Web User - UK (2019-08-07)

Prepare unallocated hard-drive space with th e New Simp le

Volume Wi zard

With th e correct plugin inst alled, IrfanView should be ca pable of

reading and converting Photo CDs

68 7 - 20August 2019

format, such as JPEG.

Try Irfan View ( http://www.irfanview.com).

If that doesn’ t work, go to the plugins

page ( bit.ly/ivplg 481 ) and get the

iv_forma ts.zip plugin, which adds Photo

CD suppor t. ImageMagic ( imagemagick

.org) and pcdtoj peg ( pcdtoj peg

.sourceforge .net) should also work.

HARDWARE

Reclaim unusedhard-drive

space

Q

I bought a 2TB USB hard drive from

a friend who didn’t needit anymore

• he does a lot of video recording and

This fortnightRoland has cleared space on his Google drive, which became so full itwouldn’t accept a single email

Ask the Expert

Q

I have broadband internet

provided by TalkTalk and a

TalkTalk email account. I am thinkin g

of switchin g to another internet

provider and amcurrently shopping

around andwaiting for a good deal to

come up. When I switch, will I still be

able to access my email account?

WillMason, via email

A

We advise against using an IS P’s

own email address because it can

be a major hassle switchin g email

accounts from the old company to a

new one. Cut the tie now and use an

email service that is independent of

your ISP. Microsoft Outlook and

Google Gmail are obvious ones, but

there are many more, such as Yahoo,

GMX, ProtonMail, Zoho Mail and

iCloud Mail (if you also have an iPhone

or iPad ). All these email services are

free and can be accessed in a web

browser on your PC. Apps for the

you receive new emails, tell the

sender that you have a new email

address. This may involve signing into

your on line accounts, such as your

bank, gas and electricity supplier, and

changing your email address.

Eventually, everyone will be using

the new address and the old one

won’t be needed. You can then easily

switch your ISP whenever you want.

Switch email providers

EMAIL

Switc h from your IS P email to a popular email service as soon as you

can, so you don’t lose accou nt access if you change ISP

services are

available for

phones.

Switch

email

accounts

now – don’t

wait until you

move toa

new ISP.

Sign upfor a

new email

account at

one of th ese

email providers and start using it. If you

have stor ed emails containingimportant

information, send them to yo ur new

account.

If you go into the settings for an email

account, you’ll see there is almost

alwaysan option to forward new

messagesto another email account. Se t

this up onyour ol d account to forward

everything to yo ur new account. When

editing, and needs even bigger drives!

I have used various util ities to look at

the drive and there appears to be

200GB of space that is unal located.

Can I use this? Ideally, I would like one

big drive that uses all the space.

S Knight, via email

A

There’s no point having 200GB of

unus ed space on a hard drive. Since

your dr ive is se cond-hand, the previous

owner may have set up and used the

space to stor e personal information,

and then er ased the partition before

selling the drive.

It’s a goodidea to wipe everything on

a used drive before you put your own

files on it. Plug it in and power it up,

then open Explorer, right-click This PC

and select Manage. Select Disk

Manage ment under Storage to see the

internal and external dr ives and

partitions.

Right-click each of th e partitions on

the external dr ive and select ‘Delete

volume’. The drive can then be right-

clicked and a new volume created using

all the space. Right-click it and select

New Simple Volume, then follow the

steps in the wizard that appears.