What version of Firefox do I have?

If it turns out that I have a more advanced Firefox than 2.0, I may want to switch back after the FAFSA is completed, so it would be useful to know how to do that, too. If my current version is less than 2.0, then I'll stick with 2.0 for awhile and see what it can do. Thank you all in advance for your help.

Start Firefox and than click Help -> About Mozilla Firefox. There you can see your version of Firefox.

best regards
Markus

Thanks, Markus. I have Firefox 2.0.0.17

The .17 must be causing problems with the government's website. How do I go back to plain old version 2.0?

It might be better to try upgrading to FireFox 3.0.7 and do a general update and upgrade at the same time. Try going up to the top taskbar and click on

System - Administration - Synaptic Package Manager

it asks for your normal user password, not your Superuser/Root one. Click on the "Mark all Upgrades" button and then the "Apply". Also it could be that some of your packages have been a bit broken so try rebooting and in the bootup menu select the Ubuntu that has "Recovery Mode" and go for the option to "Repair broken packages" it's good to run through most of the options in there about once a month or so.

There is also an add-on called "User Agent Switcher" that can make Firefox look like other web-browsers to odd sites like the one you're talking about. Perhaps using the add-on to pretend to be using Internet Explorer 6.0 would be better? Add-ons are in the Tools menu of Firefox.

It might also be that the website itself is experiencing problems at the moment so it might be worth using the "Contact Us" part of the page to make an enquiry about that. I would send them a note while doing the updating or else my nails would get bitten too far down - updating can take a while.

Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

Tom, I was out when you replied earlier. I've tried, but when I click on "mark all upgrades," nothing gets marked, and the "Apply" button remains inactive. Any idea why?

I know it sounds the wrong way round from what you're asking for but usually when they say version 2.0.0 they mean anything after that as there are seldom regressions in later versions or things that are really that specific in a website - it certainly wouldn't be good as a security feature!

I have tried to search around for version 2.0.0 but got nowhere slowly
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-older.html

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-users/2008-May/144518.html
note the date on these last set of instructions is very very old. I really don't think it's worth going this route as it's a lot of work and extremely unlikely to get the result you need.

I think the route most likely to work is to update to the latest versions so that any issues have been dealt with. You're probably not the only one facing this same problem so it has got to be worth contacting the website "web-master" or their support directly through the "Contact Us" or whatever they have on that that site.

Good luck and regards from
Tom

Sorry i haven't helped much

Good luck

Errr, i missed your answer. The "Apply" button remains greyed out when you are as fully up-to-date as you can be. This clearly isn't the case though so i think it might be worth using Synaptic to specifically search for "firefox 3.0" and that should hopefully fix this.

Ahah, now it has occured to me that you might be using an old version of Ubuntu itself. Please go up to the top-taskbar and click on

Applications - Accessories - Terminal

and into the terminal/command window/console type in

uname -a

and copy and paste the answer in here. If it's "Linux Ubuntu810" or "Linux Ubuntu804" then it's fine but earlier than this might need some work to upgrade the Ubuntu itself. A blank "write once" type Cd is best for getting the latest Ubuntu onto your machine but there are other options.

That might be true, about it being an old version of Ubuntu. My ex-husband set this up before he remarried and left town, and of course, because he did it, and did not show me anything, that is why I am having trouble. I will check what you've suggested regarding Ubuntu and then report back here either to ask another question, or say the problem is solved. Thanks so much for sticking with me.

I typed in uname-a and entered, but a message came up saying "command not found."

OK, I tried again, putting a space between uname and the dash. This time it printed something:

Linux rae-desktop 2.6.20-17-generic #2 SMP Wed Aug 20 16:47:34 UTC 2008 i686 GNU/Linux

It looks like you've got an older kernel, i'm on 2.6.27.11 or something like that so i'm guessing that you have version 7.10 or something like that and could do with upgrading Ubuntu

Please post that as a new question because i'm not sure how to do it. I was expecting numbers where it says "rae" and i don't know what that means.

