Diary of a
Computer Restore
by George Bowden
hen you drop your computer off at the repair shop, you may not know the choices the technician has to make. If you did, you could guide him with what you want back, and how much you are willing to pay.
- Do you mind re-installing all your programs and settings again?
- Do you mind re-installing all the drivers for your hardware, and all the Windows security updates?
- Do you mind losing your email and address book? Would you know how to restore the address book from a dump of a thousand files from your corrupted computer?
- Do you mind losing your digital photos from the computer? Your letters? Your tax calculations?
If you don’t mind these losses, because you have them backed up on CDs or elsewhere, then your repair can be simple and inexpensive: test the hardware, reformat the hard drive, and reinstall Windows from the original CD using the key that you have been keeping handy.
If you don’t want to lose any of these, then the repairman has to try to keep your system intact while restoring it to a healthy state. It’s rather like heart surgery. It requires a skilled, cautious surgeon, and doesn’t come cheaply. Though a new computer may be cheaper than a repair, you won’t be able to run a corrupted image copied from your old computer. Making a baby is free—educating it is expensive.
What could Happen
Here is what could happen (based on what actually happened to a member who brought a computer into the clubhouse for my help.) Email to owner:
Summary: I’ve finished working on your computer. When you brought it in, it would not start Windows reliably, and would freeze quickly, even in safe mode. I managed to restore Windows without losing your configuration. It now has a firewall (Microsoft’s), a virus scanner (AVG), and a spyware checker (Microsoft’s) that do not interfere with each other..
“Details: Hardware checks: Tested memory, and the main board functionality. No problems found. Backed up important sections of the hard drive onto five CDs before proceeding with further diagnostics and Windows restore I reinstalled Windows with all service packs. The following changes were made to unblock the variety of security programs that I think were fighting with each other.
- I installed Microsoft’s free spyware scanner.
- I installed AVG anti virus software. It will time out in 30 days. It is not necessarily the best, but it is the best in terms of not interfering with other software.
- I removed the out of date Zone Alarm firewall and replaced it with Windows firewall. I downloaded a copy of the free Zone Alarm to the downloads directory, just in case you want it instead of the Windows Firewall, but you must not run both.
- I removed the old version of Roxio CD Creator, version 5 that has a bug that interferes with AVG and other programs.
- I removed Trend Micro’s PC-Cillan as I think it caused some of the problem.
- There is a version of Serif Draw plus on the computer, for Windows 95 that you should not use, and possibly remove. It is likely to corrupt the computer, being that old.
I also repartitioned your hard drive so that it is two partitions, one 88 GB and one 23 GB. You can now store data in the 23 GB partition or use it for a backup image, so that if Windows needs to be re-installed from scratch, your vital data will be saved in the 23 GB partition. At some time, I would convert Windows to an NTFS partition. That would be more reliable should you have to power the machine off in exasperation.
I spent about five hours backing up data before more invasive repair. The five hours did not include waiting for Windows to install, or memory checks to run. It would have been quicker to reformat the hard drive, and reinstall from scratch, but you would have had to re-install your programs, and would have lost your email. Even with the backups, it would have taken some time to reinstall all your email.
The owner then requested that the updated Zone Alarm firewall replace the Windows firewall, but when the computer arrived home, it froze. This necessitated a home visit. The machine ran fine without the home network, internet or printer attached.
I re-installed the printer software with new patches, and added the name of another home computer to Zone Alarm. It works fine now but seems to have a long boot-up that could not be fixed.
Moral of story
The moral of this story is:
- Backup what is important to you.
- Run just one firewall.
- Avoid program conflicts.
I run just a couple of anti-spyware programs, in passive mode, i.e. they do nothing until I explicitly start the programs. I believe we have got to the point where too many security programs (anti spyware, anti-virus, firewalls) are running simultaneously and conflicting with each other, just like different drugs can conflict.
