So the problem was getting worse and I told him it was going to fail and rather than spend a dime to get this thing going $100 would buy a better used laptop with a faster processor more memory, better 64 bit OS etc. Actually considering this thing has only 2gigs of memory it does surprisingly well on the net. 2.4 gig processor.

So at various times over the last few months he comes over here with it since he has no Wi-Fi and I see it needing two then three and more times to start Windows. It's getting worse. So a few weeks ago knowing he unlikely backed up anything I save all his data to a flash drive.

Sure enough it eventually blue screens, won't restore and he has none of the recovery discs that came with it. I said I could put 7 on it which I have. It works fine now. Guess what? He doesn't know any of his passwords or have them written down.

So I go to Yahoo and say forgot password and follow Yahoos deal and it asks if I know the password to another of his email accounts he told them about. Of course he does not. So then Yahoo has a help link which just loops around to since you don't know that other email account password you're fucked.

53 years old a ham and he failed on computer 101's most important step: write down your passwords

ET

"If at first you don't succeed, keep on sucking till you do suck seed" - Curly Howard 1936