No Show!

The problem you are facing is because you haven’t installed the codecs required to play compressed AVI files on your computer. There are codecs such as DIVX, XVID, MPEG-4, etc.

These codecs do not come bundled with Windows or the media players. To view your AVI files, you first need to install these codecs. You’ll then be able to view them in any media player such as Windows Media Player.

DIVX codecs can be downloaded from www.divx.com, and XVID codecs can be downloaded from www.koepi.org. Alternatively, you may install a codec pack such as the XP Codec Pack from www. xpcodecpack.com.
Alternatively, you can install VLC Player from www.videolan.org (or the Digit CD, June 2005) and use it to play your video files.

Still In Hibernation
Q. Recently, when trying to shut down my computer, I chose to hibernate it. Nothing seemed wrong, but when I tried to restart it, neither the Windows 98 nor the XP OS booted. That there was no way to reinstall either OS only compounded the problem. How can I avoid this in the future?
R Panneer Selvam, via e-mail

This problem occurs when the hardware-such as the video card-has drivers that do not properly support the hibernate feature. Another common cause for this problem is, when you hibernate the system and then make hardware changes such as adding or removing a hard drive or removable drive, the computer tries to restart in hibernate mode and cannot detect the changes.

You do not need to reinstall Windows to solve the problem. While the system boots, press F8 and opt to delete restoration data and boot into Windows to start Windows afresh.

Cell Phone As Modem
Q. I have a Nokia 6630 cell phone and a postpaid connection that allows accessing the Internet, but I want to use my PC to surf. How can I do this?
Ashish, Assam

To do this, you will first require the Nokia DKU-2 cable to connect your Nokia phone to your computer. Next, you need to install the drivers for this cable from the CD that came with the phone. If you don’t have this, you can download the drivers from the Nokia Web site.

The easiest way to set up and configure your Nokia 6630 as a modem is by installing the PC Suite. This includes the modem functionality and facilitates easy configuration of your phone as a modem in Windows. Another way is to download the GPRS settings wizard for the Nokia 6630 from the Nokia Web site and transfer it to your phone using the PC Suite and the DKU-2 cable or wireless connection.

Start the application and select the required settings. The wizard will detect the correct settings of your provider and save it to your phone. Some of the settings might not be available for your particular phone model and you may have to go to http://snipurl. com/digitqa and have them sent to your phone free of charge. If the GPRS settings wizard is unable to configure your phone properly, you will need to call the service provider for the settings.

Quiet Linux
Q. I have a PC running Windows XP and Turbolinux. While using Turbolinux, the sound card does not work. Is the motherboard CD required to install the sound driver? I am new to Linux. Another problem I have is, I can’t find the boot.ini file on my C: drive despite selecting the ‘Show hidden files and folders’ options, and am not able to save it after modifying it in Notepad.
Tuku Dash, via e-mail

It is very unlikely that the sound card drivers for Linux will be available on the motherboard CD, but you may as well give it a try. If they aren’t there, you can download them from http://www.realtek.com.tw and install them in TurboLinux. You may also try the ALSA driver from www.alsa-project.org.

To view and edit the boot.ini file, go to Control Panel and open ‘System Properties’. Navigate to the ‘Advanced’ tab and click on ‘Settings’ under ‘Startup and Recovery’. In the window that opens, click on ‘Edit’.

The boot.ini file will open in notepad. Click on ‘Cancel’ to close the previously opened window and close ‘System Properties’. You can now edit the boot.ini and save it, and the changes you made will be visible the next time the system boots.

Can’t Standby
Q. I just formatted my system and my ‘Standby’ option is disabled. There is no option in the Power Management choices in Control Panel either. How do I get this back?
Ashish Namdeo, via e-mail

You’ve mentioned that you just formatted your system. The “Standby” option is unavailable when you haven’t yet installed the display drivers for your display card or when the display card or drivers of your system do not support power management features.

You will be able to enable the Standby option by installing the latest drivers for your display card from the manufacturer’s Web site.

Digitising My Music
Q. I have a Sony Discman (NS-700) and I would like to know if there is any way to convert audio cassettes to ATRAC3.
Siddharth Sen, via e-mail

Sony’s ATRAC3 (Adaptive TRansformation Acoustic Coding) format is a proprietary audio compression technology similar to MP3, which allows audio to be compressed to a tenth of its original size. You can convert any audio on your computer to the ATRAC3 format.

