a really ****ed computer + help?

[dxx]

Not only do you con old ladies you are also conning yourself.

The OP is doing this for his grandparents, Would you treat yours the same as you've indicated if you were charging?

I'm just saying...

Obv, I wouldn't charge my grandparents a penny. But a customer, it's up to them.

[dxx]

I can always recognize someone who has PC repair job when they get this pissed about someone formatting their PC to save countless hours of work...

I did this for a couple years and I can say without a doubt that a format is a much better option in many cases. If the end user has nothing important on the computer and has no special needs as far as software, why spend 8 hours running virus and spyware scans on a system that barely functions when you can just wipe it clean, protect it from future attacks and give it back to the owner in a few hours?

If there's nothing of any importance, certainly. But, which is better - to spend a few hours on a system (eight hours? Pro tip - take an extra gig of RAM with you, makes things much faster) and make it work the way they want it to work, with all their apps, their favourites, their saved passwords, drivers, and all that as they were the day before, or to start them all over from scratch?

If it's the latter by the way, I have to ask, how close to scratch are you taking them? Reformat, reinstall, and get them to install the rest?

[jcrox]

Bman212121, amen brodah. What is funny is you try running a company trying to find all the virus's and so on your business will go under, you waste to much time not to mention the system is old or a single core CPU. The SMART guy backs up/Formats/Done and on to the next machine.

Right on :thumbsup:

[crainger]

If there's nothing of any importance, certainly. But, which is better - to spend a few hours on a system (eight hours? Pro tip - take an extra gig of RAM with you, makes things much faster) and make it work the way they want it to work, with all their apps, their favourites, their saved passwords, drivers, and all that as they were the day before, or to start them all over from scratch?

If it's the latter by the way, I have to ask, how close to scratch are you taking them? Reformat, reinstall, and get them to install the rest?

I agree with you on this. When I was working as in PC repair I'd usually find a way to fix things without a repair, even if it meant charging a little bit more. Sure the customer might whine about the prices, but the PC was as they left it. How they had it setup. I found I had more cases of customers abusing me when their PC had been formatted, (I put across all their data, programs, favs etc, but they'd loose their pirated software). I always offered format as an option, and I did push it when it was a really bad virus infection, but the good thing about MS OSes since 2000, they are all fixable no matter the state they are in, it just takes time and research skills. Something my boss didn't understand, hence me quitting.

[CaptNKILL]

If there's nothing of any importance, certainly. But, which is better - to spend a few hours on a system (eight hours? Pro tip - take an extra gig of RAM with you, makes things much faster) and make it work the way they want it to work, with all their apps, their favourites, their saved passwords, drivers, and all that as they were the day before, or to start them all over from scratch?

If it's the latter by the way, I have to ask, how close to scratch are you taking them? Reformat, reinstall, and get them to install the rest?

If the customer cares about what is on their PC, then I'll do whatever they need me to do.

When I used to work at a PC repair shop we'd always ask people before taking a system "do you need backups? if so, what do you need backed up?" If they said "no" we would ask about a few things that can be hard to remember, like favorites, email, music, pictures...

If the system was barely functioning and our initial virus and spyware scans + hijackthis made little improvement, we'd do any backups that were necessary, format the drive, copy the backups back over, and then reinstall windows along with any programs they used and our standard anti-virus and anti-spyware software. To most customers I've ever had, the peace of mind that they get from knowing their system is 100% clean and now has protection far outweighs the benefits of having their passwords still saved or their desktop icons in the exact place they used to be.

In some extreme cases, a format has been completely necessary. We once had a system that had over 12,000 viruses detected in AVG after scanning for a few hours and then it crashed when we attempted to remove them. Spyware was almost as bad. The owner said they only needed one or two specific programs installed and they wanted their favorites and family photos backed up. Rather than spend 3 days working on one system we backed things up, and started it fresh.

[mullet]

Not to mention bloated a** registry. Most people never format there machines. I can't tell you how many times people commented on how fast there system was after a format. I am not saying format is a one size shoe fits all by any means. It is all about TIME and time is money. Bottom line what is the fastest way to get a machine up and running like it should for the customer and your profit margin as well. Ok this is my one serous post for the week.

[crainger]

Post anything else serious and I'll break your legs. vim.