InBox

Elise's father bought a PC that came with the operating system preloade on to a partition of the hard drive so that in the event of a disaster it could easily be restored. Every now and again he wants to load other software or add a component of Microsoft Office, whereupon he is inevitably asked to insert his operating system disk. But no disks came with the PC, so she wants to know what he should do when this happens.

It depends on the brand. Different PC manufacturers place system setup files in different places. If you are running Windows XP, the setup files directory is called i386 and normally resides on the root directory of the C drive for the major PC manufacturers. If you are running Windows 95, 98 or ME, the directory is called Cabs, and it often found in C:/windows/Options/Cabs. Sometimes it is, as Elise says, in a second partition, but that's not very common and normally done by smaller machine assemblers. If a second partition has been used, it may be more beneficial to check with the supplier for the correct location to direct the program to. As for the Office installations with no source disk provided, every manufacturer will have their own location to place these files and its help desk should be able to point you in the right direction for that specific machine.

Barry wants to know about a potential telephone scam. Essentially, a person gets a phone call from someone who says they are a technician working on the line and they ask the customer to press 90# which in turn gives them control of the line to make toll calls. Barry wants to know if this is for real.

It's definitely a scam. Apparently some telephone systems in the United States were at one stage susceptible to this trick, but not in this country. This one claimed Telstra, while others say Telecom has a system vulnerable to it. But both telecommunications companies have confirmed this combination will do nothing. Treat the attempted scam with the disdain it deserves.

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