How to Use Windows

I followed Maximum PC ’s “Clean Start” article (February 2009) and used Acronis True Image to set up a weekly full disk image. My XP Pro system is installed on C:, which is a 1.5 TB hard drive. I have another 1.5TB hard drive of the exact same make and model, to which I write the weekly image. I have 120GB of free space on the C: drive, but the backup drive is already full! The destination drive contains no files except the image; is it possible for an exact image of a C: drive to be bigger than the original (by more than 10 percent)

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One evening my house’s master breaker box was shut off while my computer was still on. I went into the BIOS and ensured that all my settings were set as before, but since then, every time I start up my computer cold it starts to spool up, then stops for about two seconds, and then boots. If I restart after my machine has been running for a while, it boots with no delay. I went into the BIOS to see if there was any problem in the APM settings, but I still got delays during cold boots

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I built a new Core 2 Quad Q9400 machine on an Asus P5Q Deluxe board with 4GB of Corsair DDR2, a 74GB Raptor, and a GeForce GTX 260. The problem is that it starts up really slowly. The rig will POST and go through hardware boot but right before the Windows XP logo comes up, I get a black screen for seven to eight minutes.

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I’m having a problem with my default resolution when running Far Cry 2 in DirectX 10 mode. When I run Far Cry 2 in DirectX 9 everything seems to be OK, when I select DirectX 10 mode, the display expands to what looks like 860×600. I’m running the Asus PT6 Deluxe Motherboard, Intel Core i7 920, 12GB of DDR3, and Windows Vista x64. I have two ATI Radeon 4870s in CrossFire, running a Dell 24-inch LCD at 1920×1200 resolution. I’m using the latest ATI Catalyst Control and driver in CrossFire mode.

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I have an HP HDX18T laptop with an external drive that holds my old stock 250GB/5,400rpm 2.5-inch drive. The external case uses an internal SATA connection and has both a USB 2.0 and eSATA connection externally for my laptop. I’ve read that there is a theoretical transfer rate of 4GB/s with eSATA, but I’m lucky to get 40MB/s copying to or from. Can you tell me what I’m missing?

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I have a problem with my X-Fi Platinum setup. It worked fine on my old Dell 8200, but I recently upgraded my mobo to an EVGA nForce 780i and now the front ports don’t seem to work. What gives? I reinstalled the drivers several times and nothing. The main card works just fine, but the drive bay interface is the whole reason I bought the card in the first place. —Rocco Nicoletta Since the card works with the rear ports for both output and input, the Doctor is going to assume it’s something as simple as a loose connection or damaged cable that occurred during the motherboard move. You should power down and unplug your system.

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I just bought a used PC running Windows XP. It had been really fast loading and running programs and accessing the web, but suddenly it slowed down to a complete stop. I had to unplug it just to shut it down. So, I unplugged the Ethernet cable and it worked fine.

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I’ve got two monitors: a slightly older 24-inch Samsung SyncMaster 2443 BWX and a brand-new 22-inch Samsung SyncMaster 2233 RZ. I am attempting a dual-monitor setup for Illustrator/Photoshop purposes (as well as animation and other forms of graphic design) on a Radeon HD 4850 X2 with Catalyst 9.8 drivers. Out of the box the color representation couldn’t be worse. The new monitor is extremely blue and the old one looks better, but is still a tad red

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I have an Acer Aspire 5100 with a Phoenix BIOS. It came with an AMD Turion 64 single-core processor; I decided to upgrade to an AMD Turion 64X2 TL-64 dual-core processor. The computer recognizes everything but the processor model: In Device Manager it says “AMD processor model unknown.” The computer recognizes both cores of the CPU and gives the correct clock speed. How do I get my computer to recognize the processor model? —Kevin Rush First, Kevin, props for upgrading a notebook CPU.

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I just got a new computer (64-bit Vista) with a 1TB hard drive. It has only one partition, the factory image. Is there any way to add another partition to this drive without installing Windows again? —Kevin Though there are plenty of free partition managers for 32-bit versions of Windows (we prefer Easeus Partition Master), 64-bit owners have fewer third-party options. Fortunately, Kevin, you’ve got a built-in tool in Vista that will do the trick nicely

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