fun and Easy Way, Dummies.com, and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc and/or its affiliates in the United States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners Wiley Publishing, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book LIMIT OF LIABILITY/DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY: THE PUBLISHER AND THE AUTHOR MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES WITH RESPECT TO THE ACCURACY OR COMPLETENESS OF THE CONTENTS OF THIS WORK AND SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION WARRANTIES OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE NO WARRANTY MAY BE CREATED OR EXTENDED BY SALES OR PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS THE ADVICE AND STRATEGIES CONTAINED HEREIN MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR EVERY SITUATION THIS WORK IS SOLD WITH THE UNDERSTANDING THAT THE PUBLISHER IS NOT ENGAGED IN RENDERING LEGAL, ACCOUNTING, OR OTHER PROFESSIONAL SERVICES IF PROFESSIONAL ASSISTANCE IS REQUIRED, THE SERVICES OF A COMPETENT PROFESSIONAL PERSON SHOULD BE SOUGHT NEITHER THE PUBLISHER NOR THE AUTHOR SHALL BE LIABLE FOR DAMAGES ARISING HEREFROM THE FACT THAT AN ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE IS REFERRED TO IN THIS WORK AS A CITATION AND/OR A POTENTIAL SOURCE OF FURTHER INFORMATION DOES NOT MEAN THAT THE AUTHOR OR THE PUBLISHER ENDORSES THE INFORMATION THE ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE MAY PROVIDE OR RECOMMENDATIONS IT MAY MAKE FURTHER, READERS SHOULD BE AWARE THAT INTERNET WEBSITES LISTED IN THIS WORK MAY HAVE CHANGED OR DISAPPEARED BETWEEN WHEN THIS WORK WAS WRITTEN AND WHEN IT IS READ For general information on our other products and services, please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S at 800-762-2974, outside the U.S at 317-572-3993, or fax 317-572-4002 For technical support, please visit www.wiley.com/techsupport Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books Library of Congress Control Number: 2004117995 ISBN: 0-7645-7742-5 Manufactured in the United States of America 10 2B/RW/QS/QV/IN About the Author Dan Gookin has been writing about technology for 20 years He has contributed articles to numerous high-tech magazines and written more than 90 books about personal computing technology, many of them accurate He combines his love of writing with his interest in technology to create books that are informative and entertaining, but not boring Having sold more than 14 million titles translated into more than 30 languages, Dan can attest that his method of crafting computer tomes does seem to work Perhaps Dan’s most famous title is the original DOS For Dummies, published in 1991 It became the world’s fastest-selling computer book, at one time moving more copies per week than the New York Times number-one best seller (although, because it’s a reference book, it could not be listed on the NYT best seller list) That book spawned the entire line of For Dummies books, which remains a publishing phenomenon to this day Dan’s most recent titles include PCs For Dummies, 9th Edition; C All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies; Dan Gookin’s Naked Windows XP; Buying a Computer For Dummies, 2005 Edition; and Dan Gookin’s Naked Office He also publishes a free weekly computer newsletter, “Weekly Wambooli Salad,” full of tips, how-tos, and computer news He also maintains the vast and helpful Web page www.wambooli.com Dan holds a degree in communications and visual arts from the University of California, San Diego He lives in the Pacific Northwest, where he enjoys spending time with his four boys in the gentle woods of Idaho Publisher’s Acknowledgments We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments through our online registration form located at www.dummies.com/register/ Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following: Acquisitions, Editorial, and Media Development Production Project Editor: Rebecca Whitney Acquisitions Editor: Gregory Croy Technical Editor: Lee M Musick Editorial Manager: Carol Sheehan Project Coordinator: Emily Wichlinski Layout and Graphics: Carl Byers, Andrea Dahl, Lauren