My Goodness, I've been working on friend's PC

esacnitsuj

Hiya,

I was working on a friend's DELL Dimension 2350.

His Hard Drive was a tad noisy & I told him that wasn't right,
that it shouldn't make that noise at all.
@ 15-20 mins. later, the HD started grinding bad!

BTW...This is friend who doesn't want to know anything
about computers, security, etc. on a Broadband connection!

I ran home & got my computer tools, took out the Hard Drive
and the jumpers were set at both "Master" & CS (cable select)

His CD-R/RW jumper was set at Slave.

His PC was extremely dusty inside, so I cleaned all that out
and told him that he had a major prob w/ his HD.

He asked me if there was any way his HD could be fixed, because
he was worried that he would lose over 900 music/karaoke files,
as he's the Manager of a GR8 bar uptown.

I told him that with the grinding noise his HD was making, that
it was badly damaged, but what he should do is buy a new HD,
I could install, format it & re-install Win XP Home, make sure
all proper s/w was installed, e.g. AV s/w, Firewall (Zone Alarm)
s/w, etc.
DL all "critical" patches from Win Update, then tweak system
settings, show him how to create new folders and how to save
things, etc, but he really doesn't wanna learn nuttin!!! Rolling Eyes

I told him to save his old 30 gig HD & see if it could possibly
be repaired, cause he was sooooooo worried 'bout the 900 +
music files he had on it.

If...Big IF he could get old HD repaired, then he could salvage
his music files, wipe & format old HD & then he'd have 30 extra
gigs of HD, but I don't think that can be done?

Now he's all upset w/ me because he had a HD failure Rolling Eyes

Ahhhh well. He can take PC back, as it's still under warranty, get
it fixed.
But...he can get someone else to secure it.
He just wants to be able to turn on his PC & have it work.
He doesn't want to & says he has no time to visit sites like
CCPS and learn basic computer skills, security, etc.
Also, he is financing his PC from Rent Town and it was a
refurbished computer anyhow!

He had so much Spyware (this was before his HD started grinding)
It was making a bit of noise, but nothing major?

He had @ 8-10 + Trojans and where I couldn't do a virus scan as
his pre-loaded Norton SystemWorks had corrupt files and he didn't
have AV s/w to re-install his AV s/w so I could do a complete
system scan.
I did an online scan @ Symantec, but it said he was
clean of virii & worms, but I highly doubt that!

He was so upset about going to porn sites & getting so
many pop-ups & his puter was sooooo sllllllooooowwww,
that he called me to look at it.

His home page was ILookup and every time I tried to change
his home page to MSN or Yahoo, etc, do a reboot, I'd click
on I.E. 6 & ILookup would reset itself as his home page!

I fixed a couple of friend's PCs previous to his, but they do
have basic computer knowledge/skills.
He has absolutely none & doesn't wanna learn! Rolling Eyes

So I'm through w/ him.
I told him not to send me any e mail as I would just delete
them anyways.

He didn't even thank me for working on his puter, even
though it was in the worst shape I'd ever seen a puter in!
His puter was one huge mess of Spyware, Trojans, etc, etc.
I was appalled Shocked

Thanks for letting me get this off my chest!

Regards,
esacnitsuj Shocked

wawadave · Major Joined: Nov 22, 2002 Posts: 929 Location: Canada

i hope you got paid something?beer even?
i hate these free loaders that want you to work for them. but would they work for you? not likely would be most of them. glad to get that off mine!

MattNW · Cadet Joined: May 17, 2004 Posts: 6 Location: USA

I just got through with one almost as bad. Had to reinstall everything as the OS was totally eaten up with Viri and spyware. I got everything working as it was supposed to and returned the computer with a suggestion that he get a good up to date virus scanner and firewall. Six days later he called up saying that every web page he tried to go to was porn. Had to reinstall everything again. This time I told him to go get a virus scanner and didn't let him have the PC back until I'd installed it and run a complete system scan. I also installed Zone Alarm and set that up the same way I have my own computer secured.

Luckily this guy paid well for the services and included a bonus. Going to go back in a week or so and print out a copy of Hijack This log to see if anything has changed.

wawadave · Major Joined: Nov 22, 2002 Posts: 929 Location: Canada

sounds like it had so many trojins and spyware that the viruses were failing to properly install!!!!!!!!!!! Wink


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