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foxinthestarsSo it's been almost a week, thought I would update you all on my technical difficulties. Short version: I'm still on my Mom's computer, and am currently weighing 3-figure repairs vs. new machine.
My computer is still dead, and over the course of the week has if anything gotten deader. At this point, I think it's even deader than a virus could really account for, and a hard drive failure is looking likely, but how much was that and how much was virus I really don't know.
Basically, after it spontaneously rebooted one night and started refusing to run a full scan with Norton 360, it got increasingly squirrely, lost all my System Restore points, started refusing to boot up in Safe Mode, and declared random folders on the C drive "corrupt and unreadable." I got a backup drive, copied everything onto it that I could grab, and then tried to restore it to factory default using the included Recovery Partition.
Note: if you have one of those computers that gives you the option of keeping a recovery hard drive partition and burning recovery disks? Burn the disks.
So my system restore failed with an error message I had never seen before, and from then on would only say "Windows could not complete the installation." Concluding that my recovery partition had become corrupted, I took it to Staples, but they couldn't even find the recovery tools and don't handle Windows Vista anymore so they couldn't fix it without $200 for "replacement parts service" etc, so I decided to explore other options. Went down the street to Best Buy and talked to the Geek Squad guy; they didn't handle Vista either, but he gave me a number to order replacement recovery disks from Gateway. Got home, called Gateway---and they said "No can do, your computer's too old." At this point I began rethinking my previous intention to get another Gateway for my next computer (in a more belated and less rational way, I also started rethinking that when I found that Gateway computers are actually made by Acer, a name I don't have such warm fuzzy feelings toward).
After that, I turned to local repair shops and called around, finally finding someone who could make me a Windows Vista install CD for $10 because I had a license for it, so yesterday I went and got that, went home, popped it in, and told the computer to boot from it... Only to be told that a needed CD/DVD driver was missing. I can't think that's supposed to happen. So I copied the disk onto a USB flash drive and tried booting from that. A blinking cursor stared at me for twenty minutes. At last I tried a two-pronged attack, booting from the DVD while also inserting the USB drive, and at last it cleared the hurdle of DVD drivers... And then it said it couldn't find a hard drive to install to. Did I want to give it a driver for that?
And that's where I am right now: officially out my depth, without even a clear idea exactly what's wrong. Basically my choices are to get this one repaired, expecting to pay $200+, or get a new one for about $550. If I take the latter course, I have my eye on a Lenovo (after re-thinking Gateway, I googled "most reliable computers" and they seem to come out on top), and I can spend the money. Expense-wise, it's probably six of one, half-dozen of the other (fixing the old one would probably be half the price, and there's no way to predict for sure, but getting half the life and functionality out of it doesn't seem unreasonable). Part of me wants to get the old one fixed or at least take it in for diagnostics just to know what the hell happened, but other parts of me are saying that curiosity isn't worth spending money on, and that even if I did get it fixed, after such weird stuff happened as this I would probably lose something in comfort and trust as compared to a new one.
On the upside, my level of stress subsided through the week, and having an enforced vacation from my computer addiction has its advantages. I don't want to be signing on from Mom's computer forever (do you know how hard it is to window shop adult toys from your Mom's computer?), but I don't have a huge sense of urgency right now, and am still thinking about it.
Opinions and advice are welcome.
PS: While going to all these computer service places, I've been asking around what was the best antivirus, and no two informants have said the same thing. My sister recommends Norton 360, but no one else has so far. Best Buy recommended Kaspersky and shuddered when I told them I used to use AVG. The guy who burned the Vista disk for me recommended Microsoft Security Essentials (free) and said AVG had actually been good until recently, adding that Kaspersky was a good paid one, but perhaps not as good as NOD32. Unlike "most reliable computers" (Vista Disk Guy did second the good opinion of Lenovo on that), if you Google "most reliable antivirus," you'll basically get hot mess of conflicting opinions, and RL doesn't seem much better. The only thing that's clear is that you can't have more than one.
My computer is still dead, and over the course of the week has if anything gotten deader. At this point, I think it's even deader than a virus could really account for, and a hard drive failure is looking likely, but how much was that and how much was virus I really don't know.
