Hi folks
I am new to the site, not very PC minded so I'm probably the cause of all my own ills, be kind eh!
I have a 20 gig external hard drive and a 1 gig memory stick. Both were working fine until recently, I saved everything faithfully as my Asus laptop was crashing quite a lot.
Now, the 20 gig has only used 654Mb and the Memory stick about half its storage but suddenly neither will allow me to save anything any more. Also, all files on them seem to have become read-only which is no use to me at all as I write and edit my story files all the time!!

Trying to be clever, I tried to defrag and check disc on the external HD but it says windows cannot complete a scan and that the defrag won't work unless I can first run "chkdsk/f." - but of course it doesn't tell me how to do it ! So I have no idea how to run this program that MIGHT allow me to use the massive wasted space on my hard drive.

So, here goes......
1) Has anyone else had this, is it normal that they don't work for long.
2)Would I be better off buying 1 gig sticks so when they stop working I haven't wasted too much money and space?
3) Does anyone know what chkdsk/f. is and how do I run it (step by step pleease!!) :-))
4) Anyone help me on why the files end up read only when all I do is send them to the E drive, which is the same as copying them?
5) Anyone know if read-only the files can be recovered as normal working ones so I can edit and save them back to the ext HD?
6) I also get this with my CD RW discs too, they save the first lot of files then when you try to add it says the CD is full (when it isn't according to the 'pie chart') or corrupted. The files there are also automatically made read only and you can't delete old ones.

Whew, major problems eh wot! I've actually got an external floppy now and gone back to saving and deleting on the good ol' 31/2" flops - and it works - only trouble is you need tons of 'em!

If anyone can help even on parts of the things above I will be muchly pleased and grateful, please say which number you are answering when replying.

Very kind regards to all of you and especially to all clever clogs, I NEED U.
Greko