I think it might be as simple as finding the "Upgrade" button in Synaptic or the "Update Manager" or something but i think you're going to be best off with a blank Cd. Do you have one handy? If you do then perhaps it would be easier to download 8.10 from
http://www.ubuntulinux.org/getubuntu/download

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BurningIsoHowto

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BootFromCD

If you can access the internet from the Live Cd that might be the fastest way to finish the task you're aiming for. In the longer run it's worth installing it as a dual-boot with the old Ubuntu acting as the Windows in this guide
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsDualBoot

or alternatively but a bit more tricky it might be good to backup your "/home" folder and then try installing using the "Manual Partitioning" and make sure that each partition is UNticked in the column "Format Partition?" then make sure the Ubuntu Partition (its either ext2 or ext3) has it's "Mount Point" set to "/" as the / shows the installer where to put the Root of the Ubuntu file-system - basically where to put Ubuntu. This would probably be the best way but it might be tricky to get all your data safe onto another partition or better still onto an external drive or dvd's?

Ubuntu is great because there is so much available for free and it keeps you safe and outside of the Windows "constant upgrade cycle" of each new Windows needing newer hardware and the new hardware needing new programs and everything costing too much. Windows was getting increasingly difficult because of all the security and viruses but now i'm free from all that worry and expense.

On the one hand it's bad because so few people use linux that you're unlikely to be able to just chat with people you bump into about fixing problems - often a good way to solve Windows problems although it can go badly wrong. On the other hand Ubuntu has always been famous for it's online community - not always great but we do try to catch most questions.

Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

Hopefully you are actually posting to this thread directly in the Launchpad Answers forum rather than just responding to emails. This allows you to see the whole thread and explore other parts of Launchpad that might be of interest later :)

OK, will try, and then if still having trouble, post as a separate problem. I've been posting in Launchpad directly. And I do appreciate the online community. There are the nicest people here. Thanks for your help.

You're welcome.

I know almost nothing about upgrading Ubuntu from 7.10 to 8.04 but plenty about installing 8.10 over the top of 7.04 so that settings and data are quite likely to remain the same. I know that sounds like the same thing but it's late and i'm not thinking straight :)

Re-posting the new topic may well draw new people into the chat. Otherwise all i can offer is to try to be around tomorrow. I'm not sure if i will be though so good luck with it all

Regards from
Tom :)

You can find your current Ubuntu version with this command:
lsb_release -a

However, going back to your original problem, the problem might not be with Firefox itself (or Ubuntu), but with related tools and plugins (Javascript, Flash, Acrobat Reader, ...).
So what exactly are the problems with the FAFSA website, what does not work?

The FAFSA worked after all, even though I got the error message.

As far as which version of Ubuntu, and how to upgrade to a newer version, I am still stumped. I do not know where to enter the command lsb_release -a.

I would like to know how to upgrade.

Great, that's good to hear. A huge relief, nicely done & congrats :)
To get a terminal console to type commands (or copy&paste using the mouse) go up to the top taskbar and click on

Applications - Accessories - Terminal

that should bring up a window that we call a console (thank M$), ok the 'terminal' part is left over from the big old unix mainframes before everyone had a case to knock their knees against ;)
Regards from
Tom :)

I've done that, but it does not tell me the version that I have. It prints something with the word desktop in it. Sounds like you used to work on the large mainframes. Things sure have changed.

When I try the "uname -a" command, this is what I get:

Linux rae-desktop 2.6.20-17-generic #2 SMP Wed Aug 20 16:47:34 UTC 2008 i686 GNU/Linux

And the "lsb_release -a" command?

With that command I get:

No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 7.04
Release: 7.04
Codename: feisty

Well, 2.6.20-17 should be Ubuntu Feisty, 7.04. The safest way would be an incremental update to 8.04 which has long term support. Only problem is that Feisty is no longer supported officially, so you'd need some tweaks to upgrade from 7.04 to 7.10, and then you can upgrade normally from 7.10 to 8.04. A disadvantage of this method is that you essentially need *two* upgrades, which takes twice the amount of time and needs to download twice as much data (depending on your internet and computer speed a single upgrade usually takes about 2-4 hours).
Another way is to download a CD for 8.04, burn it, boot from it, and do a clean install. However, all of your personal data stored on your computer will be lost that way, so if you're not sure how to backup all your old data and restore it correctly after the upgrade, you probably don't want to do that.

