Fill out this form to email this article to a friend

Your name		Your email
Recipient email	You may enter up to 20 multiple email addresses, separated by commas.
Your message
Validation Code	Hear validation code
	Enter validation code

We were unable to send your email.

Click here to try again.

Solutions: Remove hitch from auto backup

By John Torro, Times Correspondent
In print: Saturday, October 18, 2008

Story Tools E-mail this story Contact the editor Print this story Comment on this story Social Bookmarking Digg Facebook Stumbleupon Reddit Del.icio.us Newsvine

ADVERTISEMENT Loading Video...

I have a home wireless network and have Windows XP SP3 Pro on one machine and Windows XP SP3 Home on the others. The Pro machine has a second data hard drive that all machines automatically back up data to once a week. The XP Home machines have drive mapping to the data hard drive. The "Reconnect at login" box is checked. The problem is on the day of backup, if I don't open the mapped drive one time from My Computer on the XP Home machines the backup will not occur. The backup program error states that the backup location could not be found. Any ideas?

This is most likely due to resource-saving by the operating system. Windows can drop idle connections after a time-out period, which defaults to 15 minutes. Changing it involves a simple registry change (back up your registry and/or set a System Restore point before proceeding): On the shared server, click Start, Run, type Regedit and click OK. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\lanmanserver\parameters. Click to select the Autodisconnect value and then on the Edit menu, click Modify. In the Value data box type ffffffff and then click OK.

My computer works fine but every so often the monitor screen turns red and stays that way for a few days then suddenly clears up. All connections are secure.

Sounds as if your monitor is starting to go. You can connect to another working monitor and see if you experience the same issue. If your PC uses a separate video card adaptor and you're comfortable working inside your PC, you can open it and re-seat the video card adaptor.

Send questions to personaltech@sptimes.com or Personal Tech, P.O. Box 1121, St. Petersburg, FL 33731.