I know that strictly speaking this should b in the technical forum but can I recommend something,

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

Totally free and a wonderful piece of kit for all sorts of computer problems.

You do need to be a bit techie to use it though.

I have something a little similar in that I have a CD of one of the "Linux Live" Distributions. Basically you boot from a CD and get a sytem that can read you disk if it's not died completely, copy stuff off to CD or whatever, and if you're a real techie can have a go at sorting out whatever's stopping Windows from booting.....

Lesson for all though is that if there's stuff you want to keep, make a backup. CD, DVD, an external hard drive - it doesn't matter what you use. But do it, or otherwise as and when your disk goes or windows gets totally goosed you'll be wailing and gnashing teeth....

If you're knowledgeable enough, the VERY first thing you should do with a new computer (or when reinstalling everything from scratch after backing your data up) is partition the disk it into at least two sections, one for software and the other for data.
You can then reinstall your OS to your heart's content in the full knowledge that your data will not budge an inch - er - providing you're not too thick to know which partition your data is on that is!

If the OS is already installed you can still partition your HD with Partition Magic.
I use four partitions myself: OS / apps / public data / users' private data.

If all that went over your head then either take lessons or it's not for you

On the OS / Data partition I completely agree. Only a fool would run the OS on the same drive as data. (Or a complete novice).

I don't trust partion magic. I used it some years ago when I got partiton fever and partitioned about 6 or 7 drives. It crashed half way through and I had a right job getting the drive live again.

Why the public data? Do you run a server on your home machine?

I sometimes do but that's not what I meant. Call it pooled data if you prefer.
There are two or three potential users on the machine, so my professional data is locked to protect it but there is other data that I don't mind anyone having access to.


And yet that's the brain-dead way computers are set up by default stupid

Production line mentality. It takes longer to partition the disc than to install a default windows installation I suppose. You would have thought that these clever lads would write an installation program that auto partitioned before installing the OS to c:

Speaking of setting up an OS.

I've taken my other laptop down to bare bones and it's formatting the drive as we speak:

35'653 clusters examined
1'704 clusters found bad.


Anyone got a 1.8 toshiba drive hard spare? I think this one is on its way out. The annoying thing is that its the same size as the ipod hard drive so the prices are through the roof with lots of people doing their own upgrades.

But you've still got 33949 to go at?? That should hold Poolsworld and all your Frankie, what else do you need??