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exFAT file conversion query
I have an external 3TB drive with 500GB of data on it, formatted as NTFS. Can I convert this to exFAT without losing any data?
WAYNE SCOWEN
Sadly no – the recommended, and safest, option is to copy the files to another drive before reformatting the drive to exFAT and copying or moving them back. If the drive is less than half full, however, another option would be to use a tool like AOMEI Partition Standard (free, www.
disk-partition.com). Once installed, launch the program. Right-click the current NTFS partition and choose Resize Partition. Shrink the partition to free up enough space to fit your data on, then click OK. You’ll see unallocated space appear next to the shrunk partition – right-click this and choose Create Partition – make sure its file system is exFAT, make a note of the drive letter it’s been allocated and click OK again.
Review your changes and then click Apply to make them – be prepared to reboot if necessary. Once complete, move the data from your NTFS partition to your exFAT one, then reopen Partition Standard. Right-click the now-empty NTFS partition and choose Delete Partition. The quick option is best, so click OK. Now right-click your exFAT partition and choose Resize, this time using the slider to take up all the empty space to its left. Finally, click OK followed by Apply to complete the non-destructive switch.
ROB MEAD-GREEN MSG files won’t open
I saved some emails as MSG files in Outlook, but now I can’t open them again. Is this linked to Microsoft’s poor system for changing default apps?
STEPH HENSHAW
Steph was unable to choose Microsoft Outlook as the default choice for opening MSG files when she right-clicked them. In the end, though, she fixed her problem by performing a repair of her Microsoft Outlook installation – go to Settings > Apps, select Microsoft Office or Microsoft Outlook and choose Modify, then try the Quick Repair option first, followed by the more thorough Online Repair if it doesn’t work – which restored Outlook as an option.
You don’t necessarily need Outlook installed to read MSG files, however – there are many third-party viewers out there, including MailViewer ( www.coolutils.com/MailViewer), which is completely free for personal use.
CATHERINE ELLIS
Damaged file and high CPU usage
I ran EtreCheck because of performance issues, and it tells me that mdworker(13) is the ‘top process by CPU’ with 56%. Is this normal, or should I do something about it? BOB ASPINALL
Mdworker is a background daemon which is responsible for compiling the metadata indexes that are used for Spotlight searches. There are usually several copies of it running at any time, and each should typically take less than 5% of CPU time, although sometimes when working on large files they can exceed that – but never as much as 56%. High CPU usage by mdworker normally occurs when it’s choking on a file, causing it to crash repeatedly and be restarted automatically. This is normally recorded in the log, and should be easy to spot in Console (in / Applications/Utilities). Log entries normally record the full path and name of the file which is causing the problem.
One common cause for this is that the file it’s trying to index has become damaged – for example, one of its extended attributes has become corrupt. You can try First Aid in Disk Utility, although that often doesn’t find a problem.
Ultimately, you may need to delete that file, or restore it from your Time Machine backup if it’s important. Sometimes, after a restart or two, you’ll find that everything settles down spontaneously.
HOWARD OAKLEY Safe Mode won’t open
I hope you can help – I can’t get into Safe mode on my Windows 10 PC.
JEMMA MCKENNA
The normal route for Safe mode is to go via Settings > Update & Security > Recovery and click ‘Restart now’ under ‘Advanced start-up’. Choose ‘Troubleshoot’ > ‘Advanced options’ > ‘Start-up Settings’ to select Safe mode (we recommend the ‘Safe Mode with Networking’ option to retain internet access). If this throws up an error, it sounds like the Safe mode Registry keys have been corrupted or removed – possibly by an infection. After verifying your system is clean using your anti-virus tool, download and run Windows Repair ( www.tweaking.com). Go to the Repairs – Main tab and click Open Repairs. Select ‘I understand the risks’, then tick ‘fix 11’ before clicking Start Repairs. After this has been implemented, Safe mode will hopefully function again.
MAYANK SHARMA Refresh Firefox
How can I get some order back into Firefox? Every time I open it, it seems to be scrambled.
JIM DUNCAN
Jim couldn’t explain the nature of his particular problem to us – but we surmised that
he simply wanted to roll things back to how they previously worked. Sadly, there’s no option to restore your Firefox tabs and other settings to an earlier configuration in the way System Restore can, but as a last resort you could always restore Firefox to its default state without removing bookmarks, passwords, open tabs and other essential information.
To do this, open a new tab and type about:support into the Address bar to access Firefox’s troubleshooting page. You’ll see a ‘Refresh Firefox…’ button below ‘Give Firefox a tune up’ – click this and a pop-up dialog box will confirm what’s being removed, namely all add-ons and browser customisations, plus resetting the browser preferences back to their defaults. Click the button again to complete the roll-back and hopefully Firefox will start to behave as you remember it.
CATHERINE ELLIS Optical drives no longer work
I have two DVD-RW drives and my PC has stopped recognising them. If I left-click either drive I get one of three errors: ‘not available’; ‘not accessible’; or ‘access denied’. Can you help please?
BILL LEVINSON
Malfunctioning optical drives are often linked to permissions issues, but Bill also revealed that the Windows 7 Backup tool was failing to run, too, with an error about being unable to create a shadow copy. We asked him to connect various USB drives, and while an external DVD-RW drive threw up the same error, he had no issues accessing flash and external drives. Bil then worked his way through the official troubleshooting advice doled out by Microsoft only to find removing and attempting to reinstall the IDE/ATAPI drivers through Device Manager rendered his PC unbootable.
His fail-safe backup – EaseUS – failed with a PCI device driver error, forcing him to reinstall Windows from scratch. At this point Bil was given an error about the drive being MBRformatted while the BIOS was UEFI (a common setup for compatibility reasons). Bil was able to fix this by converting the drive to GPT format by booting into the emergency command prompt through his Windows install disc – see https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsserver/storage/disk-management/change-anmbr-disk-into-a-gpt-disk for instructions. After Windows was up and running again, Bil discovered that his DVD drives and Windows 7 backup tool were working perfectly again, confirming that it had been a Windows issue all along.
IAN SLEIGHTHOLM Mac Mini shuts itself down
Recently, My Mac Mini has started shutting down spontaneously. It starts up quite normally again, so why should it do this?
DAN WILLIAMS
These are most probably kernel panics, when something so serious happens to macOS that its only way out is to shut down your Mac. Their most common cause is a hardware problem, such as a disk error or memory failure. Before looking any further, restart in Apple Diagnostics or Apple Hardware Test – see bit.ly/
diaghwt for instructions on both. If the test suite reports an error code, contact an Apple service provider to have that addressed, or arrange for advanced diagnostics to be performed at an Apple Store’s Genius Bar. If your hardware is fine, run First Aid in Disk Utility, preferably in macOS Recovery (see bit.
ly/mf1staid), to ensure that your drive(s) are in good order too.
Diagnosing a software cause is tricky, particularly with the new unified log in macOS Sierra onwards. When kernel panics start out of the blue, suspect any software updates or installations made just prior to them starting: they may well be responsible.
HOWARD OAKLEY
Make tools more accessible in Office
Many of my favourite tools in Microsoft Office are now buried deep in the Ribbon – and some don’t appear at all. How can I make these easier to get at?
JOHN LOWE
There are several customisation tools built in to Microsoft Office – in this step-by-step guide we’ll reveal how to locate these tools and how to make them accessible via the Quick Access toolbar with just one or two clicks. The simplest way to make tools more accessible is to add them to the Quick Access toolbar, which appears above the Ribbon. Any command in the Ribbon can be added – just right-click one and choose ‘Add to Quick Access toolbar’.
Click the drop-down arrow next to the Quick Access toolbar and choose ‘More Commands…’. From here you can add any Office command to the toolbar: click the Popular Commands drop-down menu to list commands not in the Ribbon. You can remove selected items from here, or change their running order using the up/down keys to the right. Click Import/Export > ‘Export all Customisations’ to back up your customised toolbar, then click OK when you’re finished. By default, the toolbar sits above the Ribbon – if this starts to get cramped with all your added items, click the drop-down arrow next to it and choose ‘Show below the ribbon’ to move it down where it should have more space.
MATT HANSON Access network while on the road
I’m going travelling and would like to be able to gain access to my home PC without opening it up to the wider Internet. Do you have any suggestions?
GEORGE PARRIS
A lot depends on what you need – if you’re simply looking to connect to an individual PC, then your best bet would be to explore an option like TeamViewer ( www.teamviewer.com), which will enable you to connect to your home PC from a laptop or mobile for remote-control purposes or to simply transfer files to and from it. If you need access to multiple network resources, then a VPN server setup might be better. This is a technically tricky route to follow, though: you’ll need a high-end router or a more powerful network drive, such as one from QNAP or Synology, plus you’ll need to sign up for a dynamic DNS address to simplify the connection process – you can get a free address from www.noip.com.
When configuring your VPN server, Windows has built-in support for all protocols except OpenVPN – L2TP/IPSec (PSK) is the best alternative. If you do go down the OpenVPN route, you’ll need to download and install the OpenVPN client from https://openvpn.net/ on your laptop to connect to the network at home. In George’s case, however, TeamViewer is by far the best option.
CATHERINE ELLIS