Basically, after it spontaneously rebooted one night and started refusing to run a full scan with Norton 360, it got increasingly squirrely, lost all my System Restore points, started refusing to boot up in Safe Mode, and declared random folders on the C drive "corrupt and unreadable." I got a backup drive, copied everything onto it that I could grab, and then tried to restore it to factory default using the included Recovery Partition.
Note: if you have one of those computers that gives you the option of keeping a recovery hard drive partition and burning recovery disks? Burn the disks.
So my system restore failed with an error message I had never seen before, and from then on would only say "Windows could not complete the installation." Concluding that my recovery partition had become corrupted, I took it to Staples, but they couldn't even find the recovery tools and don't handle Windows Vista anymore so they couldn't fix it without $200 for "replacement parts service" etc, so I decided to explore other options. Went down the street to Best Buy and talked to the Geek Squad guy; they didn't handle Vista either, but he gave me a number to order replacement recovery disks from Gateway. Got home, called Gateway---and they said "No can do, your computer's too old." At this point I began rethinking my previous intention to get another Gateway for my next computer (in a more belated and less rational way, I also started rethinking that when I found that Gateway computers are actually made by Acer, a name I don't have such warm fuzzy feelings toward).
After that, I turned to local repair shops and called around, finally finding someone who could make me a Windows Vista install CD for $10 because I had a license for it, so yesterday I went and got that, went home, popped it in, and told the computer to boot from it... Only to be told that a needed CD/DVD driver was missing. I can't think that's supposed to happen. So I copied the disk onto a USB flash drive and tried booting from that. A blinking cursor stared at me for twenty minutes. At last I tried a two-pronged attack, booting from the DVD while also inserting the USB drive, and at last it cleared the hurdle of DVD drivers... And then it said it couldn't find a hard drive to install to. Did I want to give it a driver for that?
And that's where I am right now: officially out my depth, without even a clear idea exactly what's wrong. Basically my choices are to get this one repaired, expecting to pay $200+, or get a new one for about $550. If I take the latter course, I have my eye on a Lenovo (after re-thinking Gateway, I googled "most reliable computers" and they seem to come out on top), and I can spend the money. Expense-wise, it's probably six of one, half-dozen of the other (fixing the old one would probably be half the price, and there's no way to predict for sure, but getting half the life and functionality out of it doesn't seem unreasonable). Part of me wants to get the old one fixed or at least take it in for diagnostics just to know what the hell happened, but other parts of me are saying that curiosity isn't worth spending money on, and that even if I did get it fixed, after such weird stuff happened as this I would probably lose something in comfort and trust as compared to a new one.
On the upside, my level of stress subsided through the week, and having an enforced vacation from my computer addiction has its advantages. I don't want to be signing on from Mom's computer forever (do you know how hard it is to window shop adult toys from your Mom's computer?), but I don't have a huge sense of urgency right now, and am still thinking about it.
Opinions and advice are welcome.
PS: While going to all these computer service places, I've been asking around what was the best antivirus, and no two informants have said the same thing. My sister recommends Norton 360, but no one else has so far. Best Buy recommended Kaspersky and shuddered when I told them I used to use AVG. The guy who burned the Vista disk for me recommended Microsoft Security Essentials (free) and said AVG had actually been good until recently, adding that Kaspersky was a good paid one, but perhaps not as good as NOD32. Unlike "most reliable computers" (Vista Disk Guy did second the good opinion of Lenovo on that), if you Google "most reliable antivirus," you'll basically get hot mess of conflicting opinions, and RL doesn't seem much better. The only thing that's clear is that you can't have more than one.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-17 09:19 pm (UTC)As my current computer started with a coworker saying "hey, I've got a motherboard, you want it" in response to my mentioning upgrading/buying a computer I could play SW:TOR on, I can't help with brand names. As for anti-virus, I use what Comcast gives me free, which is Norton. It seems to work. *shrugs* I've never heard anything consistent about anti-virus software either.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-17 09:51 pm (UTC)