mikie, when I right click it and then click Eject, I get the message there is no disk inserted. Please insert disk and try again. I just realized that you tried helping me back in August with this blasted thing! On the F removable disk properties, the General tab shows this: Name: HP USB Device I don't understand this at all, as the only HP product I own is a 3 in 1 printer. Description: shows nothing State: The drive is empty Statistics: Mount 0 Last cleaned: Unknown Deferred dismounts: shows nothing Retain dismountable media for 5 minutes Enable drive is checked. Under the Device information: Manufacturer (Standard disk drives) Model: HP USB Device Serial number: shows nothing Revision: 1.00 Device Name: \\.\Physical Drive 2 Drive letter: F Device Address Port: Bus: Target: LUN Under the Security tab: Everything is checked to allow In disk management it shows Disk 2 Removable (F) No media

I recently lost the hard drive on my computer. I had made recovery disks when I first bought the computer and had made backups of all my documents, pictures, music etc. shortly before this happened. If I had had Acronis or some other system that clones the entire drive, I would have had a much easier time. As it was, once I removed the dead drive and installed a new one, I used the recovery disks to reinstall the operating system back to 2002. That meant I had many updates to do over. Fortunately, I had a SP2 disk from MS, so I used that and then over a period of about a week I installed all the more recent updates. Yes, I had to reinstall all my programs, that can't be avoided, but it was not an impossible task. I now have Acronis True Image and have a complete backup on an external hard drive, so if catastrophe strikes again, the job will be much less painful. If Carbonite does include the operating system, your job should not be difficult at all. Get a new hard drive, install it, and go to work. Good luck!

Thanks Owbist. That is probably the way to go. Da, I don't consider these machines junk as they run like the first day I got them. They didn't get heavy use, were office computers which were used mainly for patient information and some medical software. They ran 4 days a week for only a few hours. No real heavy use. They also have the largest drives I could get 7 years ago and were top of the line Dell business machines. Two desktops and one laptop. All XP. In Florida, there are so many requests for old, working computers which are used in various places for Seniors, homeless, shelters. Florida is not great about building homeless shelters. Places like Goodwill and Salvation Army provide space for people to use their address to receive and apply for help through computers offered. Sad part that many live in their cars or sleep in parks and can't apply for benefits or help without an address. You can't send out resumes without an address. I know people who volunteer at these day shelters and there is such a need for computers. They also use them for training and will take non-working computers. But the large need is for working computers which can get online and provide people with connections. I think its a good cause. The Salvation Army silently provides so many services for the destitute and I think anyone considering donating should consider the Salvation Army. Jane

Reformatted! That's scary. If you do manage to recover files, likely it will be fragments of files. It depends on what happened during formatting. If partitions got moved, many files are busted. If the new partitons (end of sector flags) fell where the old partitiosn were, many files can be recovered. Here's what should have been done to insure maximum recovery of files. Do not do anything that causes a 'write' to the disk. Remove the hard drive and put it in a cartridge designed to convert a hard drive into an external drive. Set its jumper to be slave, or follow instructions for the converter device. Connect it to a working computer and boot that computer. If the computer is able to recognize the drive, you are part way home. It may report that one of your drives needs repairing and asks your permission to do so. [When the comptuer crashed, it left a bunch of files open along with temporary files. These need to be cleaned up] When it asks, answer, yes. If the HD is in working order, the good computer should be able to clean up the files and close all open ones. After that, use my computer to look at a listing of the files on it. You may find that most of your data files are intact. One warning. Before you connect the now external drive to a good computer, make sure that a good anti-virus program is installed and operable. After the external drive has been auto-cleaned, it might be a good idea to immediately scan the drive before anything else. If this does not work, and it may not since the drive has been re-formated, you next option is to try recovery software or pay dearly for a recovery service.