The problem was closer to home. 

The HP Photosmart 7760 was not printing and giving me a cartridge error on both cartridges.  So after , putting in some new cartridges with no results,  I pulled out the trusty HP Deskjet D1420.  I just switched it out. 

Then the HP Deskjet D1420 cartridges were giving errors.  I was really perplexed.  I loaded new drivers, and looked for the most recent HP software.  No results. 

After a few weeks of walking to the other room to pick up prints, I decided to move the printers to make space for a new one.  Now, replacing the 7760 was problematic because it really printed nice pictures.  But I resolved to get a new printer.

As I pulled the cords from around the desk,  noticed that our new puppy had chewed the power cord but not completely through.  The printers have multiple voltages going into the cords so the lights would come on but no printing.  Next, I realized even though the power connectors on both printers are the same, the adapters were different.  

I replaced the chewed power cord and corrected used the correct cord for the deskjet and presto- printing.   Since I had cleaned both very well, they print good as new.   So next time your cartridges are not being recognized or give an error, check to make sure your power cord is okay.

I recently clicked too quickly on something I wasn’t suppose to. Yep, a rootkit(RK) got into my rig with the annoying message on how to buy the “Super Duper Antivirus” to remove it-SCAM. Well, my antivirus system kept it from totally taking over but I ended up having to reinstall the operating system. This RK was mean, it took out my system restore points!

This may be a little late in coming, since we now have Carbonite -www.carbonite.com.  and others.  But here’s a simple process for the folks who have more than one hard drive or just need more space and are planning on buying one.   It saved my data files and my email files!

I like to set my operating system on it’s own drive. You can now buy small drives for under $50. If you buy a really fast one, it shouldn’t hurt.   I then store all my data on a separate drive. You store backups to this ‘DATA” drive as well.

Here’s the important part. Make sure to point the “My documents ,My pictures,My Music etc.” to similar folders on the new drive. You may have to “move” them.  I’ll show you how to do it for the documents folder and you can do the rest.

Once you have a second hard drive installed, create the folders you need on the new drive.  Next, you right click on your “Documents” folder.  Note: you have to be on the actual folder that needs to be moved. It’s under Admin/user/… etc.  You look at the bottom of the list and you get properties. Click on that.  You get several Tabs, select the ‘shortcut” or “Location” tab. In the target section (Third one down) enter the new location on the new drive. You can also browse to the folder you want.   Be sure the new folder location is on the “data” drive.

That’s not all, if you use Outlook make sure you get copies of your outlook.pst files and have them on the data drive as well.  You can later import them or have outlook point to them to your new install.

The process above allowed for a complete operating system reinstall without any loss of data.  I even used it to move from Vista 32-bit to Windows 7, 64-bit.  Remember to get eveything you want to save for each user.  I skipped my IE favorites but my wife wanted hers.  It’s old school but it works.  I like to clean install every couple of years just to keep the system running fast and get the deleted program and registry junk out.

Okay, one last hint.  Listen to your hard drives.  If you begin to hear a louder and louder noise when you access it, it is beginning to go out.   Backup at your first opportunity.  Note: The data drive usually last longer because the system isn’t accessing it constantly.

Good Luck and God Bless!

Here's a few hints for setting up WordPress on Godaddy in a windows environment. This is for filling out the wp-config.php.