Ask The Computer Lady

Dear Computer Lady,
Windows xp purchased in 2002 cybertron from tiger direct. Been having slow start up problems always get started but not easy latest problem computor said pri master hard drive disk s.m.a.r.t. status bad backup and replace. Also lots of error messages says program not responding.once said system has recovered from a serious error.
Wayne

Dear Computer Lady,
I have been with you for many years, and this is my first question. I just purchased a HP PC and it has a wirless lan. Besides losing some of the wires is there any other advantage for having this feature and will it low my computer down if I do utilize this [...]

Dear Computer Lady,
I just installed a new XP OS on my computer. I have usb-2 connections on my comp., but when I use one, Windows tells me I only have usb-1 and should upgrade to the faster usb-2. Why don’t the OS recognize my usb-2?
Don

Dear Computer Lady,
I have a USB flash drive that will not connect when I put it in the USB port. The light (on the flash drive) will flash once (so it’s getting power) but the computer does not recognize it and the light goes off. I get nothing on the computer screen and the drive [...]

Dear Computer Lady,
I have a dell laptop with vista. Whenever I type a letter t, a new tab opens up. I know there must be a simple solution, but I can’t figure it out.
Thanks, Deborah

Dear Computer Lady,
I have a Dell computer, and have 4 usb ports in the back and two in the front. I bought a wireless mouse that has a round end and my ports are the rectangle size. I find that the mouse selections do not inform you of this before purchase. How can I [...]

Dear Computer Lady,
My daughters computer recently shut down. That is, she was downloading a file and all of a sudden her computer began to slowly shut down as if it was slowly losing power. Now she can’t even turn it on! We initially thought it was the power source but have unplugged everything and bypassed [...]

Dear Computer Lady,
I want to print 4×6 pictures from my computer, and when I do the picture comes out with some white from the sheet showing, I am not able to see why this happens. I know there is a selection to have a white border on the picture, but I do not select that [...]

Dear Computer Lady,
I have a Toshiba laptop which I use as a desktop, so it is plugged in all of the time.
I’ve read where you should remove your battery if you leave the laptop plugged in, however, when I remove the battery, the computer does not work.
For the past few months, the only [...]

Dear Computer Lady,
Can you help explain to me how to tell on a CD-ROM drive where to locate the switch to switch between slave and master.? Also what is the difference in Slave and Master.
Just explain to me the best you can. I’ve looked on the CD-ROM drive that I have and can’t see [...]