Compress Old Files doesn't delete any files from the drive. It compresses files that Windows hasn't accessed for a specified period of time. I have 2,597,426. You can check everything in disk cleanup, won't hurt anything. You've got more serious problems with the "No IDE fixed drive present" It means the computer is not seeing a hard drive. If you can ever get it to boot again, open My Computer, right click Local Disk (C:) / Properties, click the Tools Tab, under error checking/check now, put a check in both boxes and start. Hopefully that might fix something. To me it sounds like the hard drive has died or the ide ribbon has come loose from the hd.

Owbist, thanks for the suggestion of a new thread. The computer I am having problems with only has X-P. Due to a problem with my X-P machine, I have put the Ubuntu project on the back burner. Please allow me to tell you about my new problem. X-P SP3, 1024 MB memory. Due to a connection related problem I talked to the folks at ATT. They got me back on line but the computer is very slow, it has not crashed, but it takes forever for the pages to load. Sometimes I type faster than the computer can load the images of the type, and I am a very slow typer. When going from one web page to another is seems like forever. When I try to click back to the former page, also takes a long time. Also, the pages load small and I have to enlarge them, nothing seems to work like it should. I have run Malwarebytes, Ccleaner, Spyware Blaster and defragged the computer...nothing bad showed up. Steve

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.

You probably know this but the power buttons are usually "programmable" so to speak. They can either be set to "Put to sleep" or "Power off" when pressed. I've seen it where they're set to "Put to sleep", and I've thought the computer was off, but it was actually in Sleep mode, and came right out of sleep when pressed again. I have to remember to hold the Pwr button down for 4 seconds to make it actually power off. That the monitor won't come out of sleep is a little mysterious but somehow telling - but of what I'm not totally sure. It needs to get a signal from the mobo, but the mobo needs to get power from the PSU. So which one is causing the problem ? Hard to say. What if you use the Linux live cd, and choose "Restart" - will it then restart ? But that would only rule out some kind of problem with your Windows OS, and we're not thinking that's the problem anyway. The thing about putting a drive in a new computer, is that the mass storage drivers are loaded very early on, and that's what a "universal restore" feature is made to handle. All the other hardware will probably be identified in the boot process, and if the necessary drivers are not found, you can install them later. But there's usually no easy way to do that for the mass storage drivers as it just won't boot to the point that you would have an option to supply the correct ones. If you want to install Win7 on a different machine, there is a tricky way to capture all the Win7 install boot info necessary, even though it's an OEM install for that particular machine. I can give you the links if you're interested. I had to do it, although it was on the same machine I think, but a fresh install. It was a situation where I had a laptop with no install disks, and had to use a generic Windows install disk. Yeh, the live Linux distros are fun. I just made a little bootable MicroSD flash gizmo with Debian, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Mint, Pupply, and Knoppix, plus a whole bunch of other utility cds using a multiboot builder called Sardu. It really works well - boots anything on the MicroSD easily. Sardu Multiboot Creator Very handy, and gave one to my nephew as well.