Goddard, Denny Hager, Stephanie D Jumper, Barry Offringa, Heather Ryan Media Development Supervisor: Richard Graves Proofreaders: TECHBOOKS Production Services, Leann Harney, Joe Niesen, Dwight Ramsey, Charles Spencer Editorial Assistant: Amanda Foxworth Indexer: TECHBOOKS Production Services Cartoons: Rich Tennant (www.the5thwave.com) Publishing and Editorial for Technology Dummies Richard Swadley, Vice President and Executive Group Publisher Andy Cummings, Vice President and Publisher Mary Bednarek, Executive Acquisitions Director Mary C Corder, Editorial Director Publishing for Consumer Dummies Diane Graves Steele, Vice President and Publisher Joyce Pepple, Acquisitions Director Composition Services Gerry Fahey, Vice President of Production Services Debbie Stailey, Director of Composition Services Contents at a Glance Introduction Part I: What the @#$%&*!? Chapter 1: It’s Not Your Fault! Well, It Might Be Your Fault (How to Tell Whether It’s Your Fault) Chapter 2: Stuff to Try First 19 Chapter 3: Telling a Hardware Problem from a Software Problem 27 Chapter 4: The “R” Chapter (Reinstall, Restore, Recycle, Recovery) 37 Chapter 5: Your Last Resort: Tech Support 51 Part II: Troubleshooting Minor Irks and Quirks 65 Chapter 6: “This Just Bugs Me!” .67 Chapter 7: “Gosh! This Is Embarrassing!” .87 Chapter 8: Startup Problems 99 Chapter 9: Finding Lost Files and Things 121 Chapter 10: Sounds Like Trouble 135 Chapter 11: The Mystery of System Resources (and Memory Leaks) 145 Chapter 12: The Slow PC .155 Chapter 13: Keyboard, Mouse, and Monitor Dilemmas 163 Chapter 14: Printer Problems .175 Chapter 15: Dealing with Disk Disaster .191 Chapter 16: Correcting Graphics Disgrace 203 Chapter 17: Internet Connection Mayhem 217 Chapter 18: Web Weirdness with Internet Explorer 235 Chapter 19: E-Mail Calamities with Outlook Express .251 Chapter 20: General Windows Disruption (Or, “Is This PC Possessed?”) .267 Chapter 21: Windows Can Be Your Friend 283 Chapter 22: Shutdown Constipation 295 Part III: Preventive Maintenance .357 Chapter 23: Maintaining Your Disk Drives 309 Chapter 24: Useful Tools and Weapons .327 Chapter 25: The Benefits of Backup 347 vi Troubleshooting Your PC For Dummies, 2nd Edition Part IV: The Part of Tens 357 Chapter 26: The Ten Rules of Tech Support .359 Chapter 27: Ten Dumb Error Messages .363 Chapter 28: Ten Things You Should Never or Always Do 369 Appendix: Windows Startup Program Reference 373 Index .375 Table of Contents Introduction About This Book .1 How This Book Works What You’re Not to Read .3 Foolish Assumptions .4 How This Book Is Organized Part I: What the @#$%&*!? Part II: Troubleshooting Minor Irks and Quirks Part III: Preventive Maintenance Part IV: The Part of Tens Icons Used in This Book Where to Go from Here Part I: What the @#$%&*!? Chapter 1: It’s Not Your Fault! Well, It Might Be Your Fault (How to Tell Whether It’s Your Fault) Why It’s Not Your Fault 10 How It Possibly Could Be Your Fault 11 You did something new to the computer 12 You were bad and deleted files you shouldn’t have deleted 12 Other ways to remove files you didn’t create yourself 14 How old is your PC? .15 What You Can Do about It .16 Chapter 2: Stuff to Try First 19 Some Quick Keyboard Things You Can Do 19 Test the keyboard .19 Use Ctrl+Z for immediate file relief 20 Escape! Escape! 21 The Drastic Measure of Restarting Windows (Yet It Works) 22 Restarting Windows .22 Restarting Windows when the mouse is dead but the keyboard is alive 24 Restarting when everything is dead 24 What to about “restart guilt” .25 ... http://www.ebay.com/frontpage.jsp?r=sali88 Troubleshooting Your PC FOR DUMmIES ‰ 2ND by Dan Gookin EDITION Troubleshooting Your PC FOR DUMmIES ‰ 2ND by Dan Gookin EDITION Troubleshooting Your PC For Dummies , 2nd Edition Published... 181 Your printer’s window .183 Little printer guy .183 xi xii Troubleshooting Your PC For Dummies, 2nd Edition And Then, the Printer Goes Wacky 183 General troubleshooting. .. entire line of For Dummies books, which remains a publishing phenomenon to this day Dan’s most recent titles include PCs For Dummies, 9th Edition; C All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies; Dan Gookin’s