IT Queries: Computer problems answered

I’ve just bought a new iPhone and set it up. It’s working fine but somehow I have hundreds of contacts I’ve never seen before.

Where have they come from and how can I get rid of them?

The problem is iTunes has detected an old email account or contact list on your computer and decided to use that. Usually if it finds some Outlook Address Books it will use those.

To fix this, open iTunes and click on your iPhone under the Devices heading on the left. This will open your phone details on the right hand side.

In the phone details screen click the Info tab and go down the screen until you get to Contacts.

The setting Synch contacts with…. will be ticked and next to that is a drop down box that lists your various address book options. Choose the program you want to use and the phone will start synchronising the right address book

To avoid copying all the unwanted contacts into your preferred address book, you may want to reset your iPhone before doing this by clicking on the Restore button in the Summary tab. Just note you’ll lose all your applications and settings from the phone and you may have to re-enter some of your settings.

Is it safe to pack a laptop with checked-in luggage instead of with the cabin luggage?

The short answer is “no”. Once that checked baggage leaves your sight, anything can happen and even baggage marked “fragile” can be thrown around and otherwise manhandled.

Along with the risk of being damaged, it could also get lost somewhere in the trip.

Then there’s the risks of the baggage carousel. Our guess is anything that looks vaguely like a portable computer would be picked up by someone else in seconds.

So play it safe and take anything valuable in cabin baggage. Even if you are with an airline that will charge extra for more than one piece of baggage, it’s money well spent.

As you recommended in your checking a disk for errors column, I ran Check Disk and it said I have “Bad Clusters”.

What does this mean?

Basically your hard drive is dying. Bad blocks mean there is damage to the surface of the disks and its a matter of time before your system stops working.

The first thing you must do is backup your data. Make sure everything valuable is off your computer.

When you’re happy everything important has been saved, get the computer to your local computer shop. They’ll be able to tell you whether the computer is worth repairing or if the costs are better spent on a new system.

Windows explorer crashes on start up with Win XP Pro SP3 also crashes Dr Watson then PC freezes – restart usually same except PC doesn’t freeze. All ok with safe mode then crashes on normal reboot.

The problem is something problematic is loading when the computer starts normally.

While in Safe Mode, uninstall any old software you don’t use and clean up your hard drive using Disk Manager by clicking Start, Programs, System Tools and Disk Manager.

Once disk manager scans your drive, tick all the boxes and allow it to run.

When that’s finished check your disk for errors, this will require a reboot.

If serious errors are found on the disk, or the problem still persists, it may be necessary to access to drive from an emergency disk to repair any virus or remove data from a dying drive. This is best done by a technician.

I’ve been told I can’t use AVG Free for my business and I have to buy the professional version. Is this true?

It is true. The three main free anti virus programs – AVG Free, AntiVir and Avast! are all for home users only. If you’re a business, you have to pay for their professional versions.

All three products offer good deals compared to their larger competitors and by buying them you’ll be supporting the free software you can use at home.

The price of these anti virus programs is tiny compared to the embarrassment and costs of being infected with a virus so do it.

It seems that I have been infected with a rootkit as my internet download amount was used in just under 2 weeks (last month). I have changed my password, and redone my computer several times in the last month.

My operating system is Microsoft Vista and I’ve been taking all measures that I can think of to try and clean my system, but I think that it has returned again. Any suggestions on cleaning this type of type of problem (Rootkit)?

Rootkits are the worst possible type of infection and can be difficult, if not impossible to remove. If you do have a rootkit infection, then we’d suggest calling a computer technician and being prepared to reformat your system.

We’d also recommend you disconnect the computer from the Internet and backup all your important data.

If you’d like to try it yourself, then you can follow our removing a Trojan instructions. Be warned, rootkits are notorious at appearing to have been removed and then reappearing a short time later.

I have been transferred from mumbai to kochi. In mumbai i was using a broadband connection on LAN which was perfectly fine.

On shifting to kochi i got a new connection of Asianet on LAN. But LAN is not getting connected although USB from modem is connecting.