The other thing to think about is, whether it is really worth the hassle. If your computer is generally working, except for some minor glitches (such as the daylight saving switch), it could be an option just to leave it as it is.

The "mount" command in a terminal console is pretty impressive. It picked up on the fact that i use /home on /dev/sdb but didn't seem to notice that most of my settings for applications are on sda, at least i thought they were. Who knows? It's been a very odd week here.

Wabbit, if you could let us know where your /home folder is then we could try to help with updating - if you're still interested in doing that. I do kind of agree with Crusher that it might be best left as it is.

Good luck though either way
Regards from
Tom

Knowing that 7.04 is no longer supported makes me nervous. Although it may be more trouble to do incrementally, it sounds safer for someone like me who has little computer experience, and at least then I would have the version that is up to date, and supported.

To start off, how would I go about those tweaks that are necessary to upgrade to 7.10?

I do not know how to find what you are calling the /home folder. Not documents, right?

OK, here goes.
First, to find out about your /home folder, open a terminal (Applications - Accessories - Terminal), run these commands:
mount
df -x tmpfs

and post the output here.
Then, to be on the safe side, you should burn a CD containing everything in /home. It should be safe during the updates, but it is always better to be prepared and have a backup of all your data.

Concerning the first step of the upgrade (to 7.10/Gutsy), here's what you need to do.
Edit the file /etc/apt/sources.list by entering this command in a terminal:
gksudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Append these 6 lines to the file:
deb http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ feisty main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ feisty-updates main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ feisty-security main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ feisty-backports main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ feisty-backports main/debian-installer
deb-src http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ feisty-backports main restricted universe multiverse

Save and exit.
Now enter in the terminal:
sudo apt-get update
(if he is asking you for a password, enter your passwrd. note you don't see what you are typing)

If there is an error after this, please post it here. Otherwise continue with:
sudo apt-get upgrade

If there is an error after this, please post it here. Otherwise continue with:
sudo do-release-upgrade

(more or less the same info is available here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/GutsyUpgrades )
That should do the trick, and your system should be upgraded to 7.10/Gutsy. If all worked correctly, you should then be able to do the 2nd step and upgrade to your new Ubuntu 8.04/Hardy using the normal Update Manager from the menu (with one exception, see the section "Known Problems" in https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HardyUpgrades ). Ubuntu 8.04 is supported until April 2011.

PS: Good luck! :o)

OK. Taking this in small steps.

The mount command gives me this:

/dev/sdb5 on / type ext2 (rw,errors=remount-ro)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
/sys on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
varrun on /var/run type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,mode=0755)
varlock on /var/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,mode=1777)
procbususb on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw)
udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
devshm on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
lrm on /lib/modules/2.6.20-17-generic/volatile type tmpfs (rw)
/dev/sdb6 on /home type ext2 (rw)
/dev/sda2 on /media/sda2 type ntfs (rw,nls=utf8,umask=007,gid=46)
binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw)

The next command gives me this:

Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdb5 120952084 3215364 111592664 3% /
procbususb 517144 160 516984 1% /proc/bus/usb
/dev/sdb6 126225464 6805496 113008028 6% /home
/dev/sda2 151324260 88564148 62760112 59% /media/sda2

I will need help on how to burn the CD or CDs, too. Not sure how many I will need. Should I be saving all of my document files and folders? Email? Favorites list? Anything else?

Ah, that's perfect! Your /home is on a separate partition, so there is no real danger in erasing it, even with an install from scratch.
And you also have lots of free space available.

Now, doing the double-update is still the safest option - user data and system data are completely separate (one in /home, and the other in / ), but there *might* be manual configuration data specific to your PC and setup, which is stored in /etc. A clean install from a CD would erase that.

