Every Dell we've bought came with a reinstall disk, which is a full copy of XP Pro. Tell your friend to check the box with all the manuals in it that comes with the machine.

Or call Dell and say you lost it.

ita,

I transferred some video files to the Tivo and they all skipped. So I think the main reason for using the file transfer feature are for files that were on the Tivo and you backed them up elsewhere.

So I think I'm just going to burn to DVD non Tivo files.

The converted files -- do they skip when you play them on your PC?

That's a bummer.

ita, I haven't tried that yet. The Tivo files I copied back worked just fine.

I woke up this morning, turned on my tv and the picture has gone all narrow . . . like you're watching a wide-screen movie only to the Extreme. Is my tv doomed? Or can I find a control that would correct this? And if so, what might it be called?

(I seem to remember having a control for something like this on one of my former tvs -- I just have no clue where it might be on this one.)

On my remote, it's called "Pic Size". You might also look for something called Aspect Ratio. Do you have cats? You might try them to see if they know.

If controls were switched -- the cats must have done it in the middle of the night.

I can find absolutely nothing that appears to change the aspect ratio -- however, the tv appears to be trying to self-correct.

So frustrating.

What's the model of the tv?

It's a Zenith. I don't know more about it, because it was my father's. My brother took it when he died (in '95) and then gave it to me when he got a new tv. So, it's more than 10 years old. It's doomed, isn't it?