Ask A Geek

Q: I bought a new PC and tried to add the hard drive from my old PC to the new PC. The install went ok and the drive shows up. I can see the files but I can’t access them. It says I do not have permission. The new PC is running Vista and the old is Windows XP. Is there anyway I can access the files?

A: When you move a hard drive from a computer running Windows XP to a computer running Windows Vista you will normally have to “take ownership” of the files. We suggest you read the tutorial for Taking Ownership of a file. The tutorial contains great directions and screenshots that will help you solve your problem.

Q: I have MS digital image library 9 and MS digital image Pro 9. Are both needed? I’m trying to give myself more storage.

A: It is difficult to get information about Microsoft Digital Image products because support for them has been discontinued since January 13, 2009. Given that information, it is my understanding that the Library and the Pro product work together to give you the user experience you get. So removing the library part of the product might actually hurt your user experience. Read the rest of this entry »

Q: I have a zone pzn6190 dvd recorder with a seagate 250gig hdd. I would like to know if i can hook the drive to my windows xp comp and if there is any software I can use to resize the partition in raw format as the partition space allocated to hold any video files I have transferred from an external device just not big enough to hold those files (roughly 5 gigs, I wish to resize it to about 100gig). The only software that is available that resizes partitions in fat, fat32, ntfs, etc but haven’t found any for raw.

Q: I’m now using my HP pavilion a6000n computer on Windows Vista Home premium 32 bits, with a 250GB WD hard drive, and 4GB of ram.

I’m planning on adding a new 1TB Sata hard drive, from Western Digital, and just install it beside my old one.

Will there be any problems if i just install it like that?

Here are my system specs from the HP Website.

Q: I own a emachine T3504 and want to purchase a new hard drive. How do i find out if it is SATA or ATA? I also have 2 cd drives installed would I need a power cable and new ide cable as well?