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Grandkid's onoff games are driving PC user crazy Q. Recently, because of some corruption (which occurred, I think, due to frequent playing by my 2-year-old grandson with the on/off switch), when I open the My Computer folder, it does not show either the CD drive (E:) or the DVD (F:) drive that I have on the machine. I have no way of accessing them. How can I rectify this problem? _Dinesh Gandhi A. Ah, kids, kids, kids. I wonder how many of the problems readers bring my way result from a youngster's joyously uninhibited response when a keyboard, mouse or, in your case, an on/off switch comes within reach.
Your grandson apparently switched the machine on and then as it was booting up he shut it down at the point just before the computer reached the place where it polled (as computer techs put it) the various hardware devices attached to it in order to check for disc drives. Windows is based on a so-called Plug and Play process in which every time a new device is plugged into a USB port, into an expansion card or into some other input channel, a small program launches to announce that a device has been found. Then software is run to register the new device with the operating system. Once a device has been recognized the first time, the plug-and-play module no longer activates as the computer boots up. The youngster's game of power switch tag kicked in just as the drives were about to be found, so the icons were not loaded. Now, the computer can't find these peripherals but it also can't sense that they are plugged in. Usually a simple fix works to remind the machine of those drives. You just order the operating system to search for the drive in question. This forces the computer to poll all of its ports for hardware, and when stuff is found, their icons are loaded. So open the My Computer folder on your desktop, and then go to the narrow text box at the top that has the words "My Computer." Put the cursor into the box and use the backspace to delete the words "My Computer." Now type in the letter for the drive, such as "E:," and tap Enter. This will force the machine to show an icon for the drive or to show a list of files and folders inside it. It also will restore the machine's settings to know that the drive is present and the formerly missing icon will be displayed henceforth. Q. I am not computer literate but generally have some good helpers. This has everyone stumped including some guys I called at Dell. When I click to turn on a program, this error message appears: "Error: Cannot find resource file." I click again and the program comes on, but the message is annoying, and why is it there? _Ruth Rak A. You left out the most important part of the situation, Ms. R. What program is it that returns this error message? Actually, I don't need to know the specifics to tell you what's awry and how to fix this minor bit of irritation during your computer use. The error message means that the program cannot find some associated file that it uses in doing its stuff. These resource files are things such as the ones ending in .dll (dynamic link library) and .vbx (Virtual Basic extension). These files contain key bits of information or special instructions that programs may need when they are running. The problem crops up because a lot of the library files and extensions are used by more than one program and so they can get changed, moved and even renamed as some piece of software accesses them. So, your fix is to simply retrieve the installation disk or installation file that you used to load the program onto your computer and then reinstall it. This will overwrite the software now on your drive with a fresh copy of itself, and it will also add all of the resource files that it needs to do its stuff. That will stop the error message from popping up on that program. So, are you miraculously cured by some newspaper columnist? Maybe not quite yet. Because the resource problem probably was caused by some other program that did something to lose or mess up the resource files in question, you may find that sometime down the road, another program will give that error message when you run that software. If this happens, you can fix things by reinstalling that program as well. Finally, if the programs in question create any kind of data
that you care about, then it's a very good idea to make backup
copies of those data files before reinstalling the software that
created them.
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