My Hard Drive Indicates It's Full and In The Red

  You may have noticed that your computer is running slower these days. So what could be the problem. What you will most likely find is that your hard drive is getting full. Okay so what can I do to correct this problem. You may be able to uninstall some programs or move some data to an external hard drive or large usb flash drive. This is usually not the answer to the problem. Basically you have just out grown your hard drive. You may get the message from your computer system that you are running out of space. I would open my computer and the full drive will be shown by a  red line.
   The best choice in this situation is to purchase a new hard drive with more available space . The best option is to buy a new hard drive with at least1 terabyte to 4 terabytes as long as your system can handle it. The cost of the 1 to 4 terabyte hard drives have come down in price and are getting cheaper all the time. I would suggest to go with a seagate or a western digital hard drive. My feeling the larger the hard drive the better, so you have more space for future programs. Make sure your desktop or laptop computer system can detect the larger hard drives such as a 3 or 4 terabyte hard drive.
    You are going to need a software program to clone your smaller older hard drive to your new larger hard drive that you will install in your current computer system. My suggestion is to purchase either Acronis or Nortons Ghost . You can find these programs from Amazon, Ebay or at your local computer store such as Office Max. I have worked with both of these software programs and choice is the acronis program. It recognizes the larger hard drives much easier and does a better job as far as I am concerned.
  There are going to be some choices as to performing the cloning. If you will be using the older hard drive in your current computer system as a second hard drive. Purchase a sata cable and a sata power cable if you have go from a molex connector to sata. Another choice is to install your older hard drive into an external enclosure. Then you will be able to use it as your back up hard drive depending if it is big enough. If your old hard drive is at least 500 gigabytes or larger you should have no problem.
   If you are not comfortable with doing the cloning have a friend or professional Computer Service Center do the cloning.
  Thank You for reading and stay safe. 

Help My Computer Is Dead

  I thought I would give a little help on a different subject other than viruses. I don't know how many times I have a computer come in to where I work and it won't turn on. The customer says it was working yesterday and now it's dead. Well the first thing you can do is see if it will have any power at all. Do you see any leds on the front of the computer coming on at all. Generally you will have a power led of some sort and a led that flickers as the hard drive is running something. The other place to look is on the back of the computer. There are some power supplies that have a green led that lights up. Compaq and Hewlett Packard Computers may have this type. The led may be dim or flickering or not on at all. I would also check the power supply and see if it has a toggle switch on the back of the power supply. I have seen these for some reason get placed in the off position.
  The next step is to open the side panel or cover depending on the manufacturer. Most computers have one or two thumb screws that you will have to remove. You may need a Phillips Head Screwdriver to remove or loosen them. Now you can remove the cover. Try and power on the computer and check to see if any fans are spinning. If nothing is spinning then you can remove one component at a time to try and narrow down the problem. I have seen modem cards, usb cards, memory cards and other peripheral cards cause no power problems. I generally disconnect one component at a time such as a optical drive or hard drive to narrow things down.
  If the above steps did not help then it is time to inspect the motherboard and any boards for damage. The most common problem found are capacitors that are popped up on top and leaking or they can be blown out at the bottom causing the capacitor to tip. If you do find this then this indicates that the motherboard has taken a surge of power resulting in the overheating of the capacitors and thus damaging the motherboard. I have seen some technicians replace the damaged capacitors and once in a great while the motherboard works again. This only works if it were due to a time period when there were a bad batch of capacitors that went out. That happened a few years ago. My best advise is just replace the motherboard, because usually there are more damaged components. You could have a situation where a component is damaged and may work for a short period of time or cause intermittent problems such as the famous blue screen of death.
         
