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Error messages with a floppy drive can occur due to several different scenarios: faulty disk, no disk, faulty drivers, conflict with new hardware, or a faulty drive. In order to determine the cause, a bit of troubleshooting is in order.

Check the Drive for a Disc

The first step when troubleshooting this problem is to check that a floppy disc has been properly inserted. If the disk has not been inserted properly, the drive will not be able to tell that it is there.

Faulty Disc

Typically a faulty disc will generate an error message that the disc cannot be read. If you have another computer available with a floppy drive, try the disc in that machine. You can also try to use another floppy disc in the drive. If it does not work, it is more likely that a different problem exists.

Switching in between Windows Versions

Some individuals have mentioned a problem with their disc drives that results in the above message when switching for a computer with a later version of Windows and then going back to an older version of Windows. Unfortunately, the best solution for this is to simply reformat the disc in the original computer.

Reload or Update the Drivers

It is possible that the drivers for the disc drive are faulty or need to be updated. Visit the website for your disc drive and see if any updated drivers are offered.

Incompatibility with New Hardware

If you have recently installed new hardware, it is possible that an incompatibility exists between it and the floppy drive. To troubleshoot this possibility, you can uninstall the new hardware and see if the floppy drive works.

Use the “Device Manager”

To check the disc drive and see if any problems with it are listed, access the “Device Manager.” To access it, follow these directions or some variation (this depends on your version of Windows) of these directions:

1)      Click “Start.”

2)      Click “Control Panel.”

3)      Click “Performance and Maintenance.”

4)      Click “System.”

5)      Click “Hardware.”

6)      Click “Device Manager.”

Look at the middle of the dialog box that pops up for mention of any problems with the drive. If the message indicates that the drive isn’t working, you can click on “Troubleshoot” and see if you can come up with a solution. If nothing works, at this point, you’ll need to replace the floppy drive or consider using other removable storage options such as USB storage sticks. 

Have you tried the other solutions and they haven’t worked? I’m not sure that I was clear in that you are using the buttons that are on the monitor itself, often the thing that looks like a wheel, not anything on the keyboard. If you’ve tried these solutions and you are still having an annoying flashing message, then you can completely disconnect the button altogether. Perhaps by disconnect I should really say ‘break.’ You want to make it so that the button is no longer sending messages to your monitor. This should get rid of the problem, but you will no longer be able to access any of the display options in the future. As long as you don’t care about that, go ahead and give it a try.

I can’t say enough how you should only try this if you monitor is out of warranty and if every other solution hasn’t worked (and you don’t want to take it to a professional). This is the last step before setting the monitor out for recycling because it is risky and could result in the monitor not working at all. Are you still with me? Okay.

First MAKE SURE THE POWER TO THE MONITOR IS OFF.

1. Open the monitor with a screwdriver. This varies a little with each manufacturer (as will all of the directions).
2. Find the small printed circuit board (PCB) that is just behind the monitor buttons. It will be connected to the main board with some wires.
3. Gently take it out. One side is a microswitch - the other side is green. On the green side of the PCB, follow the lines that lead from the microswitch to the wires. There are two lines that go that way. One is the line that converges with all of the other lines that lead from other microswitches. You want the OTHER one.
4. You are following the OTHER one right? Okay. Follow it and you will see which wire it connects to.
5. Gently pull that wire out from the connector.
6. Put the PCB back where it was, close the panel and plug the power back in.

I hope that this solves the problem. If not, you will need to get professional help or just bite the bullet and get a new one. Good luck!

Related articles:
http://filetonic.com/blog/2008/10/23/osd-main-controls-blocked/
http://filetonic.com/blog/2008/12/02/jpeg-display-resolution-notice/

Troubleshooting Unrecognized USB Flash Drives

Check to Confirm an Incompatibility

OK - there are a number of reasons why your USB flash drives might not be showing up via My Computer, as well as a number of things we can try to deal with the issue. First things first, have these flash drives ever worked on this computer? Or, is it possible that they have been damaged somehow? You might first try opening them through My Computer or another computer system, just to narrow things down and determine that there is a communication problem, and not just defected flash drives. If they don’t open on another system, then there might be something wrong with the external devices themselves.

Reassign the Drive Letter

However, that said, if the devices are accessible on another computer, we can then try to reconfigure things so that your system is able to recognize them. If the letter that your USB drive is trying to assign to the flash drives is already in use, then the device might not be opening properly. You can check the drive letter assignments by opening My Computer, then Manage, then Storage Devices, then Disk Management. You can reassign the letter for the flash drive by right clicking on the drive to open the menu, and then choosing the option to Change Drive Letter and Path.

Check for Device Errors

You should also check to make sure that there aren’t any errors or incompatibilities on the flash drives or with the USB drive. You can check the status of external devices by clicking the My Computer icon from your desktop, then Properties, then Hardware, then Device Manager. If there are devices or drives showing up with yellow ! or ? marks beside them, remove the associated conflicts. You will most likely have to reboot your computer to make sure that these changes take effect.

Update Your Drivers

It isn’t extremely likely that an external flash drive would require drivers, but there is always the possibility of a driver issue, especially if you are running, or recently upgraded your operating system to Vista. You can visit the Kingston website and look for any new or recently released updates for your drives to see if that repairs the incompatibility.

How To Partition Your 500GB Hard Drive

Technically, or should I say numerically, 160 will go into 500 3 times, for a total of 480, but I am not sure that this is actually the answer that you are looking for. Depending on how many operating systems you are loading on your computer, you likely want to divide your hard drive into about 3 or 4 different partitions. It is a good idea to partition small drive spaces, about 25GB, for each hard drive, and then keep the rest free for data. The performance of your computer does suffer after you partition the drive, so it is also possible to purchase a smaller external hard drive to store your second operating system.

