Computer problem #1

Got a call (what is the first of many to come I am sure) from one of the friends who was recently the recipient of one of those computers I mentioned in an earlier post. He asked me what to do now that he had reformatted the hard drive and reinstalled Windows.

WHAT??!!?? You did what?

He explained that when he got back to his school and tried starting the computer it was not working for some reason and so the first step tried by a helpful, well meaning, but severely misdirected local computer guy was ‘Reformat the hard drive and reinstall the Operating System.’ Turns out the RAM was likely a little loose (probably from the 36 hour train ride home for this guy) and there was actually nothing wrong with the hard drive after all.

We had gone to great lengths to install and configure all the software and settings so that they will serve our friends well (read as keep them safe from themselves at times). That was all for naught on this particular machine.

I explained that we would send him another hard drive with the right software and settings on it in a few days. Thankfully we had taken a ‘ghost’ copy of the master system configuration and from that only needed to add a few things and tweak some settings and download a few updates. Took about 2.5 hours to have a hard drive ready to send him. Now he can have that helpful local computer guy install the replacement hard drive and send us the other one back.

Wonder what the next call will be. “Uh, yeah, remember how you told us not to plug the computer into anything but the surge protector? We think we know why now.” Oh boy. Here we go.