Hi, and a post from a stumbling novice.

I defragged my hard drive and now IE and Netscape cannot find the server. How can I fix this? Fortunately my trusty compuserve account is working fine.

I have a HP pavilion 7920 with ME (of course) and can follow stepwise instructions but that is about the limit of my abilities. These wonderful computers came without system discs and without a backup facility. I do have a boot disc and Norton

I did run Norton Win Doctor and UniBlue registry repair and now all the registry is "fixed" (right...).

Thank you in advance for help and advice.

ME Troubled

Hello Me Troubled,

Welcome to PCHF.

A defrag wouldn't cause these problems.. unless the PC was rebooted in between, and even then unlikely.

What ISP are you with, and do you connect via a modem or router?

Mad Monkey, thank you for the quick response!

I connect to the internet via CompuServe 7.0 and a modem - good ole' dial up. Archaic, but it used to work.

Yes, and I did the dastardly reboot after the defrag, too. One of my many sins.

Since so many webpages don't load well with compuserve, I normally log on with CS and then switch over to Internet Explorer to do the surfing.

the error message I get now is:

Cannot find server or DNS Error
Internet Explorer

please let me know if I can supply any other needed information.

Thank you,
ME Troubled

Hi me!

The problem could be anywhere between your service provider or your PC.

Maybe a good idea to go through PCHF Prework on my signature to rule out malware, and post your HJT Log back here for a member of security to analyze.

In the meantime, here are a few things you can try (whilst connected):

- Go to Start, Run, and type cmd . From the command windown type:
ipconfig /flushdns
ipconfig /registerdns
ipconfig

- Right click on the command window, and go to Edit, Select All.
- Right click again and go to Edit, Copy, and then paste the results back here if your internet is still not working.

I went to Start, run, and typed cmd and received an error message. If I typed the ipconfig /flushdns
ipconfig /registerdns
ipconfig

a black screen pops up briefly and then goes away.

I have to log off to reset the control panel to Disable System Restore.

I'll be back...hopefully!
Thanks
ME troubled

I am going ahead and processing on PCHF Prework items

Me, can you try using command instead of cmd

Great! Command worked. I tried to attach the screen print but it didn't work.
I'll type it out

C:\WINDOWS\Desktop>ipconfig /flushdns
Windows IP Configuration
Command line options:
/All - Display detailed information
/Batch [file] - Write to file or ./WINIPCFG.OUT
/renew_all - Renew all adapters.
/release_all - Release all adapters.
/renew N - Renew adapter N.
/release N - Release adapter N.

C:\WINDOWS\Desktop>ipconfig /registerdns
Windows IP Configuration
Command line options:
/All - Display detailed information
/Batch [file] - Write to file or ./WINIPCFG.OUT
/renew_all - Renew all adapters.
/release_all - Release all adapters.
/renew N - Renew adapter N.
/release N - Release adapter N.

C:\WINDOWS\Desktop>ipconfig

Windows IP Configuration

0 Ethernet adapter :

IP Address............... : 0.0.0.0
Subnet Mask............ : 0.0.0.0
Default Gateway....... : 0.0.0.0

the same sequence of Ethernet adaptor repeats with 1, 2, and 3.

I also downloaded both Spy Sweeper and ATF Cleaner. Neither version works with ME, but they did include a request to contact them by email. That will be my next step unless you advise otherwise.

Thank you,
ME troubled