I am suspecting some problem with IP Adress set up- as the data is going in through LAN port but not sent back(showing in status).please help…

This question’s a bit confusing as you mention a LAN and USB connection. You need to be using one or the other, not both for your Internet connection. So the first step is to unplug the USB and restart your computer.

If the LAN still isn’t connecting. You may need to force the IP address to change, do this by clicking Start, Run and type ipconfig /renew then click OK.

There are some other settings you can change on your network card which we describe in our Slow Copying to a Vista Computer article. You may want to try setting the LAN connection to 100/duplex rather than Automatic.

I connected a usb hard drive to my dish dvr, and it reformatted it. I connected the drive to my computer, and the disk manager (the only way I could find the drive on the computer) says it is partitioned into 4 partitions, all of which are “unknown partitions”.

I want to be able for the dvr and my computer to read, swap, and play the videos on the hard drive.

I called Dish and they said they reformat into fat32, but again, my computer (XP Pro) doesn’t recognize it. Help???

The problem is the hard drive isn’t partitioned in a way your computer or DVR understands.

To fix this, plug the hard drive into your computer. Wait until the Removable Device icon appears or a message saying a new device has been installed.

From the desktop right click on My Computer and select Manage

In the Management Console go down the left hand side list and select Disk Management.

The right hand side of the Management Console will now split into two. The top half shows the formatted partitions such as the C: and D: drives. While the bottom half shows the actual disks.

In the bottom half scroll down until you find the new disk. It will show the disk split into four partitions with each marked as “unknown”.

Right click each of the unknown partitions and select Delete Partitionand follow the wizard.

After deleting all four of the unknown partitions you can start create a new partition by right clicking the drive and selecting Create Partition

Windows will start a Partition Wizard. Of the options you receive, you should choose to create a Primary partition and select the largest size possible.

At the end of the wizard you’ll be asked to format the drive. You need to do this and select Fat 32 in the File Type box when asked.

Keep in mind FAT32 has a number of limitations including being limited to 2Gb files which can create problems for backups and saving DVD sized files.

I want to change my browser search engine to use Microsoft’s Bing. How do I do this?

The simplest way is to simply type www.bing.com into your browser’s address bar and go from there, but if you want to set your system so it always uses Bing, you need to change the default settings.

Google Chrome

Click the spanner icon in the top right hand corner, select Options and under the Basics tab choose Default Search.

As a new browser, Bing won’t be listed so select Manage, then Add and type the Microsoft Bing into the Name box and the address www.bing.com into the URL field. Click Okay and Close.

Internet Explorer

Next to the Search box in the top right hand corner is an arrow pointing down, click on that and select Change Search Defaults. Highlight Live Search and click Set Default. Click Okay.

Firefox

In Firefox, go to the Mozilla Live Search Add On Page, click the Add to Firefox button and a box will appear asking if you want to add Live Search to your system. Tick the box that says “start using right away”  and click Add.

Keep in mind you can undo these settings easily by simply changing the settings back to Google, Yahoo! or whichever search engine you prefer so it’s no great problem if you find Bing doesn’t work for you.

I have Norton 360 V.3 on my PC running on Windows XP.

For the last month the Norton 360 Live Updates have not been working. I’ve contacted the Norton people and had them manually updated but this hasn’t fixed the problem as the automatic update still doesn’t work.  They uninstalled and reinstalled the programme twice but this made no difference.

They’ve now told me that I have a ctfmon.exe virus which will have to be fixed by Microsoft.  How can I have a virus when I have Norton 360 running all the time and how do I have it fixed?

First the ctfmon.exe file may not be a virus. This is a normal Microsoft Office file, so you shouldn’t assume you have an infection.

The first thing is to check you don’t have a virus and you should do this by following the instructions in our removing a Trojan page.

Once you’re happy you’ve cleared any possible virus infection, you’ll need to clean up your computer.

The next step is to update your Windows Scripting Host as Norton 360 relies on this to work properly.

With your computer now cleaned and up to date, download the latest Norton 360 update and install this.

After rebooting, check Norton 360 is updating. If not, follow the Troubleshooting Live Update instructions on the Symantec website.