22/03/2011

Microsoft Program Stops Responding

The program stops responding when you try to open or to save a file in an Office 2002 program, in an Office 2003 program, in an Office 2007 program, or in an Office 2010 program.

You know the scenario, you are dashing to get off to college, the post is about to go or you have been typing for 2 hours and just remembered to save the doc for the first time. You open the save menu and click on a folder and the screen goes pale and you notice those dreaded words in the toolbar, (Not Responding), the program hangs. What do you do other than go and make a cup of tea? While you wait to see what happens!

I have Googled for a solution on a number of occasions but without luck. Today I found this Microsoft Support Article ID: 313937. It seems to have worked. The gist of the solution is making sure you have no "Mapped Network Drives" which are not connecting. See the article for the full story.

USB Drive Not Recognised: TestDisk

Awesome Utility: TestDisk

What do you do when your USB Memory Stick/Drive is not recognised when you try to read it. Well if it has the only copy of your dissertation the response probably lies somewhere between suicide and mucking your pants! That is what happened to a friend today, can I help, how can I not. Quick Google identified suggested the best option was a command line utility called TestDisk. Long time since I did DOS and stuff. The hard part was finding an idiot proof set of instructions how to use Testdisk! The nearest I ,managed was at SysAdminHell a post titled Awesome Utility: TestDisk. I suggest you download TestDisk and then go to the instructions at SysAdminHell.

I found placing TestDisk on another USB Drive worked best for me. After a bit of trial and nor too much error I managed to get the USB drive to boot. I looks as though the FAT32 Boot sector was corrupt. BEWARE of NOT EJECTING your USB Drives!