I have a very old Pentium 3 with a cheap 4 port USB hub that I plug my scanner, printer, external harddrive, and camera or flash drives into and everything works perfect. USB1 may be a little slow with large external drives loaded with data, but the speed is bearable.

Hi, everyone (ravencajun and Zep too. :) ) I meant to reply last evening but ran out of time. The other situation ravencajun is referring to was an extremely nasty rootkit. That does not appear to be the situation here. msjean, I suggest you reinstall System Restore. I checked the instructions presented at a number of sites but found the best information is at the site referenced below. Bert Kinney is a Microsoft MVP and a respected expert. His instructions are clear and the most complete. (Note, in particular that there are multiple locations provided for the needed i386 folder.) It appears that the easiest method is to type or paste the command shown in the instructions at Bert's site (rundll32.exe advpack.dll,LaunchINFSection C:\Windows\Inf\sr.inf) into the Start/Run box and pressing enter. Since you have Service Pack 3 installed, you should have either the i386 folder or the C:\Windows\ServicePackFiles\i386 folder mentioned in the list Bert provided. See "How to Reinstall System Restore in Windows XP" by Bert Kinney at http://bertk.mvps.org/html/reinstall.html and let us know the results. Notes: A. You should log on to the Administrator account to perform this. B. You may need to show hidden folders: 1. Click Start > My Computer. 2. On the Tools menu, click Folder Options. 3. Click the View tab. 4. Locate and uncheck Hide file extensions for known file types. 5. Locate and uncheck Hide protected operating system files. 6. Under the Hidden files folder, locate and check Show hidden files and folders. 7. If you see a warning message, click Yes. 8. Click Apply > OK. Please let us know if you have any questions. Here is a link that might be useful: How to Reinstall System Restore in Windows XP

As it happens, things have changed. The technician Dell sent came with the replacement hard drive (with pre-installed XP and drivers). He installed it - booted - and the same hard drive warning occurred. Turns out it was my second internal hard drive (that I use for data) that was going bad. It was a good thing I already had the 2TB replacement. So he put the 2TB drive in - returned my original hard drive - and all functioned well - no hard drive error messages. Now I do have work ahead of me - but this changes the nature of it. Much better scenario - but still requires thinking through. There are probably just a few video files on the second internal hard drive that I don't have copies of. I think they're still accessible - so I will either get a docking station - or better yet an enclosure (since I will need one anyway - as I'll describe later) to put it in - and see if I can transfer those video files to my new 2TB internal drive. I think it makes sense to test that drive to see what's wrong with it - if it's repairable by Windows XP (I think if I run chkdsk there are possibilities to repair some damage?). Should I do this? Or are there other methods to safely test out the health of my hard drive? It is also a Western Digital. The timing of the hard drive failure is now making more sense. I had spent the previous weekend backing up lots of data files onto this second internal 1.5 TB hard drive. I think some of those transferred Tivo files might be problematic. (I say that for 2 reasons - when I've tried to defrag the hard drive, I recall a few files that couldn't be defragged - and while it was hard to see the path, I think they were the Tivo videos. Also, there were a few Tivo videos that failed to work properly when I tried to run VideoRedo to remove commercials. Some just seemed to be bad files - of course, I don't recall which those ones were - but it makes me wonder if it's the sources of the problem on that second hard drive.) Next step is call Dell - I bought that second hard drive from them 1 1/2 yrs ago. It has a 3 yr warranty. I'm not sure if the warranty will be honored by Dell or Western Digital (the brand of drive). So I figure I'll be getting a replacement 1.5 TB hard drive - which I can either install internally - use it as program drive or data drive. I can use the original 500GB drive externally. Or maybe I should keep it the way it is now. Original 500GB internal hard drive, second 2 TB internal hard drive - and put the replacement 1.5 TB hard drive in an enclosure and use for back-ups. One reason I'd like to use the 2TB drive as a program/boot drive (or master drive - I'm not sure of the language) is bc. it's supposed to be a faster drive - Western Digital Black Caviar 2TB drive - 7200rpm and 64MB Cache that was a bit pricier, but I thought it was worth it for quality and speed. It's this one: http://www.amazon.co...ref=oss_product (although I paid less than the price listed online) I'm new enough at all this that I don't understand everything about hard drive speed. I think that a larger drive can potentially slow things down a bit as it has to work to see date over a larger area/amount of data - but that the 7200rpm and 64MB cache will offer more speed - and the reviews suggest this thing is fast. I'd love any guidance in weighing these factors as I decide which to make the primary drive. I also want to clarify what to do with this drive. I don't know how to partition. And if I did, how large a partition should I create on this 2TB drive - if it were to hold the operating systems and programs? I don't know how much room that takes - and how to be sure to take the appropriate sections of my original drive to place into this partition. I can figure out what size each portion of my original hard drive is? I just don't know which folders go into the partition for programs/software? I don't want to leave any out - and I'm concerned I will miss some folders bc. I do not recognize what they are. If I partition the drive, I gather I don't clone it - but do it in sections. I also don't know if I should format it first. Or partition first. Disk management is fairly new to me although I did format a couple of drives. I didn't get into partitions and copying from one drive to another. Does it make sense to use this 2TB drive (which I bought for it's speed and good functioning) as the main drive? If so, I don't know the order of operations? Clone my original drive to this drive? Format and partition first (in which case I'll need to know how to get the proper system files vs. data files into the right partitions). I think I know that if I make this 2TB the master, I have to either switch the cables - but since I think they won't stretch to the second hard drive bay, I'll probably have to swap them. I am so relieved not to have lost my original drive. Although it consumed the better part of last weekend, I did learn plenty - and feel more confident cutting my "recovery" teeth on recovering data from the bad second drive which only has some video at stake. Just as a reminder my original drive has about 350GB data. Thanks everyone. Lynn. PS - I did learn a couple of important things from this technician. First, he updated the bios in my computer (which was several versions old). And he told me where to go to update the bios on my daughter's computer. That was useful. It's a question I've had for a while when I see people on this forum ask whether someone has updated their bios.

yes I have used many of the nirsoft utilities which will show as a false positive, the situation is that the technology they have to use to allow you to find your lost keys on your own pc are very similar to the technology that is used in trojan/virus to steal your info, the difference is that with the nirsoft tools no info is sent to anyone it does not connect to the internet it is just for you to use on your pc and capture the info you lost. They make tools to find your wireless password, your router password, your outlook info, windows key, many many useful tools. when used by the pc user on their own pc they are then not malicious. I do not know if all of what is showing in Malwarebytes is just nirsoft products but part of it looks as if it is. That is why it list it as a PUP potentially unsafe product not as a Trojan. It is not a keylogger a keylogger is dangerous and sends out the info it captures to some one through an internet connection, nirsoft just finds it and gives it to you. I have used them and know many others that use their utilities. But if you no longer need the program the best thing to do is just after using it remove it so none of your AV programs will alert on it.