How to Partition a Hard Drive with Windows XP or Vista

Assuming for the moment that one of the operating systems that you are installing is Windows XP or Vista, here are the steps to take to partition your hard disk drive.

If you already have Windows XP or Vista on your computer:

1. Put the Windows XP CD in the disk drive and reboot the computer.
2. If you see a prompt asking if you want to start the computer from the CD drive, confirm OK.
3. You will see a Welcome to Setup start page, press Enter to proceed
4. You will be offered the Windows XP Licensing Agreement, press F8 to accept.
5. You will be offered the opportunity to repair your existing operating system, press ESC to continue with the partitioning.
6. You will now see a screen detailing the existing partitions on your hard disk. You can use your keyboard arrows to move up and down and select partition spaces.
7. Press C to create a partition in non-partitioned spaces
8. To split up partitioned spaces, first delete the existing partition by pressing D, and then press L to confirm the deletion. Then create the new partition by pressing C.
9. If you want to completely re-make your partitions, you might first delete all the existing partitions, following the D and L process, and then create some new partitions.

Enhancing the Performance of a Video Card

Get the latest drivers

There are not very many options when it comes to enhancing the performance of your video adapter, they have the power that they have and that is generally about it. You can try and make sure that you have the latest drivers for your video adapter by checking the download from Intel that is available here, which might improve performance

Configure your video card settings

You can also check your graphics card to make sure that your desktop video mode is set to its optimal setting. If the refresh rate is set to Optimal, then it should already be set at the highest refresh rate. In any case, you want to make sure that the refresh rate is set above 10. If you run Windows XP, you can follow the steps below to adjust your settings for maximum performance.

1. Right click on your desktop and then choose Properties
2. Next, choose the Settings tab.
3. Locate the sub-tab called Screen Area to check the resolution
4. Locate the Colors sub-tab to check the color depth.
5. Under the Advanced tab, find the Monitor sub-tab to check the Screen Refresh Rate.

Unfortunately, this is about it in terms of enhancing the performance of the video adapter that you already have. If the game requires more graphics power than the card can provide, then the function of the game will suffer.

Consider an upgrade

One noted negative about the Dell Dimension 3000 is that the computer’s motherboard is missing an APG slot to host graphics card updates, which limits the improvements that can be made, if you were interested in buying a new card. Instead, your computer is built to hold PCI video adapters, which are unfortunately not a vast improvement to your Dell gaming situation and are better for watching videos. However, a new PCI card would improve the speed of your games and is a reasonable short-term solution that nets some fairly positive reviews from users. However, if your son is getting serious about gaming, you might consider holding off on the PCI upgrade, and waiting until you are ready to upgrade your whole computer. There are many reasonably prices desktop computers available on the market that can handle the increased speed and advanced graphics demanded by popular computer games.

What you are seeing is a Display Notice that your monitor is generating. Most monitors come with “On Screen Displays” or OSDs as they’re often called. You can control these settings through the OSD.

The Display Resolution Notice

First, let’s take a look at the Display Resolution Notice and what it is attempting to tell you. Monitors can be set up to display the computer in numerous resolutions, which are either set by you due to personal preferences or by software due to programming needs. For example, I like to see as much as possible on my screen, so I have my monitor set at a resolution of 1280 x 800. Lower resolutions show a more “close up” view which other computer users often prefer.

Some programs, particularly games, need a specific resolution due to how they were designed. When loaded, these programs often set the resolution automatically to the required setting. Sometimes, the resolution reverts back to your preferred settings when you exit the program, but not always.

Display settings are generally adjustable by right-clicking a blank spot on the Desktop and choosing Properties (or Personalize in Windows Vista) followed by Display Settings. You can also reach Display Settings via an icon in the Control Panel. From there, dragging the slider bar to the desired resolution is all it takes to adjust the resolution.

To add to the confusion, monitors have their own menu system, the On Screen Display, which may be set at a different resolution or may have specific settings you need to adjust under certain circumstances. The Display Resolution Notice is trying to tell you that the resolution isn’t optimal for the task. Perhaps the jpeg in question would be better viewed using a different resolution? For example, if it’s a high resolution jpeg being displayed at a low resolution display setting, this would make sense.

Responding to the Display Resolution Notice

You have a couple of options when your monitor displays this notice, depending on what the notice is telling you what to do. If the notice is saying that you should change your display settings to the new resolution, you can attempt to do so. You may need to change these settings via the Desktop’s Display Settings tool or your monitor may have controls within its OSD that you can use. If changing the settings eliminate the error notice and the resulting display looks good to you, then fine.

If not, you may want to live with your current display settings and eliminate the Display Resolution Notice all together. You said that this notice gave you two choices but your mouse and keyboard can’t make the choice. That’s because the controls are physically on the monitor. Look for buttons or dials on the monitor. You may need to pull the instruction manual out to figure out how to access the OSD and make the necessary selections. Depending on the monitor, you should be able to control the Display Resolution Notice settings such as where the notice displays on your screen, how long the message appears before going away, and disabling the notice altogether.

Selecting the 1 or 2 Option

Since I don’t know the exact message and the related values for 1 and 2, I can’t tell you which one to select. However, the next time you see this screen and are given choices, remember, your mouse and keyboard arrows won’t work. You must go to the monitor itself and find the navigation keys. They may be buttons or a scrolling wheel. Look for arrow symbols or symbols that look like: ▲, ▼, ►, or ◄.