Finally got it fixed!

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2 weeks ago I took someone's PC home for repair. Here is the story of what happend and how I finally got it sorted.

I went round their house and got started on the machine. I couldnt believe just how sporadic the system was. It kept throwing up viruses left right and centre. If I opened up the IE browser it would suddenly close immediately. I tried to install some security software from my diagnosis CD (I called it that myself) and it would only let me install Ad-Aware, and good job it did cos when I ran the program it found and this is the honest truth over 1200 spyware and malware programs. If anyone has come across a system with more than this please tell me cos so far this is the first system I have come across to have this many. Anyway as I said it would only let me install that one program. If I tried to install AVG or McAfee or even Spybot it would close the setup once I started it.

Anyway the whole point I was doing this was cos their daughter was going away to France the next day and wanted to take her iPod with her but was unable to put the songs on her iPod cos of the amount of viruses on the PC. So being the nice person I am, I took the PC and the iPod home with me. I managed to sort the iPod out on my PC and putting the songs their daughter wanted and handed it back to them the next morning before she went away. She was dead happy bless her. But the PC was the tough cookie here. As much as I tried I couldnt get all the viruses removed. I thought I would have to do restore of the whole system but I didnt want to do that so I asked the people if they still the recovery CDs that came with the PC, they didnt. So then I thought maybe I would have sort out getting a new one built for them. Until now I had forgotten about Hijackthis, so I gave it one last shot. Ran the program and it found an unprecendented amount of affected files, which I duly removed (apart from those to do with the system itself) finally we were on the road to recovery. After Hijackthis I was then able to install Zone Alarm and AVG and Spybot S&D. Found all the viruses on the whole system, removed them all, made sure the internet was working fine and all was well. The PC is now back to normality. The woman who's PC it is was well chuffed but not as chuffed as I was for finally fixing the problem without using recovery CDs and the need to build another one. So there you have it guys just thought I woul share that with you all.

 

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Good job, noel. Well done. I find myself wondering though how the PC got so messed up in the first place. Perhaps the daughter who went to France had been somewhat "careless" with what she downloaded and from where.

 

Well done mate. You've done CF proud.

I take it they didn't have a clue about such thing's as anti-virus or a firewall? How about service packs or automatic updates? (I trust you got these up to date for them too )

 

yep everything is up2date...there was no SP2 update done...so I did all this...funnily enough tripwire she has 2 daughters and it was the older one who messed up the PC (altho she claims she didnt) now she has moved out and has bought herself another PC! Viruses came from everywhere including via MSN Messenger. I have now remvoed Windows Messenger as that was causing a lot of problems. But it now saves them another £700 odd to get a new PC built. so now all is well, all AV and FW software up2date so no excuse this time!

 

Good job Noelg!

Next time you come across something like that and it won't let you install a antivirus. Try F-Prot. I had a promble like that once and for some reason f-prot was the only thing I could install. I never have fig out why. But it takes care of bussiness and that is all I care about.

 

Nice one Noelg - bet you got a buzz (but what about charging them accordingly, you muppet !!!)

Also, if you can't install AV on a screwed up system, remember Stinger and Trend Micro Housecall (Google will find them both)

 

yes I charged them...not too much but enough to think I was worth the amount. I will look up those apps...thanks...

 

Nice one Noelg24 !!!!

Had various pc's from friends and relatives to fix and most of them were the same problems that you had

Amazing that all of them were the same with regards to AV software and firewall ie either none or out of date and the XP machines were either SP1 or nothing at all !!!!!

Iam in that strange position where i don't charge as its friends and family and the wife keeps saying to her pals yes bring your pc over he'll have a look at it !!!!!


All good experience though and as you say there is a good buzz from fixing something without having to hose the whole system

 

indeed mate thats true...but I would start charging maybe do a cut price for friends like I did..I charged my mates about £20 for repairing their PCs and for people I dont know it can be anything from £30 upwards depending on how long I spend on fixing it and what extra software is needed that they never put on in the first place...but yeah its all about the buzz once you know you fixed it and it works again