Since /home has its own partition, you don't *have* to backup all your data, although it is still good to do that every now and then. But you have 6.8GB in there, so a full backup would require about 10 CDs, or if your computer can burn DVD-ROMs only 2 of those.
Unfortunately I never used a "real" backup program, which would simplify things, you would have to ask somebody else about that. I usually backup stuff by using a standard burn program, such as gnomebaker, or brasero, or the built-in tool of your normal file browser (via menu "Go"->"CD/DVD Creator"), and then adding stuff folder by folder, until the disk is full. But one has to remember what goes where, and it is easy to miss stuff, so a real backup program would be better.
If your machine can burn DVD-ROMs it's a lot easier, since you'll only have to burn two then.

But basically, you can go ahead with the first part of the system upgrade now.
To be prepared for the worst case, it might be wise to create a bootable live CD with Ubuntu 8.04 on it before you start. You can download the image here http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download (select "Ubuntu 8.04 LTS"), and burn it as explained here https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BurningIsoHowto

All this assuming your ISP provider does not charge you for transfer volume, because two system upgrades plus the CD will amount to a total download of about 2-4GB ;-)

Wow, it does look to me like your /home was put on its own partition :) That's great news.

Starting with your last questions first and working backwards. Emails and favourites list should all be stored in your "/home" folder automatically, that's why we want to backup the whole folder. Your documents folder will be something like "/home/wabbit/Documents" and the pictures folder "/home/wabbit/Pictures". So all them are in the "/home" folder too. It might be worth emptying your waste-bins in your email application and on your desktop. Also if you are using Thunderbird or Evolution then it may give you an option to compact or compress your folders and this is worth doing every month or so anyway. Also when you boot in do you get an option that has "Recovery Mode" at the end? If so it's worth running most of the options in there about 1/month too, definitely avoid the "reconfigure x-server" or your desktop might look a little bit different, although probably not hugely different. Also don't do the "drop to root command-line tho" lol. If you do this last one by accident then just type "reboot".

I think i would open the web-browser and use the "Bookmarks" menu to "Organise Bookmarks" - Import/Export" - "Export as html" but this is just me being fussy really. Your bookmarks should stay just as they are but now if they have gone wonky later then you can get them back fairly easily. I think i would save about 5 (or so) very special emails but leave the rest as they should all pull through fine too anyway, again just me being ultra-paranoid during backing before doing something new and strange like this.

If you go to your documents folder and press the up-arrow in the file-browser a few times you should get to a folder with quite a few other folders in and one of them should be your "/home" folder. Try right-clicking on this folder and go down to "Properties" and one of the tabs in the pop-up box should show you how much space your /home folder takes up. If it's less than 700Mb then you'll fit it all onto 1 Cd, if it's about 4Gb then you'll need a dvd or a stack of 10 Cds or a Usb stick. Really it depends how large your /home folder is. Mine would need an external hard-drive unless i deleted a few Voyager episodes ;) These days and with the relative costs of these different things i would probably get a Usb stick or 2 because they might be quite useful to have around anyway for bits & bobs like taking your photo album around to a friends house or something like that ;) Also they are a lot easier to start using than dvds/cds. In my country i can get a dvd for about £1 or a stack of 10Cds for £3 but a usb stick can be re-used a lot of times and only costs about £10. Whichever way you choose has advantages. A dvd for the price of a loaf of bread would mean my backup could be tucked safely away at the back of a drawer, safe for a few years - probably a good plan as its always good to have a backup.

Sorry for whittering on.
Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

I wish I knew how to decode that information like you do. But glad to learn that the news is good. I have both CDs and DVD-ROMs here, and believe my computer can use both. To download 8.04, is a CD OK? Should it be a CD-R or CD-RW. I have both available. Don't know if there will be any writing to the disk during the procedure, where the better choice would be RW.

On another note, I have two sides to my computer as well. Before leaving, I believe my ex may have installed a 2nd motherboard. Though not sure. All I know is that I can log onto the Ubuntu side, or onto the Windows side. I keep the Windows side for my photos and Photoshop, and for tax programs that seem to require Windows. I do all my writing and web browsing and email on the Ubuntu side.

Will this complicate making the change to the Ubuntu side? Are there any other precautions that I should take?

Actually one great thing about having your /home folder on a different partition is that you can probably get away with not backing up at all but it would be very unwise as it is quite possible that something wierd might go wrong. I tend to plan for the worst so that i can be pleasantly pleased :)

Ooops, i thought you would both be in a lot later. Didn't realise you were in already and i missed both your posts.