            

  If the motherboard looks good and there isn't any damage, then I would test the power supply. There are testers that you can purchase where you connect the various connectors to check the voltages such as the 12 volt line, 5 volt line and the 3.3 volt line. If you have a digital voltmeter you can be the true technician and test for these voltages. If the voltages are bad I would test with a good known power supply if you have one. If you connect it and the computer powers on, posts tests and boots up properly just replace the power supply. If you have to purchase a new power supply I would recommend a supply putting out more than 500 watts. The higher the wattage the better due to have various drives and components in a system. Don't let someone have you put in a cheap 350 watt power supply. They were good a few years ago, but power consumption has changed in systems with new devices such a solid state hard drives and blue-ray players etc...
  Other problems I have found is a broken latch on a heatsink,  which causes the microprocessor to overheat resulting in the computer shutting off or not coming on due to it protecting the system. Another thing to check for is dust blocking fans, heatsinks and  air flow in general. You would not believe the amount of dust in some computers. They are so bad sometimes that bugs die inside the computer.
  The one thing I always stress is that before you touch anything inside the computer use good esd protection. I have information in some of my earlier posts on this subject. You can buy a esd (electro static discharge) strap fairly cheap these days. If you need it quickly check out your local radio shack or electronics store. A quick way is to touch some bare metal to discharge any static electricity. I have heard some technicians say you can not damage a board when it is installed in the computer case. That is simply not true anything can be zapped and damaged.
  Thank You for reading and stay safe.

Help My Computer Won't Power On It's Dead

I don't know how many times I have a computer come in to where I work and it won't turn on. The customer says it was working yesterday and now it's dead. Well the first thing you can do is see if it will have any power at all. Do you see any leds on the front of the computer coming on at all. Generally you will have a power led of some sort and a led that flickers as the hard drive is running something. The other place to look is on the back of the computer. There are some power supplies that have a green led that lights up. Compaq and Hewlett Packard Computers may have this type. The led may be dim or flickering or not on at all. I would also check the power supply and see if it has a toggle switch on the back of the power supply. I have seen these for some reason get placed in the off position.
  The next step is to open the side panel or cover depending on the manufacturer. Most computers have one or two thumb screws that you will have to remove. You may need a Phillips Head Screwdriver to remove or loosen them. Now you can remove the cover. Try and power on the computer and check to see if any fans are spinning. If nothing is spinning then you can remove one component at a time to try and narrow down the problem. I have seen modem cards, usb cards, memory cards and other peripheral cards cause no power problems. I generally disconnect one component at a time such as a optical drive or hard drive to narrow things down.
  If the above steps did not help then it is time to inspect the motherboard and any boards for damage. The most common problem found are capacitors that are popped up on top and leaking or they can be blown out at the bottom causing the capacitor to tip. If you do find this then this indicates that the motherboard has taken a surge of power resulting in the overheating of the capacitors and thus damaging the motherboard. I have seen some technicians replace the damaged capacitors and once in a great while the motherboard works again. This only works if it were due to a time period when there were a bad batch of capacitors that went out. That happened a few years ago. My best advise is just replace the Motherboard , because usually there are more damaged components. You could have a situation where a component is damaged and may work for a short period of time or cause intermittent problems such as the famous blue screen of death.
  If the motherboard looks good and there isn't any damage, then I would test the power supply. There are good testers that you can purchase where you connect the various connectors to check the voltages such as the 12 volt line, 5 volt line and the 3.3 volt line. There are some testers that are fairly cheap in price. If you have a Digital Voltmeter you can be the true technician and test for these voltages. One of the best brands are the fluke digital voltmeters. If the voltages are bad I would test with a good known power supply if you have one. If you connect it and the computer powers on, posts tests and boots up properly just replace the power supply. If you have to purchase a new power supply I would recommend a supply putting out more than 500 watts. The higher the wattage the better due to have various drives and components in a system. Don't let someone have you put in a cheap 350 watt power supply. They were good a few years ago, but power consumption has changed in systems with new devices such a solid state hard drives and blue-ray players etc...
  Other problems I have found is a broken latch on a heatsink,  which causes the microprocessor to overheat resulting in the computer shutting off or not coming on due to it protecting the system. Another thing to check for is dust blocking fans, heatsinks and  air flow in general. You would not believe the amount of dust in some computers. They are so bad sometimes that bugs die inside the computer.
  The one thing I always stress is that before you touch anything inside the computer use good ESD protection. I have information in some of my earlier posts on this subject. You can buy a esd (electro static discharge) strap fairly cheap these days. If you need it quickly check out your local radio shack or electronics store. A quick way is to touch some bare metal to discharge any static electricity. I have heard some technicians say you can not damage a board when it is installed in the computer case. That is simply not true anything can be zapped and damaged.
  Thank You for reading and stay safe.

