My head hurts...

[Debbie]

...actually that made me feel a bit better Our original laptop went gunny on us last year, making all sorts of dire noises, and threatening that the hard drive was on its last legs. So I contacted Toshiba and a brilliant Russian fellow talked me through downloading what he called a DMI String Utility onto a cd.

He said what would happen is once I received the brand new hard drive, I would need this DMI String Utility to configure the brand new hard drive, so it could 'talk' to the computer. I could then use the discs that came with my computer originally to totally reformat the brand new hard drive.

Sounded simple enough. Bought the new hard drive ~ and got stymied for a year with a stupid screw ....one screw that was half stripped out. Yesterday we found a lovely soul who was able to undo the screw for us. I did the change over.

Now I loaded the disc and thought it would do something all on its own. It did ~ brought up errors. After much punching of keys and disconnecting/reconnecting, I have FINALLy got a screen up. But its ...well, its not computer user friendly for a numpty like me.

I've asked my computer techie friends ~ and so far they're batting worse than me! When I attempted to use Toshiba's online support service, it says the widget is broke.

I am NOT giving up, though! Somehow, someway I'll figure it out.....grrrrrrrr..... I think I'll quit for tonight and tackle it again in the morning.

[harveydales]

Good grief Debbie! I thought the screw problem was sorted out months ago! I can't pretend to understand any of this but it is nuts that you are still struggling with it. I think I would have chucked the whole thing in the bin and got a new one!

[zeldalithgow]

You've got more patience than me Debbie I think I'd have given up by now

[PonyGirl]

O my....my head would be hurting too. Don't give up. There is always some hope.

[Debbie]

Pam we did end up getting a new one last year when the stripped screw had us stumped. The all new bells and whistles Vista hasn't held a candle to our old XP system, though. Its the one I'm struggling to reconfigure. That's why I'm persisting.

I've had computer tech friends tell me to take it to a 'computer geek', but this after they regale me with horror stories of wasted time and money, and having to go back through the system and redo the work the geek inflicted on their computer. I'd rather bypass the geek grief and do it myself. I tend to get stubborn once a challenge has been raised.

[harveydales]

Oh I see! I'm quite happy with Vista on our new laptop but then we are still on Windows 98 on the old computer!

[Debbie]

Vista was super fast out of the box, but I've run into compatability issues with Adobe and the Printer as well

[PonyGirl]

Ewwy.....that is horrible.

[taffydales]

I hope you can get it all sorted Deb, we are having problems with our PC at the moment and Tony is feeling just like you...oh and swearing alot lol.

[Debbie]

Tell Ton he's got good company! I swear like a sailor when faced with mechanics, plumbing and computers. Eldon quickly exits from the room. LOL... I inherited that from my Da ;D

[harleydales]

I've heard of a few folks having trouble with Vista. we are XP and quite happy with it.

I've heard of the screw problem too!

When ours plays up I switch it off and plead ignorance........worked so far!

[Debbie]

We aren't having probs outright with our Vista, its just the compatibility problems.

However, the plot gets more and more complicated as I try to get the new hard drive reconfigured. Seems the DMI String utility cd needs to be written in ISO. What's that? Yeah I'd only vaguely heard of it before today myself. Its about ten steps more added to a normal cd burner from what I can tell. I'm SO glad I don't have to work with computers for a living!