As Bob Dylan once sang
It's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard drive's gonna crash.
Well, I just got the call from Best Buy's Geek Squad and they tell me that, yes, there are viruses on my computer and yes they can clean them, but that my hard drive also has damaged sectors which is making a bad situation worse. I asked them to clean the current drive as much as possible, copy my data to a new hard drive, and then install the PC-cillian and "Geek Squad" anti-virus programs.
Now a 100GB hard drive is on sale for $50 and the anti-virus programs are also in the Sunday flyer for $29. Throw in some labor. I asked the guy how much the damage would be and he said: $260. Phhhhh...... For heaven's sake, I can almost get a new computer for that. But what can I do? I can't lose all the data on that hard drive: pictures, ITunes, personal and professional documents. I guess I'm just going to have to chalk this up as an expensive lesson: pay more attention to security.
This thing better move like Flash when I get it back on Wednesday...otherwise it's Apple time.
8 comments:
That's a great deal! I'm impressed.
What Windows operating system were you using? Did you keep up with the Windows Update? I am switching to cable broadband next week and am concerned. I just bought an 80 gig external hard drive w/backup software and cable from Dell for $101 incl. shipping. I plan to backup my entire hard drive before making the switch to broadband.
Like your blog, please keep it going.
Viking:
Get a copy of Caspar XP, which will move your existing data over to the new drive. That's $30. Then get over to grisoft softare for the free version of AVG Antivirus.
Lastly, get Spybot to get rid of spyware.
And stay up with windows updates.
Ok, so that whole process should take about two hours and it only cost you $80.
All: I'm running Windows XP. I recently ran McAfee's Stinger program (didn't find any viruses) but when I tried to run Grisoft's free AVG program, it wouldn't load because of some conflict with Roxio CD Maker (???) I've also run AdAware and Spybot Search & Destroy repeatedly.
As if to taunt me, I saw a Dell ad today for a computer twice as fast as mine for half the price I paid three years ago, but this had a whole security suite. Like I said, I'll never take security for granted again.
Thanks for all the advice though - it's been a comfort.
After getting sick and tired of my PC locking up, I finally bought a Mac. Now I have 3. It's so intuitive my wife can use it. In fact, it only took her 20 minutes from opening the box to surfing the net... (with no help from me).
I guess I'm just going to have to chalk this up as an expensive lesson: pay more attention to security.
Alternate interpretation: keeps backups of the stuff you don't want to lose.
For future reference, look into "image backups" (products like DriveImage) and firewalls (products like ZoneAlarm, free from Zonelabs.com).
Good luck!
I like Zonealarm, also. Eric, like you I am thinking of switching to Mac. I am sick of virus' and I am tired of the non-inituitiveness of PCs. I think I would have switched already if it wasn't for Foxfire.
Get a spare 80-100 GB HD in an
External drive case w/ USB connection= $50 + 35 = $85.
This allows a mirror backup of ALL
data, including the software installations you make, ready to be
used on ANY other PC if disaster strikes. It works.
I had the same HD crash /try to recover data problem a year ago.
Now I feel I am 95-98% backed up
at any time. Survivable .....
GL
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