After a mad few days where my daughter needed an emergency op on her hand (getting better now), I run into problems again with my studio PC which is XP. The power supply blew (for the third time) and PC World's guy came out to repair. I told them to bring both a mains unit and a motherboard (in case the motherboard had burnt out) and after replacing the mains unit he said all back up and running. Problem IS (and this is wierd), my pc seems to have LOST about a year! For example, I briefly tried a copy of Office 2007 but didn't like it so I uninstalled it and BINGO, it's back! Games such as Manhunter that I got bored with and removed are BACK! I tried to see if I could system restore to maybe a day earlier but to no avail...the first day listed was the day it came back on.

So besides this wierdness and having to re-install my soundcard, PODxt and wireless router, after getting over the wierdness of it all, I can't connect to the net. The wireless router recognises the wireless hub in the house but seems to have an issue with the IP address? Now, my questions are:

1. How in the name of feck could my PC lose a year?
2. How do I check what the IP address of my in-house (Vista) PC is to
3. Change the IP address on the studio (XP) one and how do I go about changing it?

Any help appreciated. :thumb:

Hi mate! Found this website on how to change I.P. address on xp.Hope it helps!
http://www.hotcomm.com/FAQ/FAQ_staticIPXP.asp
Found this on vista.
http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/Help/e070bf7b-6d5e-4f49-b4f7-10aa8d8b11e21033.mspx

1. How in the name of feck could my PC lose a year?
2. How do I check what the IP address of my in-house (Vista) PC is to
3. Change the IP address on the studio (XP) one and how do I go about changing it?

Any help appreciated. :thumb:

Well, with regards to the PC losing a year, the only thing i can think of is that Windows took abit of a hit when your pc failed, and rolled back 1 year when it came back on, thats the only logical thing i can think of tbh, if the HD had some how been damaged, or parcially wiped it would almost certainly be a more irratic form of data loss.

As for your IP address, alot of the time on networks, they get assigned a default IP like 192.168.000.1 or something like that and just the last number changes for the next in the chain, your physical IP which is connected to the net will be different to this, if you need that IP, any member of staff should be able to see that in if u are online :)
As for changing your fixed IP, that depends alot on your setup, since Lippy as posted a couple of links, they definately be worth a look, but if u have trouble after then, i'll find out for u if i can.

Hold up ... roll back a bit .... what happened to Ellie's hand mate?

Thanks everyone...tried all the above and even tho I can get it to connect, I can't get e-mail or on the net with it. I think some of the hard drive or whatever must have had a problem when it fried...it's on it's last legs to be honest. I'm gonna look at Dell as apparently they still do XP on their business PC side.

As for Ellie mate, she fell (in the house) and put her hand out to stop her fall. When she landed she shrieked like mad and there was a little bit of blood that soon went. When we cleaned it we couldn't see a cut or anything so we gave her some TLC and she forgot all about it. On Monday she started complaining it was hurting so we took her to A & E and after an x-ray we found out there was a sliver of glass or pottery deep inside her hand so yesterday we took her in for a plastic surgeon to cut her hand open and remove it. We were crying our eyes out when they put her under with gas...bloody awful experience but today she's chattering away and seeminly oblivious to the huge bandage the size of a boxing glove...she's braver than me and the wife put together.

Thanks everyone...tried all the above and even tho I can get it to connect, I can't get e-mail or on the net with it. I think some of the hard drive or whatever must have had a problem when it fried...it's on it's last legs to be honest. I'm gonna look at Dell as apparently they still do XP on their business PC side.

As for Ellie mate, she fell (in the house) and put her hand out to stop her fall. When she landed she shrieked like mad and there was a little bit of blood that soon went. When we cleaned it we couldn't see a cut or anything so we gave her some TLC and she forgot all about it. On Monday she started complaining it was hurting so we took her to A & E and after an x-ray we found out there was a sliver of glass or pottery deep inside her hand so yesterday we took her in for a plastic surgeon to cut her hand open and remove it. We were crying our eyes out when they put her under with gas...bloody awful experience but today she's chattering away and seeminly oblivious to the huge bandage the size of a boxing glove...she's braver than me and the wife put together.

Glad to hear your daughter is ok mate, it sounds like a nasty injury.

As for your PC, you might want to do an error check on the HD (My Computer, Hard Drive C: or whatever its called, right-click->properties, tools), see if that finds anything suspect with it.
Another option is format the drive and start over, providing the error check is clear, but that depends alot on wheather you wanna mess around with a re-install, and if u still have all the software about to do so.

Ah shit mate. Glad Ellie is feeling much better. To answer your questions:

1. When you delete stuff from your P.C., you don't ever actually wipe them. You just remove their entries from a reference table. So all that stuff is on your Hard Drive but you don't have any reference to them anymore, so Windows never shows them to you. All I can think of is when you had your problems the reference table has been corrupted or rebuilt and it now refers to all of these programs that you thought you had deleted. i.e. it's just letting you see them all once again.

2. If you type cmd in the Windows Vista Start Search dialogue box you will get access to this cmd command. Run that and a Command Prompt window will open up. Type ipconfig into that command prompt window and it will tell you you i.p. address.