For this, you first need to install the Sony ATRAC3 Audio Codec from http://snipurl.com/ digitqa2. You may then use a sound editor such as Sony Foundry to convert the audio cassettes to the ATRAC3. Connect the audio cassette player to the line-in of your sound card using a stereo cable.

Double click the volume control icon in the system tray. Click on ‘Options’ and then ‘Properties’. Select ‘Recording’ and click ‘OK’. Check the box next to Line-in and close the volume control window. These steps will configure Line-In to be the recording source.

POP Goes Gmail
Q. I want to get a Gmail account. I want to know how can I get invited and what the SMTP and POP3 settings will be if I want to configure it for use with Outlook Express.
R Kumar, via e-mail

You no longer need an invite to open a Gmail account. You just have to go to www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount. Once you get a new account, you can use Outlook Express to send and receive mail to and from this account.

First you need to log into your Gmail account and ‘Enable POP’ access. Now open Outlook Express, click the ‘Tools’ menu and click on ‘Accounts’. First click ‘Add’ and then ‘Mail’. Enter your name in the ‘Display Name’ field and click ‘Next’. Enter your full Gmail address in the e-mail address field and click ‘Next’.

Enter “pop.gmail.com” in the ‘Incoming mail server’ field and “smtp.gmail.com” in the ‘Outgoing mail server’ field, and click ‘Next’. Enter your full Gmail address in the ‘Account Name’ field and your password in the necessary field. Click ‘Finish’.

Now, under ‘Accounts’, click on pop.gmail.com and click on ‘Properties’. Click on ‘Advanced’ and check the box next to ‘This server requires a secure connection (SSL)’ under ‘Outgoing Mail (SMTP).’

Enter 465 in the Outgoing Mail field. Check the box next to ‘This server requires a secure connection (SSL)’ under ‘Incoming mail (POP3)’. The port will change to 995. Click on the ‘Servers’ tab and check the box next to ‘My server requires authentication.’ Click ‘OK’. You’re all set!

SATA But No DOS?
Q. I’m using a SATA HDD with Windows XP, but the problem is that Windows XP cannot go to the MS-DOS prompt. But I need to use DOS because I want to change a system file, which is not possible through Windows. I tried with the start up disk also but it cannot      detect the C: drive.
Harikishan A K, via e-mail

It’s not possible to access a SATA drive in DOS mode. You have to do the changes from within Windows. Keep in mind that changing a system file without knowing what the consequences might leave your system unbootable.

Windows XP does not allow a system file to be replaced while it is in use and hence, you will not be able to replace or delete it in the Windows XP environment. But there is a way around this. You can rename the file you wish to delete and replace. Then, copy the replacement system file to the location of the original file. With this, there is no need to boot into DOS.

You may do this using Windows Explorer. When you boot the next time, the new file will be loaded as the system file and if necessary, you may delete the file you renamed earlier. But it is always wiser to keep that file as a backup.

It seems that your C: drive uses the NTFS file system and that the files were encrypted with a password. Hence, these files will be accessible only to the user of the previous installation of Windows XP. You’ll be able to decrypt these files using software such as Advanced EFS Data Recovery, which you can download from http://snipurl.com/digitqa3.

Surging Loss!
Q. I have seven machines in my office connected on a LAN. Recently, when I restarted one of the machines due to a flickering screen, the D: partition was no longer there. Now it shows up as free space. Even recovery software can’t read this partition anymore. How can I recover my data? This machine was running Windows 98. How can I save other machines from such a problem?
Piyush, via e-mail

From what you’ve described, it seems that an electric surge has destroyed the data on your D: drive. The only way to prevent such a thing from happening again is by installing an online UPS for all your computers.

To recover data from crashed drives, there are some software solutions such as RFAT Studio, EasyRecovery Pro, etc. that you could try.

Corrupt Registry Keys
Q. I’m having a problem installing programs such as MSW LOGO and Q BASIC. When I get about installing them, a message box appears, stating:
“C:PROGR~1SymantecS32EVNT1.DLL. An Installable Virtual Device Driver failed DLL Installation. Close/Ignore”. What do I do?
Jayesh S Pandya, via e-mail

Open the registry editor. Locate the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEM CurrentControlSetControlVirtualDeviceDriversVDD. Delete this key. Then, add a value with VDD as the Value Name, and REG_MULTI_SZ as the Data Type. When the multi-string editor appears, leave the entry blank. If this doesn’t work, or if you are unable to create the VDD key, it may be necessary to delete the entire VirtualDeviceDrivers key.