FrankenBox

If your CD-ROM drive is selected as the primary boot drive, your windows disc should do all the work. You MUST press F8 before it commences setup to allow you to exert control over the process or it will automatically try to do a boot repair. If you can force it into manual setup you can force the install program to format and even repartition your drives. I am assuming that your computer gets past the mem-check and into drive selection. (your cd-rom and/or HDD lights blink)

If possible, mount your CD ROM drive into one of the lower brackets to resolve any possiblity of overcrowding the power supply. If the CD ROM wiggles at all when that door opens and aggrates any shorts in the system you will get the freeze. (I wish case makers would figure this out!) Idealy no wires should be taught, and no connections pressured or rubbed by other components when access doors, slides, or panels are removed. I pretty much just leave the side of my case open for the access and air-flow, but the extra room for cable to expand and self-tangle are good too.

1st... If your box is truely dead you will have to reconcile yourself to the fact that all is lost! Not really; *I* would remove the actual drive and take it to a friend who knows a bit about setting up multiple HDs in a box. Have them connect your drive as a slave and pull all the data that you want saved (.txt, .jpeg, .mp3, etc.) and run the format for you... but that is just me. [removed duplicated information presented by KD5: who wisely promotes a repair install below] If that does not work, force the fresh install and use advanced mode if possible (this isn't really all th

I'll give it a 7.5 out of 10 for being retro-styled with that fresh urban twist...

In the car- System Of A Down; Mezmerize On the XM- Musical Starstreams or Opie & Anthony.

!Gore Alert! this is where I pull some of my favorite backgrounds from... I also like Space Archive I have used a variety of the pictures here... right now I am using a very colorful shotgun-to-chest autopsy photo.

You said it not me!!! Actually, the thing that angers me about this the most is how superficial all the posturing is! Most "journalists" are coming off as overbearing-leftists and taking non-contextual potshots at the right. What disgusts me is how dissingenuous these guys are--- as if they really give a damn about these guys! Meanwhile the rightwingers posture themselves as "Guardians of the Good", warhawking and creating economic opportunities for the spigs in their back pockets--- brokering sweet deals for votes. I don't really care that the companies want these sweet deals;

If you haven't yet, try just reloading OE, and IE. MS Support article Don't know what else to look for unless you can post a list of your browser and OE security settings, or a registry list.

Hmm... What kind of AV/Security are you using?

Where are you getting your emails from? Is it from a particular source or do all emails in general do this? Do your links in other programs work? It sounds like we are talking about individual security settings, but I have occasionally had problems with emails from web-based accounts not correctly formatting URL code.

Yep... it's the security settings of your browser. You have to go to the internet options menu and click the 'Security' Tab. 1. If you have XP with SP2 then you have the security center which automatically degrades your browser functionality (according to me)... you will have to define a custom setting; so make sure you understand what the different options are, what they do, and the implications of changing their settings. 2. If you do not have SP2 and/or have a decent web-security package, you can turn the security settings to medium-low and things should work fine. Just a war

Not to get us too far off topic, but I would love to be able to order or build my own board... I hate having wasted sockets, insufficient ram and pci slots, and integrated sound and video that suck! IDE/ATA seems like a great idea if it was developed and supported better. Dedicated connectivity is far more reliable, and you certainly want certain components to be guarenteed. A decent solid state drive would be awesome! Why the heck is the industry not pumping out terrabyte sized drives for towers? With the amount of physical space a Flash style memory chip takes vs. a magnetic drive of ro

Chop, Where are you putting your Mini? and for what purpose? I've been thinking about putting one in the glove compartment of my car and seeing if I could run a telemetry interface (just because I can), I'm sure there are other sensor interfaces that would plug in one way or another. The CF drive and Solid State ideas are nice, but you are right about the limitations of space. I can't seem to find anything besides mass storage devices that use this type of connection... What about a multi-function drive? Comp-USA sells ones that take just about any type of solid-state/soft stora

Welcome to the Pits Olorin! We don't mind providing the education as long as you don't mind the punishment... it is a good way to learn though!