3. I would check that you don't have a static i.p. address on Windows X.P. first. Click on Start and select Start -> Connect To -> Show All Connections. When that window opens up, right click on your active connection and select properties. Double click on Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). If you do not have a statis i.p. address, the options: Obtain an I.P. address automatically and Obtain DNS Server address automatically will be selected. Otherwise, the other options will be selected and populated with values. I would check that the DNS server addresses are the same as on your Windows Vista box if this is the case before you go trying to change the i.p. address.

Remember to click Cancel out of all the netwrork screens if you don't want to change things. Windows will try and refresh stuff if you click on OK even if you don't change things and it can be a real pain in the ass, especially if it then asks you to reboot.

As you know mate, I am off at the moment, so could always pop up to help you out if you are getting nowhere. Won't cost you much, I'll just take either the stripy Wolf, the musicman, or the new Morse...

:thumb:

We were crying our eyes out when they put her under with gas...bloody awful experience

Been there a couple of times mate ... know exactly what you went through, though with ours, they were planned procedures instead of emergencies (grommets in eardrums to relieve "glue ear" at 18 months ... and tonsilectomy at 12 yrs old) ... hope it all heals up well ... as it should. :thumb:

As for the pc .... f****d if I know!! :confused:

I'll try all these things guys but Mondy I'vealready done that and changed accordingly. My PC shows itself as being connected to the network BUT I can't connect or receive e-mail. I'm gonna start from scratch on this one and remove the lot and start again. If no good after a format, I'm looking at a new more reliable pc. Thanks for the concern of Ellie...she's a 3 year old ruffian and hard as nails. It's me you have to worry about cos the strain may topple me over! She's a little darlin'!

I'll try all these things guys but Mondy I'vealready done that and changed accordingly. My PC shows itself as being connected to the network BUT I can't connect or receive e-mail.

Your PC may say it's connected to the network, but that doesn't mean your actually online. When you're in the cmd prompt Mondy was talking about, what do you get for results from the ipconfig command? You should see a default gateway IP(this is usually 192.168.1.1 by default). This is the address of your router. You can check the connection to the router by pinging that address. Pinging is a way to send small packets of info to and from an address. So in the cmd promt you would type ping 192.168.1.1( or whatever your default gatewat is). If that works, try pinging a website by typing ping www.guitarblast.com

[QUOTE=

1. How in the name of feck could my PC lose a year?
2. How do I check what the IP address of my in-house (Vista) PC is to
3. Change the IP address on the studio (XP) one and how do I go about changing it?

Any help appreciated. :thumb:[/QUOTE]

1. You may need to download the MS critical patch. There is one concerning daylight savings time (at least in the US). But it could not hurt to re-download that fix. Reset the date/time and see if it holds. Make sure you are using an Administrator account with full access.

2. Again as pointed out...at the "run" command enter "CMD" and type:
Ipconfig /all (note the space before the slash). You can then hit F3 and backspace and enter "ipconfig /release" and then "ipconfig /renew" and see what the IP address is for that machine. It should not be something like 168.xxx.xxx.xxx. Re-download your network drivers if that is the case and re-install.

3. XP has the same commands. Run the exact same way. You may have set yourself up with Static IP's but unlikely. DHCP is fine behind a router.

For your email..re-enter all your settings. They may have gotten corrupted. Sounds like "shadow copy" on Vista has replaced some files...perhaps to your advantage...perhaps not. I am no expert, but check those things. Post what that IP address is though. If it's that 169.xxx.xxx.xxx crud it's a Microsoft assigned IP and it's basically worthless.

Best of luck Chris. Be patient and work methodically. You will sort it out...much better than to re-install everything...and possibly have it happen again.

theres not a bigger nightmare than seeing your kids in pain. :upset:
im sure she'll be ok though mate, wont let a thing called "pain" interfere with her playing.....tough little things girls :toothless:

as for the pc, if re installing router software didnt sort it out, i would backup and re install xp, backup anyway as your drive might be on the way out.

regards,
jim.

Sounds like the *ahem* PC World Technician *ahem* did something to me.
Quite possibly maybe a windows file was corrupt and instead of running a repair he decided to maybe try system restore. Knocked it all way back to the first instance it took.

Some of you guys have the absolute worst luck with computers - some of you have gotten f00kered on numerous occasions. Geez. :dunno:

Some of you guys have the absolute worst luck with computers - some of you have gotten f00kered on numerous occasions. Geez. :dunno:
Ain´t that the truth? :p Now go play your guitar and shut up! :bitchslap:

Just an update. In the end the PC WAS reformatted and it transpired that the router software and Windows software were both trying to 'manage' the Belkin Wireless. I found that by going into Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Services and starting the Windows Zero Configuration got my pc back online. Today the techie took the wireless software off and we cracked it. HOWEVER, the EZDrummer or Acid pro stuff seems to be crashing my PC! So still not 100% but new PC will have to be on the horizin if I can bite the bullet and learn Sonar 7.0 or something similar. I'll sure miss Cakewalk 9.0 but it won't run on Vista. :(

BTW, thanks for all the support etc...it was much appreciated. :thumb: