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Thread: PC 'repair' message - what do I do now??

  1. #21
    Registered User David Franklin's Avatar
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    Re: PC 'repair' message - what do I do now??

    Quote Originally Posted by Lee Bartholomew View Post
    Personally I would say give PC a wide berth. I know someone who went top work in my local one repairing PC's. His previous experiance of PC's was selling fridges in Currys and playing an xbox. Dispite having 0 pc knowledge he was given the job and a manual to work from !!!!!
    Word missing I think. I assume you meant "give PC World a wide berth". I agree, though funnily enough there's one guy in my local Currys.Digital who actually seems to be reasonably competent (I thought that was against company policy!).

    I guess what im saying is even if you do get an 'expert' in, there is no garantee that they wont loose your data either.
    If you're not sure if the guy is competent, my advice would be to say:

    "I've been told to use a Linux LiveCD to get access to the filesystem and backup my data to an external drive, but I don't know how to do it. Can you do that for me?"

    Not only will it weed the "haven't a clue" brigade out, but the LiveCD route really is a very safe way of recovering data. It takes a certain amount of skill, but even if you don't know what you're doing, you're very unlikely to actually lose any data (the problems will all be to do with getting the live CD to work and finding files within a Linux environment).

    [Note: A proper windows support guy (which I'm not) may know other ways of doing a repair with no risk to your data, but I wouldn't know how to advise checking if they were doing it right].

    Lesson to be learnt? BACK UP, BACK UP, BACK UP !!!!!!
    Always a lesson you learn too late, however.

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    Re: PC 'repair' message - what do I do now??

    Quote Originally Posted by David Franklin View Post
    Word missing I think. I assume you meant "give PC World a wide berth". I agree, though funnily enough there's one guy in my local Currys.Digital who actually seems to be reasonably competent (I thought that was against company policy!).
    Yeap was early morning .

    I always have arguments with PC world staff. I remember looking for a vid cam once and having an argument that USB and FireWire are not the same thing. The woman was adament that it was. In the end she got her manager who said that it was as well.

    When I showed them that they were not even physically the same, They just said it was a different sized USB like the different size Printer ones .

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    Re: PC 'repair' message - what do I do now??

    Quote Originally Posted by Lee Bartholomew View Post
    Yeap was early morning .

    I always have arguments with PC world staff. I remember looking for a vid cam once and having an argument that USB and FireWire are not the same thing. The woman was adament that it was. In the end she got her manager who said that it was as well.

    When I showed them that they were not even physically the same, They just said it was a different sized USB like the different size Printer ones .
    That really doesn't surpise me. PC world is a rip off with quite alot of there staff only knowing as much as the average granny knows about PC hardware... With the odd person who has done I.T and knows there stuff that would be the one guy that never deals with customers....

    Only buy from PCWorld if your in a hurry. Otherwise its good to window shop...

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    Forum Bombshell - Our Queen! Lory's Avatar
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    Re: PC 'repair' message - what do I do now??

    Quote Originally Posted by Lee Bartholomew View Post
    I always have arguments with PC world staff.
    Quote Originally Posted by Wuzzle View Post
    That really doesn't surpise me.
    So, where does average Joe, who's not a computer buff go, for reliable, easily accessible, non biased advice

    (ignoring the fact I'm now a bit of an Apple convert! )
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    Re: PC 'repair' message - what do I do now??

    Quote Originally Posted by Lee Bartholomew View Post
    What you have to consider is that doing this kind of thing will not physically damage your PC at all. The worst case is that you loose all your data. So what you have to ask yourself is "Is my data worth x Amount that PC repair guy is going to charge"

    Personally I would say give PC a wide berth. I know someone who went top work in my local one repairing PC's. His previous experiance of PC's was selling fridges in Currys and playing an xbox. Dispite having 0 pc knowledge he was given the job and a manual to work from !!!!!

    You also have to be warry that alot of people advertise PC repair in the Friday-ad who have very little experiance (again I know someone who went in to it after owning their first PC for 2 weeks because they heard how much money was in it. Headache for me as constant calls of how do I do this or that ! )

    I guess what im saying is even if you do get an 'expert' in, there is no garantee that they wont loose your data either.

