surfn
I bleed orange and maroon
i should have asked this question on here earlier, since we have a bunch of computer wizzes in the crowd...
basically, this happened the other weekend during the time zone shift.
my girlfriend's computer could not get the new windows update, b/c a couple of years ago her dad decided to put some sort of free ware anti-spyware program on the computer. after that, i was never able to get her computer to update windows, b/c some sort of error message would always come up. i tried to remove the "anti-spyware" program, but of course it had copied itself onto some system files, and i would get error messages even when trying to re-install windows over top of the current windows program.
so i basically tried everything i could figure, and then gave up and told her one day we'll just have to back everything up, then format the hard drive and start over. so absolutely no problems until the other weeked, other than not being able to update windows.
she tells her dad this the other weekend, that she cannot update windows to make the new time change (even though i did it manually), so he insists on coming up to see if he can "fix it" so it will update windows. i pretty much just ignored them while he was messing with her computer, b/c i figured if i can't fix it, i know he can't fix it.
but in the process of "fixing it", they kept asking me all of these questions, then asking for boot disks (no floppy drive...duh), how to get into safe mode, etc. etc. so i was like...uh...what are you doing? and i'm not really sure what he did to the computer, but he went in and started deleting system files...at this point, i knew the outcome was gonna be bad so i told them to stop, and i could probably fix whatever they messed up if they just gave me some time.
of course, her dad is an engineer, and will never give up and only make things worse to prove a point b/c he insists he can "fix it". well basically, things got worse and the keyboard wouldn't even work on start up, so they couldn't figure out how to get into safe mode without a keyboard.
after that, i told them i had no idea how to fix it, b/c if your keyboard isn't working in DOS mode, and no floppy...uhhh...you are SOOL. so he took the hard drive into a computer expert company. i think it may have been geeksquad...??
they wanted $2400 freakin bucks to recover the info on the hard drive!! which is NUTS!! of course he probably went in and was like, "i really messed up my daughters computer, and she's really upset, can you recover the information??"
of course they didn't have a service contract with Dell, b/c her dad didn't believe in those service contracts being any help. but they have saved my computer multiple times free of charge, even had to replace the mother board once.
so basically, her dad just reformated the hard drive, and she lost EVERYTHING. keep in mind, she's graduating from college in 1 month, and she lost all her pictures, work...etc. she was really upset b/c she felt like the last 4 years of her life were just "erased". she's really ticked at her dad and wont talk to him anymore, b/c he didnt know when to give up and just made it worse. she lost a bunch of really important papers/projects she was working on too. luckily, she had emailed her professor a 25page paper that took her 4 months to work on earlier in the day to check on something. so she got lucky on that...
but seriously, $2400!!?? one of her professors said her hard drive crashed recently too, and the person she took it to only charged her $600.
now...i realize it depends on your definition of "crash". but the cost is basically only labor charges. and its like a used car salesman, if you show your cards too early (tell them how desperate you are to get the lost information back), they are gonna charge you out of the butt$$$.
i should have just got the hard drive and then posted her to see if anyone could help me out....but oh well.
just wanted to tell my story b/c the whole thing really ticked me off... :mad:
basically, this happened the other weekend during the time zone shift.
my girlfriend's computer could not get the new windows update, b/c a couple of years ago her dad decided to put some sort of free ware anti-spyware program on the computer. after that, i was never able to get her computer to update windows, b/c some sort of error message would always come up. i tried to remove the "anti-spyware" program, but of course it had copied itself onto some system files, and i would get error messages even when trying to re-install windows over top of the current windows program.
so i basically tried everything i could figure, and then gave up and told her one day we'll just have to back everything up, then format the hard drive and start over. so absolutely no problems until the other weeked, other than not being able to update windows.
she tells her dad this the other weekend, that she cannot update windows to make the new time change (even though i did it manually), so he insists on coming up to see if he can "fix it" so it will update windows. i pretty much just ignored them while he was messing with her computer, b/c i figured if i can't fix it, i know he can't fix it.
but in the process of "fixing it", they kept asking me all of these questions, then asking for boot disks (no floppy drive...duh), how to get into safe mode, etc. etc. so i was like...uh...what are you doing? and i'm not really sure what he did to the computer, but he went in and started deleting system files...at this point, i knew the outcome was gonna be bad so i told them to stop, and i could probably fix whatever they messed up if they just gave me some time.
of course, her dad is an engineer, and will never give up and only make things worse to prove a point b/c he insists he can "fix it". well basically, things got worse and the keyboard wouldn't even work on start up, so they couldn't figure out how to get into safe mode without a keyboard.
after that, i told them i had no idea how to fix it, b/c if your keyboard isn't working in DOS mode, and no floppy...uhhh...you are SOOL. so he took the hard drive into a computer expert company. i think it may have been geeksquad...??
they wanted $2400 freakin bucks to recover the info on the hard drive!! which is NUTS!! of course he probably went in and was like, "i really messed up my daughters computer, and she's really upset, can you recover the information??"
of course they didn't have a service contract with Dell, b/c her dad didn't believe in those service contracts being any help. but they have saved my computer multiple times free of charge, even had to replace the mother board once.
so basically, her dad just reformated the hard drive, and she lost EVERYTHING. keep in mind, she's graduating from college in 1 month, and she lost all her pictures, work...etc. she was really upset b/c she felt like the last 4 years of her life were just "erased". she's really ticked at her dad and wont talk to him anymore, b/c he didnt know when to give up and just made it worse. she lost a bunch of really important papers/projects she was working on too. luckily, she had emailed her professor a 25page paper that took her 4 months to work on earlier in the day to check on something. so she got lucky on that...
but seriously, $2400!!?? one of her professors said her hard drive crashed recently too, and the person she took it to only charged her $600.
now...i realize it depends on your definition of "crash". but the cost is basically only labor charges. and its like a used car salesman, if you show your cards too early (tell them how desperate you are to get the lost information back), they are gonna charge you out of the butt$$$.
i should have just got the hard drive and then posted her to see if anyone could help me out....but oh well.
just wanted to tell my story b/c the whole thing really ticked me off... :mad:
