Whoops.... I've killed my friend's laptop

[Adrian Brezhnev]

Oh dear, just as I thought I could have a weekend off ruining people's lives, I sat down this afternoon to repair a friend's rather unstable laptop.

Two hours later, and now every time I switch it on I'm greeted with the not particularly welcome message-

Searching for Boot Record from Floppy.... Not Found
Searching for Boot Record from CDROM.... Not Found
Searching for Boot Record from SCSI.... Not Found

Should I
(a) Tell her that the laptop has mysteriously disappeared; I just can't find it anywhere, and then smuggle the laptop out of the house under my shirt
(b) Confess to having made a bad situation far worse
(c) Attempt to explain to her genuinely what has happened, i.e. that the whole installation of Windows ME had been corrupt, that the hard drive was laden with stiking trojans and spyware, and that it was a disaster waiting to happen, oh, and that it is purely coincidence that this disaster happened when I touched the machine
(d) Press on with attempting to fix the problem, even though she has no system recovery disks, by using another computer to try to download some useful diagnostic files and boot disks. It's not as if I would want to be outside in the sunshine anyway, spending Sunday afternoon messing about with computers is a much better way to spend my time?

[Bernard]

Reconfigure the BIOS. It doesn't appear to checking the IDE hard disk for the boot record. Sometimes BIOSes reset and stuff, due to their memory being held by a battery.

[Adrian Brezhnev]

That's what I thought at first.... but I am having trouble getting to look at the BIOS itself.

[The Region Legion]

(c) Attempt to explain to her genuinely what has happened, i.e. that the whole installation of Windows ME had been corrupt, that the hard drive was laden with stiking trojans and spyware, and that it was a disaster waiting to happen, oh, and that it is purely coincidence that this disaster happened when I touched the machine

If you aren't going to do d, this is always the best option. Try to explain it in technical terms so it still sounds like you know what you're talking about. She'll be so confused she'll assume you did your best. The same thing doctors do when a patient dies on the operating table, basically.

[Adrian Brezhnev]

You mean that honesty is the best policy? Confuse her with the facts... yes, I think that's what I'll do.

[Pinball]

re-install the OS?

[Adrian Brezhnev]

Could do... but she has some very valuable files on the laptop, that I am still attempting to reassure her may not be lost.

And she doesn't have any Windows CDs, so I haven't got an OS to hand that I could install.

[Cerys]

Would teaching her the value of back-ups be frowned upon...?

[Rats]

can you hook it up to your computer and copy everything from the hard disk onto there? That way, at least you'll have all her files backed up before you fanny on further.

[Saturday Boy]

Why not post your friend's computer problems in the fucking Techy thread stickied at the top of this forum, instead of making every single thing that you would like to share with the board into a tedious episode of Adrian Breznhev's Life?


Furthermore:


- She should be backing up her data.
- She should be taking her computer to a professional, not an imbecile.
- If you're not capable of fixing something, don't volunteer

- Surely it's simple to call up a professional yourself to get it repaired. If it was fucked when she gave it to you she can hardly blame you. If she does, and you think you're partly culpable, offer to pay for some/all of it's repair.

[Suttonpubcrawl]

The files on the laptop should be safe no matter what, unless you've formatted the hard drive or something stupid like that. It's just a matter of getting an OS on there so that you can access them. Well, either that or taking the hard drive out and connecting it to another computer.

[Rats]

Come on now, if it's good enough for TJ, it's good enough for adrian

[Adrian Brezhnev]

Would teaching her the value of back-ups be frowned upon...?

I've been telling her this for six months. Clearly I'm not a very good teacher!

[Paul Dee]

Why not post your friend's computer problems in the fucking Techy thread stickied at the top of this forum, instead of making every single thing that you would like to share with the board into a tedious episode of Adrian Breznhev's Life?

It's funny 'cause it's true.

- She should be taking her computer to a professional, not an imbecile.

Put "laughed", "sprayed" and "monitor" into a cliched-VW sentence there if you like. God that made me chuckle.


And yes, it sounds like this isn't your fault anyway really doesn't it? If it was broken in the first place then how do you know that it's your fault? Just take it to a bloody repair shop

[A Passing Turk Slipper]

Why not take out the harddrive and connect it to your pc as a slave, save all the files from it onto your pc then reconnect it up and reinstall the OS?

[Adrian Brezhnev]

Why not post your friend's computer problems in the fucking Techy thread stickied at the top of this forum....

- She should be taking her computer to a professional, not an imbecile.
- If you're not capable of fixing something, don't volunteer

I've repaired dozens of computers over the years, usually successfully.

Sorry, I hadn't noticed the techy thread at the top of the list. Odd really, as I now remember having seen it there many times before. I simply forgot about it.

[Rats]

Why not take out the harddrive and connect it to your pc as a slave, save all the files from it onto your pc then reconnect it up and reinstall the OS?

That's what I said, you're just ignoring me because I'm black

[Leila]

(
(c) Attempt to explain to her genuinely what has happened, i.e. that the whole installation of Windows ME had been corrupt, that the hard drive was laden with stiking trojans and spyware, and that it was a disaster waiting to happen, oh, and that it is purely coincidence that this disaster happened when I touched the machine

Just tell her the truth. If she doesn't like it tell her to fuck off and bring her crappy laptop to a repair shop.

[Adrian Brezhnev]

Why not take out the harddrive and connect it to your pc as a slave, save all the files from it onto your pc then reconnect it up and reinstall the OS?

That's what I said, you're just ignoring me because I'm black

Not at all, I was about to comment on this.

I assumed that a laptop hard drive would not plug straight on to a standard IDE cable. It's a good idea of yours.

Right....t ime to find a screwdiver...

[A Passing Turk Slipper]

Oopsadaisy, sorry Rats.

[Adrian Brezhnev]

Just tell her the truth. If she doesn't like it tell her to fuck off and bring her crappy laptop to a repair shop.

The reason that I believe that her laptop is in so much trouble is that she had already taken her crappy laptop to a crappy repair shop.... and it appears that the so-called "highly qualified engineer" turned a messed up laptop in to a disastrous one.

[Rats]

I meant the other guy ignoring me. Can't you just connect the two computers together with a usb cable? It's worth a try.

[Suttonpubcrawl]

I assumed that a laptop hard drive would not plug straight on to a standard IDE cable. It's a good idea of yours.

They don't fit on standard IDE cables, you need an adapter. They're easily obtained from ebay and places like that.

[Adrian Brezhnev]

I meant the other guy ignoring me. Can't you just connect the two computers together with a usb cable? It's worth a try.

Could do, but since all I can run her laptop on right now is DOS from a boot floppy, surely no USB device is likely to work.

[Ambient Sheep]

You can get a 2.5" laptop to 3.5" IDE cable convertor from Maplin's here: http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?ModuleNo=28724&doy=15m5

(I have the same problem, near enough, Torty's laptop boots into Windows ME well enough - albeit in 640x480 - but the registry's completely fucked, it can't even tell it has a CD-ROM drive once it's booted, let alone USB ports.  So that's what I'm going to do - take the files off onto my main PC then reinstall the OS.)

[Rats]

Would the laptop not just show up on your computer as a seperate drive though? It's worth a go I think, I've never connected two computers together so don't shout at me if they both blow up.

[Ambient Sheep]

Would the laptop not just show up on your computer as a seperate drive though? It's worth a go I think, I've never connected two computers together so don't shout at me if they both blow up.

No, he's right, no way will it see a USB port in its current state.

If he takes the drive out, plugs it into his main PC with the adaptor above (or similar, as various other people pointed out while I was doing my post!), THEN it will appear as a separate drive.

[Adrian Brezhnev]

Yes, a good solution I think.... and the adaptor only costs £5. I'll just have to tell her that this can't be resolved today, I'll have to go to Maplin next weekend and sort everything out then.

[Cerys]

don't shout at me if they both blow up.

Although posting photographic evidence would probably be well received.

[Adrian Brezhnev]

They probly won't both blow up.

Although K probably will when I tell her what's happening (or not happening). She's highly strung AND german, you see.