OT I am sooooooooo not a Happy Camper!

Took my business computer to the repair shop for a regular maintenance to keep it reliable (can't run the business without it) and gave them one specific task to accomplish: acquiring a specific peripheral.

Picked it up this morning. What I had asked for was not done. However, they "cleaned up my hard disk" ... in the process deleting a vital WordPerfect folder and Netscape (which I use to read newsgroups)!!!!!

Just to make things more fun, they did something to my "mouse buttons" (whatever you call them when you have a touch-screen instead of a mouse) such that it takes full pressure of both hands to push them down. Inside an hour, my tendinitis was killing me, but I was still trying to set things to rights so I had no choice but to keep going.

Needless to say, the owner is getting an earful in the morning. I didn't tell them to delete anything, or to mess with my settings, or to install newer versions of old software (a version which, to my mind, is not as easy to use at the older version, which is why I hadn't installed it on this computer after trying it on the other one).

I have half a mind to send him a bill for my time undoing their "improvements", which have taken enough hours that I think they'll end up owing me more than I paid them.

Reply to
Karen C in California
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I suggest you make your complaints very specific and very clearly heard and request firmly that the computer be put back into the condition in which you brought it for the work and that what you requested originally be done. All of this should be done at no charge, of course. What comes next would -- if it were me -- be based upon the response received. It's possible that there is a new techie who didn't understand the job, or that the work order wasn't clear, and if either or both of those is the case the business owner will have to make changes. And a reasonable owner should be extremely upset and make every effort to please you. If you get a shrug of the shoulders, you will need to find another shop entirely, and begin with a new shop by telling them precisely why you left the prior one and by putting all work requests in writing that specifically says that NOTHING is to be done other than what you request -- no updates, no downloads, no cleaning, no adjustments, no purging, no deletions. What a mess!

Reply to
Mary

I'm curious, what is regular maintenance involve? Mark worked at Dell for over a decade and he's never performed maintenance on any of our four computers. Sometimes I've seen him defrag the main server computer, but I have no idea what that's called.

I'm sorry you lost files. It 's a horrible feeling.

v
Reply to
Jangchub

I perform basic clean-up maintenance weekly on our family PC. I update and run software to clean up spyware and adware as well as a disk cleaner program which deletes temporary files, cache, etc. I also keep our virus scanner updated and run that once a week and also set system restore points when everything is all clean and happy.

Additionally I make sure I do a full system backup onto our external drive at least once a week as well. Best purchase I ever made - when our original hard drive died earlier this year - tada! I was able to copy everything back over once the drive had been replaced.

I'm sure there's more sophisticated stuff that can be done - but at least doing these on a regular basis gives me some sense of upkeep. Anything more complicated and we have used a very reputable mobile PC service -they will work on your system at your home or pick it up and return it for you.

MelissaD

Reply to
MelissaD

I perform basic clean-up maintenance weekly on our family PC. I update and run software to clean up spyware and adware as well as a disk cleaner program which deletes temporary files, cache, etc. I also keep our virus scanner updated and run that once a week and also set system restore points when everything is all clean and happy.

Additionally I make sure I do a full system backup onto our external drive at least once a week as well. Best purchase I ever made - when our original hard drive died earlier this year - tada! I was able to copy everything back over once the drive had been replaced.

I'm sure there's more sophisticated stuff that can be done - but at least doing these on a regular basis gives me some sense of upkeep. Anything more complicated and we have used a very reputable mobile PC service -they will work on your system at your home or pick it up and return it for you.

MelissaD

Reply to
MelissaD

Ditto. A computer requires housework, just like ones abode. For the seconds it takes, more than worth it, I sure as hell would not trust anybody else to work over my files !

Reply to
lucretia borgia

And I'd make sure that I had at least two copies of the latest backup!

Reply to
Bruce Fletcher (Stronsay, Orkn

And the trick is to make sure the backup is not where you are, in case of fire, flood etc. I keep mine at my daughters place.

