Q:Recently, because of some corruption (due, I think, to my 2-year-old grandson playing with the on/off switch), when I open the My Computer folder, it does not show either the CD drive (E:) or the DVD (F:) drive that I have on the machine.
A.Your grandson apparently switched the machine on and then, as it was booting up, he shut it down at the point just before the computer polls the various hardware devices attached to it in order to check for disc drives.
Windows is based on a Plug and Play process in which every time a new device is plugged into a USB port, into an expansion card or into some other input channel, a small program launches to announce that a device has been found. Then software is run to register the new device with the operating system.
Once a device has been recognized the first time, the plug-and-play module no longer activates as the computer boots up. The youngster’s game of power switch tag kicked in just as the drives were about to be found, so the icons were not loaded. Now, the computer can’t find these peripherals, but it also can’t sense that they are plugged in.
Usually a simple fix works to remind the machine of those drives.
Open the My Computer folder, and then go to the narrow text box at the top that has the words “My Computer.” Put the cursor into the box and use the backspace to delete the words “My Computer.” Now type in the letter for the drive, such as “E:,” and tap Enter. This will force the machine to show an icon for the drive or to show a list of files and folders inside it.
It also will restore the machine’s settings to know that the drive is present and the formerly missing icon will be displayed henceforth.
Q.When I click to turn on a program, this error message appears: “Error: Cannot find resource file.” I click again and the program comes on, but the message is annoying.
A.The error message means that the program cannot find some associated file that it uses in doing its stuff. These resource files are things such as the ones ending in .dll (dynamic link library) and .vbx (Virtual Basic extension). The problem crops up because a lot of the library files and extensions are used by more than one program and so they can get changed, moved and even renamed.
So, your fix is to retrieve the installation disk or installation file used to load the program onto your computer and then reinstall it. This will add all of the resource files that it needs to do its stuff.
If the programs in question create any kind of data that you care about, then it’s a very good idea to make backup copies of those data files before reinstalling the software that created them.