It's just a single Cd for 8.04. Double-clicking on the downloaded iso file should start it burning automatically but that "HowTo Burn an Iso" link is good if you need it.

I think I have a USB stick. This may sound silly, but I bought this awhile ago in anticipation of when it might come in handy, and have never used it.

It is a SanDisk cruzer micro 8GB.

I know where the port is on the computer. Just never did this before.

I have 4.8 GB used in the home folder. 107.8 GB free space.

Lol, as Hannibal in the A team used to say ...

Lol, as Hannibal in "The A Team" used to say ...

Errr, the numbers don't match up. Still at least there's plenty more space on the Usb stick than it looks like you'll need. When you put the stick in a file-browser console should have popped up? If not there should be a new icon on your desktop?

I think maybe the first report said it's 6% full rather than 6.8 - i'm not sure about that but anyway, dragging your /home folder onto the Usb's file-browser in the same way as you normally copy files should do the trick :)

I can only really help you with the backup. My plan for upgrading your system to 8.04 is completely different from Crunchers and he obviously doesn't believe my way would work. It does work but i believe he can give better support following his way - mine really needs a few pictures to make it clear. Also your system has a slightly unusual and much cleverer use of partitions which should make your web-browsing and everything faster, safer and more efficient. Cruncher's way looks like it would easily preserve and use that but mine probably wouldn't without a struggle. Both of us would start with backing up though so i can help with that :)

I've put the SanDisk into the computer but nothing pops up, no new window, and no new icon. Don't know how to save the home folder. Tried clicking on copy, but it told me I had to paste. There was no save or save as command. Help!

Do you have a "Places" menu on the top taskbar? Click on there, the 8Gb Usb stick should be in there? Any luck?

I clicked on Computer and found an icon for Memory Stick Drive. Another screen popped up with Location = /media/disk and three icons: Documents, System, and Launch U3.exe

I've tried going back to the screen with the Memory Stick Drive to open the drive, but I get an error message that says "unable to mount media. There is probably no media in the drive."

However, there is media in the drive. I'd just put it there.

Any suggestions for how to copy the home folder to this now?

The screen with "Location = /media/disk" is showing the Usb stick! That's the one we want to drag the "/home" folder into :)

When you go back to the "Computer" folder do you still see the icon for the memory drive? If you do then open it again. Drag "/home" into it. When the copying is complete then remove the Usb stick but always before removing a Usb stick go into "Computer" and right-click on it's icon, from the menu select "Umount" or "Eject". If you don't get those options then avoid removing the Usb stick until the machine is properly off - like you leave the machine normally.

I've tried but it will not open. I keep getting the same error message, above.

Also, I found where to click on eject and did that, twice. Nothing seemed to happen. I pulled the USB stick out. It did not come out easily. Is that normal after ejecting?

It should be a little stiff about plugging in or taking out but only a little. Try plugging it back in again and see if it works better this time :)

OK, I'm back now. To answer a few of your questions:
It's not a "2nd motherboard" you have, it's called a "dual boot system", where you have both systems installed and can choose what to use when you turn on your computer. As with the /home, your Windows disk is completely separate from Ubuntu, so you don't have to worry losing anything that's on there.
By the way, you can always access anything on your Windows disk even when you are in Ubuntu, just go to "/media/sda2" in your file browser.
For the 8.04 .iso image a CD will do fine. A CD-R is enough, but you can also use a CD-RW.
This 8GB stick is perfect! So we don't have to bother about copying and backing up single bits and pieces, you can just drag the complete /home folder to the stick. Once you get it to work, that is... ;-)
The "eject" for sticks is a little bit different than for CDs, it is just so that the computer disconnects the stick internally. You could always plug out the stick at any time (for CDs this is prevented while they are being accessed) - but if you don't click on "eject" first, you might lose data.

wabbit said:
> Another screen popped up with Location = /media/disk and three icons: Documents, System, and Launch U3.exe
That is exactly what you need! Your stick will be accessible at /media/disk, and the three icons are probably stuff that's still on the stick. It can stay there, it doesn't matter - there will be enough space left.