    Lesson to be learnt? BACK UP, BACK UP, BACK UP !!!!!!
    I am short of time.

    A big advantage of having a PC is that there are so many of them that some is almost certain to have solved the same problem before, if it is solvable. The first port of call is a search on Microsofts site, eg for

    run repair message xp

    http://search.microsoft.com/results....air+message+XP

    if that fails use google advanced groups search

    http://groups.google.co.uk/advanced_...hl=en&q=&hl=en&

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    Registered User David Franklin's Avatar
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    Re: PC 'repair' message - what do I do now??

    Quote Originally Posted by Lory View Post
    So, where does average Joe, who's not a computer buff go, for reliable, easily accessible, non biased advice
    www.cerocscotland.com/forum , surely?

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    Re: PC 'repair' message - what do I do now??

    Quote Originally Posted by Lory View Post
    So, where does average Joe, who's not a computer buff go, for reliable, easily accessible, non biased advice

    (ignoring the fact I'm now a bit of an Apple convert! )
    Independent Computer shop.

    PC world relies on the fact people don't know any better . Over priced hardware (£14.99 for a USB cable. Local comp shop £1.99, Ebuyer £0.75) staff that don't have a clue and poor quality (belkin and PCLine range of hardware is pretty shocking to use and for support)

    Something like £45 for a health cheack??? Whats invloved? Runing an anti-virus and defragging the hard drive!

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    Re: PC 'repair' message - what do I do now??

    Quote Originally Posted by David Franklin View Post
    Geeks corner is the absolute best place for IT solutions... IMHO always had tremendous help and support from the forum geeks.

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    Re: PC 'repair' message - what do I do now??

    Quote Originally Posted by David Franklin View Post
    Where else?

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    Re: PC 'repair' message - what do I do now??

    Quote Originally Posted by David Franklin View Post
    It's a while since I've done this, but apparently you shouldn't use the Recovery Console....
    The instructions don't refer to the recovery console.

    Ironically using the recovery console to rename the corrupt file and replace it with the best available alternative may well be one of the least risky courses of action.


    It would be interesting to know which file the error message said was corrupt.

    Typically with Windows 2000 / XP it is the system registry file C:\WINDOWS\System32\CONFIG\system, which corrupts easily especially if the machine isn't switched off properly.

    If it is anything else I'd be a little worried it might be a disk problem.

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    Re: PC 'repair' message - what do I do now??

    Quote Originally Posted by frodo View Post

    It would be interesting to know which file the error message said was corrupt.

    Typically with Windows 2000 / XP it is the system registry file C:\WINDOWS\System32\CONFIG\system, which corrupts easily especially if the machine isn't switched off properly.

    If it is anything else I'd be a little worried it might be a disk problem.
    I did a scanning/analysis thing and it said it was the video I think.

    I've tried the instructions above about not choosing R etc and followed the rest of the list but the next screen is not what it says it will be. It says 'make sure your current installation of XP is selected in the box then press R.'

    well what I've got doesn't mention any of that. It's about partitions and unpartitioned space.

    I think at this point I'm going have to admit defeat and call someone.

    Thanks to everyone for all your imput. I owe you all a drink!

  12. #32
    Senior Member Minnie M's Avatar
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    Re: PC 'repair' message - what do I do now??

    Quote Originally Posted by Minnie M View Post
    ....... when all is going well, no probs......... but if it takes you into an unfamiliar area and the next step is not as the screen states, you could get yourself into a worse problem (I am speaking from experience)
    Quote Originally Posted by Brighton Belle View Post
    .......well what I've got doesn't mention any of that. It's about partitions and unpartitioned space...........
    Unfortunately, that usually happens


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    Re: PC 'repair' message - what do I do now??

    A recent Sky News report on computer "repair" shops:

    Story

    Video

    The only honest company in the report: http://www.pix4.co.uk/


  14. #34
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    Re: PC 'repair' message - what do I do now??

    Just a quick update. I finally gave up and called the Dell helpdesk. There's a fixed price of £57 for major faults for however long it takes. I then spent about 10 hrs on the phone over about 8 days with the most condescending, irritating and impatient man in Calcutta. He's definitley taken the wrong career path.

