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Screwed computer
Hi,
I'm a 15 year old kid, and for some spending money I help out local people with computer problems. I'm in quite the predicament. One of my parent's friends called me saying their printer stopped working. He runs a carpeting buisness in town. When I'd try to print, the printer made god-awful noises and shook. I told him the printer was obviously the problem. However, I tried to install an old parallel printer he had laying around to make sure it was the printer. I didn't have the driver disk, so I downloaded drivers for it. The parallel printer ended up not printing either. I ran a virus scan and found two trojans, which were unable to be removed. Upon restarting the computer, I found the following choices to boot from:
1.) Windows 2000 Professional
2.) Windows 2000 Server
3.) Windows 2000 Professional
4.) Previously installed OS on C: <-- Note: The computer's HD is D: - C: is a shared drive on another computer.
His computer was so messed up I thought I'd re-image it. However, he has a program called Floors for Windows on it, which from the shitty documentation I can see is an Access-based program. There are three networked computers there running it, and they access this one computer as a server for Floors for Windows. It contains all of his company's stuff from the past two years. Floors for Windows has no visible backup option. What do you guys think I should do to help this guy?
Thanks,
Jared Stewart
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If he dropped off the computer at your house, you should download and burn the latest image of Ubuntu, or knoppix, pop it into the cdrom drive, go into the BIOS and make the cdrom the default boot device. After this, superglue the cd drive shut, put in another cdrom/dvd drive under this one and drop the machine off on his steps with a note saying "Free of Charge".
(Every printer i've ever used in Knoppix worked with no problems whether it was USB or parallel)
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RUN AWAY!
Seriously. Go slow and determine the steps of action. Like everything else, some problems need more attention than others. First, clean the virus. Check for mal/spyware. run hijack this and see what's running on startup. Safe Mode is always your friend.
Being 15 you are looked on as a kid and at some point someone will get anxious and take the PC to a local store where the PC will be fdisk'ed and a new OS installed. Don't take it personally, explain your diagnosis and plan of attack. When your advice is not adhered to and the local store deletes all pertinent info on your parents friends pc, don't say I TOLD YOU SO!
1.) Windows 2000 Professional
2.) Windows 2000 Server
3.) Windows 2000 Professional
OK Someone tried to reinstall at some point. A lot has been messed with. I would guess that a dual boot "I'm securing my PC by myself Thing" was attempted since there are two versions of OS and that the startup dir is on D instead of C. Probably C has the %systemroot% of server.
My advice is to find the Floors for Windows software. Install it on another PC. Remove the F***ED PC hard drive and slave it onto the PC with the newly installed software. Grab the date, insure it works. Replace the problem HDD, reinstall OS and Software. Take HDD with Floors for Windows and current date, slave to newly formated and Volia! $175 per hour. 4 hours min.
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treanglin - His carpeting program containing thousands of dollars of info wouldn't work...
Dinowuff - Backing up his data wouldn't be a problem, I have a USB external HD. The problem is, I have no idea how Floors for Windows stores it's data, and it has no explanation anywhere.
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Jareds411:
Do you have access to the Floors for Windows Install media?
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OK. Install the software on a differet PC. Copy the Program Directory containing Floors for Windows from the bad PC to the PC with the fresh install of Floors for Windows. Say yes when prompted to overwrite. Launch the program and see if you can access the data. If so, rebuild the bad PC install Floors for Windows and copy the Floors for Windows directory back to the new install from the PC where you tested the restore.
