Well, so far no help with my first problem (41413) Thanks for the input anyway , a change of subject - I use Cyberscrub and others to get rid of unwanted files, in their adverts they say that your computer saves everything, but you can't access what's there, if you can't access what's there, how can you know that their products are actually cleaning your hard drive? Is there a way of accessing the contents of your hard drive (apparently the police can do it!) I am not worried (I normally shake like this) I just want to know if I am being ripped off. Your views on the best (proveable) product would be interesting Cheers John

If you're not worried about what's there,why worry about what Cyberscrub does. Hence,you'd be wasting you're money. • TheKid •

John, To the 41413, could you explain your problem, a little more. Some questions. Are you talking about, 'Auto Starting - Running' a data CD? Are these CDs, made by you or a friend? If so, was there a file put on them, to accomplish this? How were they burned, was it for all computers, could read? Trying to ask, without getting technical :-) Tell you what John. Give a list of events, of what is transpiring. That might help, to narrow things down. "Is there a way of accessing the contents of your hard drive" That's a very open-ended question. Could you narrow it down, a little. Someone, might be able to advise you. CrazyOne

Hi John. The answer you are looking for is...... Not necessarily ripped off but might have got a similar program cheaper. A free program, 'Spider' will show you what is stored in your Index.dat files (past surf history & some of what you searched for etc). www.fsm.nl/ward/ A free program that will remove this secretly stored history is 'Delindex'..... www.burzurq.com/forum/delindex.html (requires a start-up disk). Use Spider before & after Delindex to see Delindex works. If you downloaded a picture of a gorgeous figure skater and then wanted to get rid.... deleting will only remove the index to the file, not the file it's self. Windows will not be able to find this deleted image but there are programs that will (until the area that was occupied by that image gets written over). To over write the file now, you need 'Spybot Search & Destroy' (look in the tools option of this program). Spybot is free by the way.... http://www.safer-networking.org/ Programs that find deleted files are.... 'PC Inspector' & 'Disk Investigator'. These two are free. If you delete an image file, then decide you want a permanent deletion of this file that you can no-longer find, you would have to wipe clean the whole of the 'free space' on your hard drive. Norton System Works 2002 has this function but you may be able to find other programs that do this for free. NSW 2002 will be quite cheap because there are version's 2003 & 2004 now. www.ebay.co.uk would be a good place to look. Your online history is also stored by your ISP. I don't know how long for though. UK government wanted ISP's to store stuff for five years (or something along these lines). This question gets asked a few times. Here is an old post.... http://www.computing.net/windowsme/wwwboard/forum/29332.html Response Number 2 Since then, a poster who is not here very often these days (where are you Tank?) said 'Slack Space' (a partially used area)can protect some areas of the hard drive from being over-written. In this slack space may have been an image of a bunch of flowers that you would be embarrassed if the local Rugby Club found. At least it would not be a picture of you wearing an adult nappy.

Hi CrazyOne My wife bought a couple of CD's from someone on Ebay, they were programes containing data about writing Astrological charts etc. she was assured that they will work on Windows ME. When I try to run them I can hear the CD player trying to start about six times but nothing happens, I have tried everything in the help files with no success, I have run diagnostic software that tells me that everything should be fine, I have today received another data CD from The Windows Advisor (there help line could not help) this runs perfectly well as does another CD containing a spare parts catalogue for my car, another similar CD does not run, I am totally confused now and I have no idea what to do, I have thought of using my restore disc that came with the computor, but that wipes all my personal data so it has to be the last resort. Any ideas you might have will be most welcome. Cheers To; The Kid The reason I want to clean my hard-drive is due to the vast amount of spam that I receive, some of it very nasty, I made the mistake of putting my email address as my contact name on Ebay!! Thanks to everyone for the information Cheers to all John

I have it on good authority that System Security Suite is a very good cache etc. cleaner. It is free and available here: http://www.igorshpak.net/ As with any program like this you should be careful and read directions thoroughly. I use Mozilla so I rarely need/want a program such as this so I have not tried 3S as yet.

Along the thread of this subject, I'm curious if one deletes and then empties the Recycle Bin, are the deleted files scattered in pieces as a result of running defrag? Or are the files moved en-masse as part of defrag?