Replies

Shall bear that in mind BigAl. I can put up with an occasional reboot but if it develops into regular occurrences I shall delve further, although I am really only a software user and not really tech minded. Thanks

Just tried to bootup my second home pc which is networked to the pc I was having a problem with and lo and behold it did the exactly the same thing. Restarted and problem gone (until next time). Does this mean that it is not a hard disk problem or does it indicate something else? I have broadband & a Linskys router networked to this second pc.
Any further thoughts.
Cheers

Thanks shall give that a try.

Received a message :
Cannot lock current drive
Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another process. would you like this volume to be checked the next the system restarts (Y/N).

Should I proceed with Y

Thanks guys – I have run file and computer scans with Kaspersky, which shows no problems. How do I run a system file checker & check disk? I have a guest account but all my personal files are backed up regularly to another pc. I don”t know when the problem is next going to happen and could be days or weeks, but simply restarting the pc solves temporarily.

Option in the meantime is a temporary fix. Switched my homepage to http://www.google.com/firefox instead of using google.com

Latest on this problem. I have just copied & pasted a link into the address bar at the top of Fire Fox and again the search defaulted to a google search for hp. Re-pasted link and it returned my web page okay. There were no “hp” letters or anything resembling this in my copied link.
Has anyone else experienced this?

Found the answer in the Mozilla forum about this and problem is with the add-on LinkExtend. Hopefully they will get it resolved as it is a good add-on.

Latest on this problem. I have just copied & pasted a link into the address bar at the top of Fire Fox and again the search defaulted to a google search for hp. Re-pasted link and it returned my web page okay. There were no “hp” letters or anything resembling this in my copied link.
Has anyone else experienced this?

Nope my pc is not made by HP and it is the Google.com search box in its page I am using. Browser is FF3.5.2. & Windows XPsp2. This has only started to occur in the past week and does not happen consistently. I can search all day and it does not happen, then suddenly my search returns hp sites with hp in the search box. Unusual to say the least. Think I’ll try to clear and reduce the days browsing history down to 1 or 2.

Just noticed my browsing history had already been set to clear when FF closes.

Nope my pc is not made by HP and it is the Google.com search box in its page I am using. Browser is FF3.5.2. & Windows XPsp2. This has only started to occur in the past week and does not happen consistently. I can search all day and it does not happen, then suddenly my search returns hp sites with hp in the search box. Unusual to say the least. Think I’ll try to clear and reduce the days browsing history down to 1 or 2.

Why not give the Deepnet Browser a try? Firefox is good but there are times when it is not possible to access all the features of some banks, and it is good to use another browser other than IE, which is constantly under attack from hackers.

Sorry that should have been Office XP sp3 and all the other patches come down okay. I do not have any objection to WGA but I thought I read somewhere in Windows Newsletter not to bother installing as it seemed to be an infringement. I do have genuine copy of Windows.
Would I still need patch.
Thanks

Perhaps you can help. I have Acronis TI9 running windows xp sp2, and have just received a cut price offer to update to Acronis Home 2009. I have previously updated from TI7 & TI8.
Should I wait and see if Acronis TrueImage Backup 2010 beta 2 will be better or should I save my money and stick with TI9 as I cannot see myself upgrading to Windows 7 for a long time?
Any comments appreciated.

Thanks Hans but when I do a Microsoft and Securia check for updates this patch does not show as missing on my pc. Windows Secrets newsletter advised not to install sp3 just yet (Sept 2008), and I am waiting for the go ahead.

Oops
Forgot to re-start pc after changing the registry. My U3 device works fine now following your advice to delete AutoRun.info
Shall be careful when inserting hardware to pc.
Cheers