What Is Going On I Have Pop Ups And My Computer Is Slow And Bluescreens

  I hear that from so may people it is getting to be very ridiculous. The first thing I would suspect is that your computer has become infected. It may be infected with a Virus, Malware, Spyware and Adware. These kinds of infections are extremely popular these days. Most people want to know how did I get this and where did it come from. The usual response is also I have Good Virus Software   such as Mcafee, Nortons Antivirus, Kaspersky, Avast, AVG, Microsoft Security Essentials and those are just some of the antivirus software available. Now there is nothing wrong with any of these programs. They all do a fine job of protecting a computer.
  Okay so why or how can I become infected if I have one of these programs. Another question is what is the Best Virus Software . Well the answer is none of these programs will protect your computer 100% of the time. It does not matter where you go these days, infections are all over the place. They come in through social websites such a facebook. They can come in through a temporary internet file or from an email.  That is why one of the best things I can advise is to always back up your computer. You can do it with an external hard drive and use the back up and restore in windows 7, which does a good job. If you have windows 8.1 this will be a different story. Windows 8.1 does not have the same back up and restore like windows 7. What they do have is a way to make a system image to a external hard drive and you also can have the Documents, Music, Favorites, Desktop, Contacts, Email etc backed up. It can be set at certain times such as daily. The image back up is a manual process, it does not run on a schedule. The files back up does run on a schedule.


  The way to get to these back up choices in windows 8.1 is to move the mouse or finger to the upper right side so you can access the search. Type in file history and click on it to go to it. It can also be accessed by going to the control panel and selecting file history. You can then choose to perform the image back up. This may take a few moments to run. You can then select to set up the files back up and turn it on, by default it is turned off. I can not tell you how well this will work since I have not had to restore any systems using this yet.
  The couple types of back up methods are a third party software such as Nortons Ghost or Acronis. They are booth good pieces of software and do a fine job. The other method of backing up is the cloud method. One of the most popular is carbonite. Just make sure of what package you choose. Some do not do as much as others. There are quite a few different cloud backing up methods, but I have not used them yet.
  If you are going to clean your own computer there are a few programs I would suggest to use. I would download Combofix to use with windows 7. It does not run in windows 8 or 8.1  at this time, but I hope they will get it going soon. I would have free Malwarebytes, Spybot 2.3 Portable, Tdsskiller.exe , Super AntiSpyware Portable, Portable Eset Online Scanner, Clamwin Portable, A-squared, Norton Power Eraser, Adware Removal Tool and Hirens 15.1 and Hirens 15.2. These all can be downloaded off the internet. Save them to a folder and run them in the safe mode. Hirens are a iso file that can be burned to a cdr disk using burning software such as Nero 12. You can boot off these, acquire a network connection and run them. Super Anti Spyware has to be started first in Hirens, close it and then you can run the current version. It is best to run all these programs from the safe mode, but if you can not enter the normal or safe mode use the Hirens cd. Another option is to set up a temporary fresh load on a good hard drive, connect your drive and then run the programs. When done reconnect your hard drive and see if you can boot off it, then rerun the scans.
   I would also advise that combofix and the current version of malwarebytes  will not run off Hirens. If you are not comfortable with performing a virus cleaning yourself, then take it to a professional. Just remember to look for any reviews on the place you choose before you go there. There are many places that just want to take your money. They offer what look like good deals, but could be more costly in the long run.
  The final cause of the slowness can be the hard drive in the computer. It may have developed bad sectors or bad clusters. I have also seen bad memory or not enough memory cause the slowness problem. It seems that quite a bit of the time I see an infected computer as well as a defective hard drive. If the desktop or laptop is more than 3 to 5 years old consider replacing the machine. It may not be cost effective in the long run.
  Well that's all for now so remember Back Up Your Data.
  Thank You for reading and stay safe.   

