Safety Ala Mode

Q: I have been having the "blue screen of death" appear more often than Iwould like, particularly when attempting to copy a folder from one diskto another, using Windows Explorer on my MicronPC machine with 256 MBRAM, 40 or so GB hard drive, sound card, speakers, no mike, Windows ME,one 3.5 inch drive, one Zip Disk 250 MB drive, one CD-R drive, one CD-RWdrive, USB system to which is connected only one accessory: a BUSlink USBexternal hard drive; a Brother HL-6 laser printer, 1 monitor, 1 mouse, 1keyboard.
Software includes Windows ME, several Microsoft items such as WordPad,NotePad, Word, and a few others I don't use -- basically whatever camewith the system --, and several Lotus applications including Ami Pro;Shoptalk Systems' Liberty BASIC, DirectCD, CD Creator, PhotoWorks, Juno(Juno is my one and only Internet provider to which I have directaccess). No virus or firewall software at this time nor recently.The problem is that most of the time; Windows Explorer will successfullycopy a folder from one disk to another. However, when attempting to dothis with the folder USER0000 in Juno, a large folder which contains allmy e-mails, address book, etc.; the system will crash when the copyingprocess is about 2/3 done -- it will give the Blue Screen of Death fromwhich recovery is never possible by any means except shutting off thepower.
S. Allen
A: The first thing that I would suggest is that you make yourself familiar with the system restoration process. This just in case you may need to restore some information to your system. You can find under the system tools heading in the accessories folder in the program header in the start menu.
The next thing that I would suggest is that you run a scandisk in safe mode. You can get into safe mode by repeatedly pressing the F5 key while the computer is booting up. Once in safe mode you can find scandisk in the same area where the system restore is located, under accessories in the system tools heading. You shouldn’t be concerned that your monitor is in black and white that is how safe mode looks. The benefit of safe mode is that only necessary functions operate.
The scandisk should detect and or repair any problems that may exist on your hard drive. If your scandisk doesn’t detect any problems then I would try to copy the folders again. Also, this time make sure that there are no other programs open or running. You may also want to consider increasing your RAM and or virtual memory.
I don’t think that a virus is the likely source of your problem, but you should have anti-virus software on your system. Computer viruses are not only transmitted through the Internet, you can also contract a virus by using a floppy or CD on an infected system then using it on your computer.
As always, email me your questions.