    I did finally get it fixed but had to wipe everything off the computer and start again from scratch and load everything back on it.

    He also loaded something called AVG anti virus which was free and you get free updates apparently. Previously I've used McAffee and Norton which are quite expensive but he said this was as good. Anyone know anything about this software? And do I need any extra protection as well?

    Thanks very much

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    Re: PC 'repair' message - what do I do now??

    Quote Originally Posted by Miguel View Post
    A recent Sky News report on computer "repair" shops:

    Story

    Video

    The only honest company in the report: http://www.pix4.co.uk/

    It's a good point. I'm lucky since I have a guy that I know personally who is a member of the same church that my wife attends and he is extremely trustworthy. I also store my personal stuff in an encrypted partition so have extra protection.

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    Re: PC 'repair' message - what do I do now??

    Quote Originally Posted by Miguel View Post
    A recent Sky News report on computer "repair" shops:

    Story

    Video

    The only honest company in the report: http://www.pix4.co.uk/

    this doesn't really surprise me, what does surprise me is how when these exposês reveal criminal behaviour e.g. attempted fraud (trying to logon to bank account), criminal damage (damage to motherboard), fraud (pc world charging for new motherboard and not replacing the old) ... the police are not involved - surely they should be ?

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    Re: PC 'repair' message - what do I do now??

    Quote Originally Posted by Brighton Belle View Post
    I did finally get it fixed but had to wipe everything off the computer and start again from scratch and load everything back on it.
    er...why ?

    He also loaded something called AVG anti virus which was free and you get free updates apparently. Previously I've used McAffee and Norton which are quite expensive but he said this was as good. Anyone know anything about this software? And do I need any extra protection as well?
    Yes it is as good. McAfee and Norton are evil insidious pieces of software, steer well clear. Theres a rundown of, arguably the best free anti-virus software here.

    No you do not want any extra protection, you should only ever run one anti-virus program at a time. unless you mean protection in general, then yes, you need a firewall of some kind - preferably one that notifies you if a rogue program tries to contact external servers e.g. zone alarm.
    Last edited by Dreadful Scathe; 31st-July-2009 at 02:54 PM.

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    Re: PC 'repair' message - what do I do now??

    Quote Originally Posted by Brighton Belle View Post
    Just a quick update. I finally gave up and called the Dell helpdesk. There's a fixed price of £57 for major faults for however long it takes. I then spent about 10 hrs on the phone over about 8 days with the most condescending, irritating and impatient man in Calcutta. He's definitley taken the wrong career path.

    I did finally get it fixed but had to wipe everything off the computer and start again from scratch and load everything back on it.

    He also loaded something called AVG anti virus which was free and you get free updates apparently. Previously I've used McAffee and Norton which are quite expensive but he said this was as good. Anyone know anything about this software? And do I need any extra protection as well?

    Thanks very much
    I'd drop a note back to Dell and tell them their call centre staff have an attitude problem. Mind you I get the same feeling about our tech support at work.

    I'd also take the opportunity of creating some system restore points and/or CDs now. That way if you have some problems in the future you can quickly get the system back to a known good configuration. Just in case you've never done this see the notes at http://www.ehow.com/how_4995016_crea...ore-point.html or http://www.ehow.com/how_4478351_make...estore-cd.html.

    The free version of AVG gets good write ups and for lots of people this is all they need, especially if you don't need your security package to give you a firewall (most routers/modems have these inbuilt anyway) or fancy things like parental controls etc. I'd still deploy a firewall mind. I've never used AVG myself but I have a mate that builds PCs for others who swears by it.
    Last edited by Agente Secreto; 31st-July-2009 at 03:06 PM.

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    Re: PC 'repair' message - what do I do now??

    Quote Originally Posted by Brighton Belle View Post
    He also loaded something called AVG anti virus which was free and you get free updates apparently. Previously I've used McAffee and Norton which are quite expensive but he said this was as good. Anyone know anything about this software? And do I need any extra protection as well?
    AVG Anti-virus Free Edition is really good (I use it) - read a review here. Just make sure everything is turned on. To do that launch the AVG Free user Interface and click on Overview. If you have any computer problems look here first: Computer Act!ve

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