Caution on the pokeberries. One of those plants that is much harder NOT to grow (at least here in PA) than to grow. Very invasive, very large, too gawky to be half attractive (the berries are a pretty blue, though,) they do stain, I think they are poisonous, and one of my friends told me that in her childhood they called them 'stinkweed.' (Never stopped to smell one.) That said, if you still want them go for it, they might be an improvement over poison ivy. Hmm...seems like damning with faint praise to me. I've been ripping them out for a few years but would be willing to send you seed if I find any I missed...all of it, come to think of it.

Wow, I've found the right place --- psycho bird victims unite! I've had male cardinal attacking my windows for 7 months now. I've tried covering windows, spraying windex(it was all I had) on outside of window, aluminum foil on outside of windows(I got creative for a while). If I cover one window he comes to another. He has now found my bedroom. This is from dawn to dusk and I'm not a fan of getting up at dusk! It's making me crazy, I'm smoking more, thinking of buying a gun(used to be a pacificist...) and losing friends! I've always been one to try to see a 'meaning' from the universe in odd moments but my love and peace tendencies are waning quickly. Please let me know if anything has worked ... I've got a lot of windows. Jeez, I just read they can live 15 years. I dont thidsfnk ihave thaat mch tiim lftt.

I should have mentioned that before trying to defrag I did empty my recycle bin, ran Ccleaner, and ran Error check. I did not reboot after doing these however. My computer guy put TreeSize on my computer which I just opened and can see that 31,000 MB is my iTunes Library. I have very little music there but lots of voice memos, downloaded radio programs, podcasts etc. Most of the files in iTunes are Wave Audio Files which I remember being told are large files. I was told by a tech guy at the Apple store to change my files from Wave Files to AAC files and they would take less space on my iPod. I came home and tried to do that but it didn't work and I haven't taken the time to figure out why. I assume if I can change these files to AAC files (or some other type of compressed format?) they won't take up as much space on my hard drive. I love my iPod and being able to tape radio and listen to it while gardening or walking. I know my library will always be large so I need to figure out how to make the files smaller or get a larger hard drive. Thanks again for your help!! Ginny

As it happens, things have changed. The technician Dell sent came with the replacement hard drive (with pre-installed XP and drivers). He installed it - booted - and the same hard drive warning occurred. Turns out it was my second internal hard drive (that I use for data) that was going bad. It was a good thing I already had the 2TB replacement. So he put the 2TB drive in - returned my original hard drive - and all functioned well - no hard drive error messages. Now I do have work ahead of me - but this changes the nature of it. Much better scenario - but still requires thinking through. There are probably just a few video files on the second internal hard drive that I don't have copies of. I think they're still accessible - so I will either get a docking station - or better yet an enclosure (since I will need one anyway - as I'll describe later) to put it in - and see if I can transfer those video files to my new 2TB internal drive. I think it makes sense to test that drive to see what's wrong with it - if it's repairable by Windows XP (I think if I run chkdsk there are possibilities to repair some damage?). Should I do this? Or are there other methods to safely test out the health of my hard drive? It is also a Western Digital. The timing of the hard drive failure is now making more sense. I had spent the previous weekend backing up lots of data files onto this second internal 1.5 TB hard drive. I think some of those transferred Tivo files might be problematic. (I say that for 2 reasons - when I've tried to defrag the hard drive, I recall a few files that couldn't be defragged - and while it was hard to see the path, I think they were the Tivo videos. Also, there were a few Tivo videos that failed to work properly when I tried to run VideoRedo to remove commercials. Some just seemed to be bad files - of course, I don't recall which those ones were - but it makes me wonder if it's the sources of the problem on that second hard drive.) Next step is call Dell - I bought that second hard drive from them 1 1/2 yrs ago. It has a 3 yr warranty. I'm not sure if the warranty will be honored by Dell or Western Digital (the brand of drive). So I figure I'll be getting a replacement 1.5 TB hard drive - which I can either install internally - use it as program drive or data drive. I can use the original 500GB drive externally. Or maybe I should keep it the way it is now. Original 500GB internal hard drive, second 2 TB internal hard drive - and put the replacement 1.5 TB hard drive in an enclosure and use for back-ups. One reason I'd like to use the 2TB drive as a program/boot drive (or master drive - I'm not sure of the language) is bc. it's supposed to be a faster drive - Western Digital Black Caviar 2TB drive - 7200rpm and 64MB Cache that was a bit pricier, but I thought it was worth it for quality and speed. It's this one: http://www.amazon.co...ref=oss_product (although I paid less than the price listed online) I'm new enough at all this that I don't understand everything about hard drive speed. I think that a larger drive can potentially slow things down a bit as it has to work to see date over a larger area/amount of data - but that the 7200rpm and 64MB cache will offer more speed - and the reviews suggest this thing is fast. I'd love any guidance in weighing these factors as I decide which to make the primary drive. I also want to clarify what to do with this drive. I don't know how to partition. And if I did, how large a partition should I create on this 2TB drive - if it were to hold the operating systems and programs? I don't know how much room that takes - and how to be sure to take the appropriate sections of my original drive to place into this partition. I can figure out what size each portion of my original hard drive is? I just don't know which folders go into the partition for programs/software? I don't want to leave any out - and I'm concerned I will miss some folders bc. I do not recognize what they are. If I partition the drive, I gather I don't clone it - but do it in sections. I also don't know if I should format it first. Or partition first. Disk management is fairly new to me although I did format a couple of drives. I didn't get into partitions and copying from one drive to another. Does it make sense to use this 2TB drive (which I bought for it's speed and good functioning) as the main drive? If so, I don't know the order of operations? Clone my original drive to this drive? Format and partition first (in which case I'll need to know how to get the proper system files vs. data files into the right partitions). I think I know that if I make this 2TB the master, I have to either switch the cables - but since I think they won't stretch to the second hard drive bay, I'll probably have to swap them. I am so relieved not to have lost my original drive. Although it consumed the better part of last weekend, I did learn plenty - and feel more confident cutting my "recovery" teeth on recovering data from the bad second drive which only has some video at stake. Just as a reminder my original drive has about 350GB data. Thanks everyone. Lynn. PS - I did learn a couple of important things from this technician. First, he updated the bios in my computer (which was several versions old). And he told me where to go to update the bios on my daughter's computer. That was useful. It's a question I've had for a while when I see people on this forum ask whether someone has updated their bios.