Back from the Brink of Disaster

[scottishmoney 33]

My CD burner gave out a few months ago, so I was living on borrowed time until I replaced it. Of course I didn't back anything up in awhile, so the HD crashed hard on Saturday. PC shoppe said could not be fixed, was terminal etc. So I went and picked it up to harvest the RAM and the other drives out for use in other PC's. But I hooked it up one last time, and it came back to life. Now everything is backed up on a Memory Stick, and I will never trust this beast again. I lost programmes, but no files.

Word to the wise, back up back up back up. And don't always trust the Geek at teh computer shoppe.

[Geordie582 18]

Intermittent faults on computers are almost impossible to find without long (and expensive) attention. I wouldn't trust it any more. Even with back-up, you could be in the middle of something important when it decides to teach you a lesson! Caveat!

[TomGoodheart 400]

Yes, mine recently 'went'. Or at least the screen went black.

Having tried out my in-law's spare monitor which didn't work I traced the smell of burning to the fan on the graphics card. Fortunately the card was easy to replace, even for someone non-technical like me. Phew! But it could have been much worse ...

Time to back up!

.

[scottishmoney 33]

The thing that gets me is the Geek at the PC repair place telling me it was DOA and was toast. I would make a bit of a stink about paying him to tell me that and then the PC being fixed by myself, but I know the owner and his wife pretty well and would rather not make a big deal further.

Yesterday I finally got it back to it's original state with all my way out of date and non supported software that I am right partial to still loaded back on.

[Geoff T 3]

The thing that gets me is the Geek at the PC repair place telling me it was DOA and was toast. I would make a bit of a stink about paying him to tell me that and then the PC being fixed by myself, but I know the owner and his wife pretty well and would rather not make a big deal further.

Yesterday I finally got it back to it's original state with all my way out of date and non supported software that I am right partial to still loaded back on.

A few years ago I heard an amusing quip about how to tell the real geeks who know what they're talking about from the mere bullshitters at PC shops. When you're buying something, ask if it has full LRF support. If the reponse is an enthusiastic "yes", you're dealing with a bullshitter. LRF = little rubber feet.

G

[scottishmoney 33]

Here it is a month later after this sorry episode, and the PC soldiers on. What particularly chaffed me about the whole nonsense is that the Geek works for someone I have known for a long time and I rather hate to gripe about it.

I had a lightning strike on my old PC back in '01, it sauntered on on a slow labourious journey of gradual demise until '05 and then gave up the ghost finally.