I asked a technician if my laptop could be upgraded to Windows 10 for free since it’s available on the internet. He suggested that I upgrade through the CD which is faster than upgrading through the internet. After upgrading as per his suggestion, however, my laptop screen became small (don’t have technical word to describe). He told me that it was due to the resolution of my laptop and the original programme that my laptop had gotten deleted. Can I restore it? And then can I upgrade to Windows 10?

—J Rai

Hi J,

Unfortunately, once you perform a clean install, your previous Windows installation cannot be accessed at all. You will have a folder within your installation drive of the older Windows if you need to copy some of your files but reverting back to the old Windows is not be possible. 

What do you mean by the screen becomes small? This could be a video card problem. If you upgraded from Windows 8, problems like this should not appear because Windows 10 can easily use Windows 8 drivers. If your technician tells you that the resolution is too high, try lowering it from the Display menu that comes up when right-clicking your desktop. Try troubleshooting your problem first and if you can’t find anything, please send me more detailed information about your problem and I will try to help you the best I can. If nothing works, you might have to re-install your previous version of Windows. Upgrading through the internet would have set-up a restore point that you could revert to but clean installs don’t make a restore point so a complete re-install might be the only option, if you want to revert.

I keep losing my Wi-Fi connection. Whenever my phone goes to sleep, the Wi-Fi gets turned off and any files or apps that I was downloading automatically stop after the phone’s screen turns off. This is really annoying and my experience with Android is not a pleasant one because of this. Help me solve this.

—Hyuga Chamling

Hi Hyuga,

The solution to your problem is really simple and lies within the settings menu. Navigate to your settings menu and move into your Wireless & Networks settings. Then go to Wi-Fi settings and then enter the menu screen. Go into advanced and look for Sleep Policy. When you find it, change setting to Never and the Wi-Fi will never go into sleep mode. Remember that this setting helps you save battery when your phone is not actively being used so turning this setting off could mean that your battery might drain faster. Keep this in mind and use it only when you need it. 

I have been thinking of selling my old laptop but I heard from my friend that even if I format my drive, there are ways to recover these files. I have a lot of sensitive information on my drive and don’t want anyone who buys it to actually be able to access these files. What can I do to permanently remove all traces of my documents from my laptop and make it un-recoverable?

—Rabina Shrestha

Hi Rabina,

You friend tells you the truth. When we delete files from our computer, the actual data is not deleted, the data sectors are only marked as empty but they still contain your data. This data can easily be obtained by file recovery tools online. It is very easy to secure your data and completely wipe your hard drive of all of your sensitive information. Download an application called ‘CCleaner’, it’s a free software, and navigate to the application’s Tools menu. Under the tools menu, you should find an option called Drive Wiper. Under the Drive Wiper menu, you can find an option for wiping only the free space on your driver or wiping the entire driver itself, the choice is yours. You can also choose how many rewrites you want; the limit is up to 35 rewrites. Of course, overwriting your drive 35 times is much safer but will take a lot of time; do keep that mind. Once you run CCleaner’s Drive Wiper tool, you can rest assured that all traces of your sensitive information have been wiped clean and no-one can access them once you sell your laptop.

If you have any questions, please email them to [email protected]