Help I have Pop Ups And My Computer Is Running Very Slow

  I hear that from so may people it is getting to be very ridiculous. The first thing I would suspect is that your computer has become infected. It may be infected with a Virus, Malware, Spyware and Adware. These kinds of infections are extremely popular these days. Most people want to know how did I get this and where did it come from. The usual response is also I have Good Virus Software   such as Mcafee, Nortons Antivirus, Kaspersky, Avast, AVG, Microsoft Security Essentials and those are just some of the antivirus software available. Now there is nothing wrong with any of these programs. They all do a fine job of protecting a computer.


  Okay so why or how can I become infected if I have one of these programs. Another question is what is the Best Virus Software . Well the answer is none of these programs will protect your computer 100% of the time. It does not matter where you go these days, infections are all over the place. They come in through social websites such a facebook. They can come in through a temporary internet file or from an email.  That is why one of the best things I can advise is to always back up your computer. You can do it with an external hard drive and use the back up and restore in windows 7, which does a good job. If you have windows 8.1 this will be a different story. Windows 8.1 does not have the same back up and restore like windows 7. What they do have is a way to make a system image to a external hard drive and you also can have the Documents, Music, Favorites, Desktop, Contacts, Email etc backed up. It can be set at certain times such as daily. The image back up is a manual process, it does not run on a schedule. The files back up does run on a schedule.
  The way to get to these back up choices in windows 8.1 is to move the mouse or finger to the upper right side so you can access the search. Type in file history and click on it to go to it. It can also be accessed by going to the control panel and selecting file history. You can then choose to perform the image back up. This may take a few moments to run. You can then select to set up the files back up and turn it on, by default it is turned off. I can not tell you how well this will work since I have not had to restore any systems using this yet.
  The couple types of back up methods are a third party software such as Nortons Ghost or Acronis. They are booth good pieces of software and do a fine job. The other method of backing up is the cloud method. One of the most popular is carbonite. Just make sure of what package you choose. Some do not do as much as others. There are quite a few different cloud backing up methods, but I have not used them yet.
  If you are going to clean your own computer there are a few programs I would suggest to use. I would download Combofix to use with windows 7. It does not run in windows 8 or 8.1  at this time, but I hope they will get it going soon. I would have free Malwarebytes, Spybot 2.3 Portable, Tdsskiller.exe , Super AntiSpyware Portable, Portable Eset Online Scanner, Clamwin Portable, A-squared, Norton Power Eraser, Adware Removal Tool and Hirens 15.1 and Hirens 15.2. These all can be downloaded off the internet. Save them to a folder and run them in the safe mode. Hirens are a iso file that can be burned to a cdr disk using burning software such as Nero 12. You can boot off these, acquire a network connection and run them. Super Anti Spyware has to be started first in Hirens, close it and then you can run the current version. It is best to run all these programs from the safe mode, but if you can not enter the normal or safe mode use the Hirens cd. Another option is to set up a temporary fresh load on a good hard drive, connect your drive and then run the programs. When done reconnect your hard drive and see if you can boot off it, then rerun the scans.
   I would also advise that combofix and the current version of malwarebytes  will not run off Hirens. If you are not comfortable with performing a virus cleaning yourself, then take it to a professional. Just remember to look for any reviews on the place you choose before you go there. There are many places that just want to take your money. They offer what look like good deals, but could be more costly in the long run.
  The final cause of the slowness can be the hard drive in the computer. It may have developed bad sectors or bad clusters. I have also seen bad memory or not enough memory cause the slowness problem. It seems that quite a bit of the time I see an infected computer as well as a defective hard drive. If the desktop or laptop is more than 3 to 5 years old consider replacing the machine. It may not be cost effective in the long run.
  Well that's all for now so remember Back Up Your Data and Stay Safe.