@Tom: It's not that I believe your approach won't work, but I just don't know how Ubuntu reacts to an existing system, whether it is able to upgrade from that, of whether it's just making a clean install, and probably erasing any possible manual configuration changes that might be present. Also, I believe we will still run into the problem of Feisty no longer being present on archive.ubuntu.com so we would still have to tweak sources.list anyway - but I might be wrong there.

@ Cruncher
This type of upgrade question has been asked a number of times and no-one so far has come up with your approach which seems to be the best one, certainly in this case but also would have been for many others too. If your route doesn't work we can fall back to my approach and failing that the standard install route which might happen by accident anyway following my route is also unlikely to lose any data. Still i think we all agree that it's always best to backup data anyway and also it would be good to get this Usb stick working because it's such a valuable resource, once you get used to it. I'm curious to see your approach work as it'll doubtless be useful for lots of people in the future.

Thanks and regards from
Tom :)

I got the idea from here: https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/update-manager/+question/62184

I need to work now, but will come back on later. I will need help in dragging the Home Folder to the USB stick. Both windows were not visible on my screen at the same time. Sorry to have to ask, but I think I need step by step instructions on this.

On another note:

Aside from the glitches in Windows, and annoying updates that cause problems, one reason I've had for using Ubuntu and Firefox has been to be immune to most computer viruses.

Today while online on the Ubuntu/Firefox side of my computer, I received a message that popped up and said that my computer was infected with viruses and needed to be scanned and cleaned immediately. I clicked on the X to close the message, but it did not close and began doing something to my computer. At that point I exited the Internet, and did a Restart. Is there a way I can check to see if this thing has caused harm to my system? Or stolen any personal information? So far everything seems to be working just fine.

Could this thing have gone to the other side of my dual boot system, and affected my Windows portion? I am subscribed to virus protection software on that side.

Thanks...

By "doing something" I mean it claimed to be scanning my computer, or downloading something, because a long narrow window opened up. There were red bars that appeared on the left and continued crossing the screen to fill up that window, the same as you typically see for other applications. As soon as I saw it, I exited and did the Restart. It did not get more than halfway across my screen. I would have liked to have more information about this thing in order to track it down better, but I had to exit fast, and this is all that I remember. (The pop-up window appeared as I tried to go to what seemed to be a perfectly legitimate website about IQ, although all it had were a bunch of links to other sites.) Anyone know what this is? Is it dangerous to my system? I know this is off topic, but if anyone has a comment, it would be welcomed.

It's extremely unlikely to have done anything to your system. Your linux probably completely baffled it and while you're not actually booted into Windows nothing can install into it. Don't worry

Sounds like a clever bit of fakery. They usually look like Windows installers rather than Ubuntu ones?

I'm trying to send you a post so that you can pass me your email so that i can send some screenshots to help. Hopefully this forum would stop email addresses from being posted but the round-a-bout route seemed safest. Don't respond to the email unless your happy to pass me your email address tho. In which case we could continue in here quite happily
https://bugs.launchpad.net/launchpad-answers/+bug/77123

Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

So, are you guys exclusively communicating by email now, or is the question on how to backup /home still open?
@Tom Why not use one of the gazillion image upload sites out there to post your screenshots? This way it would also help others with the same problem (although we do need to change the original question then)

Cruncher, I'm down and out with a cold right now. Worst one in years. Hope to be back by the weekend. It is OK by me if all the info is posted here.

Ooops, sorry Cruncher. Yesterday i spent the day fixing hardware issues on my main machine. At first it looked like a power supply problem but then it began to look more and more like my mbord was dead or dying and no longer under guarantee! Finally traced it down to a faulty on/off button on the front of the case! Was celebrating and forgot to tell people, sorry both of you. At last i'm not stuck on my ancient old machine :))

I'm only dealing with the Usb backup part of this which is really a bit of a side issue. Also i don't know how to use those sites and don't feel comfortable with them anyway, the info posted seems to vanish after a few months from past experience and from trying to find stuff other people have posted. I just wish we had the facility in here that bug-squad have in their forum.

Apols and regards from
Tom :)