Please bear in mind, when you reply, that I am somewhat challenged with my knowledge of computers.
My computer got slower and slower to use..and...I got fed up with waiting for it to shut down, so I got in to the habit of flicking the main power switch off instead...which I now know to have been a big 'no-no'.
Eventually it wouldn't work and I got a fault message saying 'unmountable boot volume' and the hard drive was knackered.
I've had it repaired (125 quid) and fortunately they managed to piggy back the new hard drive with the old so I've got all my old data.
My only problem is that some of the keys on the keyboard (which was not changed) now have different functions performing e.g. you press @ and get " instead...and vice versa. I can cope with that, but some of the entries have disappeared altogether e.g. the British pound symbol.
I was on Windows XP, but am now on Windows Vista Business.
Any simple solutions please?.......something that someone with a computer mental age of a 5 year old can cope with?
I would be most obliged.
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I recall my old Vista laptop had the missing £ sign problem.
I traced it to a keyboard language setting which was set, for no reason I could fathom, to Australian English.
Have a look in the control panel for something to do with the keyboard.
Happily, it's been a while since I've had to use that dreadful machine, but from memory the control panel option should pop up if you click on the Vista symbol in the bottom left hand corner of the screen.
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And your old hard drive was not knackered - it had corruption to the file system and needed that fixing. Which sounds like it was done and no data lost. But don't flick the switch off - the file systems needs unmounting and pending writes finished before the system can be safely shutdown.
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>> And your old hard drive was not knackerd
It could have been, it might be a problem completely unrelated to turning it off rather than a shut down
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>>which I now know to have been a big 'no-no'
Welll, kinda sorta.
I guess you shouldn't do it, but you'll be unlikely to damage the hardware. The real issue is that there may be some data which has not yet been completely written to disk. Killing the computer without a shutdown can either stop that happening, or corrupt it.
Equally, if you're killing it because its soo slow to shutdown, you may be ignoring an issue.
If switching off was as disastrous as some say, then power cuts would cause more trouble than they do.
I hit the switch on the girls' computers most nights just before i go to bed, and that kills two computers and a router. I'm sure there'll now be a chorus telling me I shouldn't but no harm's come yet.
I'd also wonder why your operating system was changed, and if it was changed to Vista then the authorisation key stuck on your hardware is now no longer useful. So i hope whoever did it gave you original Vista disks complete with key, and for the right version of Vista, when he returned the machine back to you.
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As Mark says, I did wonder why if the original disk had the filesystem issues fixed why they didn't give the machine back as it was. The hard disk was not broken after all. I might even go so far as say you were ripped off.
You do have a legit copy of Windows now don't you with the relevant install media, product key, etc. If not then go back and get these.
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They'll probably be after extra £££ for that...
Anyway, usual advice, why not take an image of the new system while it's still relatively clean ( - should be easy now that you have a second disk installed) - and don't forget to back up valued data regularly. See "threads passim" for the how-to's.
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>> As Mark says, I did wonder why if the original disk had the filesystem issues
>> fixed why they didn't give the machine back as it was. The hard disk was
>> not broken after all. I might even go so far as say you were ripped
>> off.
>>
>> You do have a legit copy of Windows now don't you with the relevant install
>> media, product key, etc. If not then go back and get these.
>>
I've worked it out..after phoning them....and phoning a mate in London who helped me change my computer last time.
When I last changed my computer, a few years back, a mate set it up for Windows XP, but it was a Windows Vista system.
When it recently went in for a hard drive problem, they've given it back to me as per the original set up i.e. Vista.
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I'm grateful for all the advice.
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Advice please - Iffy