Reply to
lucretia borgia

Ah, okay. We have adaware and AVG Antivirus always running and each computer is scheduled to run these every day. My computer also has a set point to restore and that updates itself daily, too.

I guess living with a computer geek I am not aware at how much stuff is involved. I know how to get online, make cd, dvd, move files, download, etc. I know nothing about how it all works.

v
Reply to
Jangchub

I have two external hard drives with everything stored on it, as well as many DVDs full of files, mostly music and program files. Hard drives are so cheap now it's almost silly not to buy one. I mean, not everyone needs a terabyte or 750 gig hard drives like we have, but they are really easy to use.

Reply to
Jangchub

The head geek at that shop told me, when I brought the one with the broken fan in, that there's "thermal" something or other inside which in this climate needs to be replaced every year or two.

I also like to have someone look for worn parts and dried out rubber; I'm pretty hard on computers, and would rather have stuff replaced before it breaks.

Reply to
Karen C in California

I may have to get their name from you.....

Reply to
Karen C in California

That's why I didn't ask them to do disk clean-up. I had all that stuff as Scheduled Tasks to run in the middle of the night (one on Tuesday, one on Wednesday, one on Friday). I note that my Scheduled Tasks have been changed, so I guess it finally dawned on him to check that folder, and he had to cover his tracks by deleting the stuff that I had scheduled to run so he'd have an excuse to spend the extra time doing what didn't need doing.

Reply to
Karen C in California

Oh, I'd backed up my document files before I took the thing in, but I never thought they'd be in there deleting folders without which programs will not run smoothly, and entire programs, when all they were told to do was mechanical stuff.

Reply to
Karen C in California
24 hours and the addition of a ton of chocolate, I do believe I can remain non-homicidal if I call the head geek in the morning and let him know that, among other things, a program I use every day was deleted -- it should not have shown up on CleanUp as a rarely-used program, so it was clearly a decision by the tech that he prefers IE for surfing and therefore I didn't "need" Netscape for surfing (which is not what I use it for).
Reply to
Karen C in California

Makes sense. We always buy the extended Complete Care plan when we buy machines. We always buy Dell, though that may change. The plan covers everything in full for three years. If I drop it in the pool they'd replace it. I just extended it for another year for 120.00. Well worth it since I drop the thing often.

Reply to
Jangchub

Probably a barrier of some sort.

Reply to
ellice

Err...if he said "thermal paste", you're getting seriously hosed. Silicone-based thermal paste gets changed every five years or so at most. If it's the silver-looking goo...it doesn't (and shouldn't) get changed at all.

I'm not really sure what there is to be gained by taking it in every year for 'preventative' work. I can't think of anything that would ever show physical wear, and there certainly isn't any rubber to dry out. The only real hardware maintenance that should be taking place is to blow all the dust out with a cheap can of compressed air once or twice a year in dusty or heavily carpeted homes.

You can't possibly be any harder on your computer than I am. I admit that my relationship with my (multiple) computers is a highly abusive one. My uptime is often measured by the month between reboots.

Karen, I'm not convinced that those repair guys you're using are being straight with you on the hardware maintenance. I hope you don't think I'm griefing you, because that's not my intent. I just hate dishonest PC folks and I don't want you paying for crap you don't need.

My general purpose 'puter is 7 years old and has received a new cooling fan and a new northbridge fan. Aside from dealing with dead hard drives (which don't really count), that's the only parts I've ever had to monkey with. It's crossed the Atlantic with me, and I don't treat it gently.

Like a rented mule... Becky A.

Reply to
Becky A

I do that myself twice yearly because there is a cat in the house, they are worse than carpets.

Reply to
lucretia borgia

I have a lot of individual data also saved onto CDs in addition to the hard drive backup - which is about the size of a book so I can certainly take it with me in the event of an emergency. MelissaD

Reply to
MelissaD

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