They have done it again !

[fossyant]

Yep,

Yet another call this weekend - PC not booting.

Me 'Who was last on it" - ah neice and boyfriend 'downloading music from you tube' - Me "Ahem"

Anyway it's goosed.

Somehow they have destroyed the boot up - won't go into safe mode, just loops.

Looks like I'll have to run the recovery console option on XP and see if rebuilding the Master Boot, and a few other commands sort it (this bit I'm no expert on).

I can't do a repair/upgrade install as it's somehow not recognising the Windows installation, so want's to format the drive (which I can't as they have stuff on there - not backed up).

Oh and SIL says - oh we keep getting a pop up that says we have 900 viruses and when we click we have to pay....... so haven't - just ignored it. Me you've probably got viruses then, that's what's killed the PC. Looks like it's bypassed Avast, and or partially shut it down.

I am sick of them screwing up this computer, as I keep being expected to fix it. Sometimes it takes hours due to the damage they seem to do. Oh and not young - 18 and 16, so they can start to learn.

Spent an hour on it on saturday, and just said - 'don't know, will have to think about it' and left. Oh and to top it off, the computer room is a tip, wires everywhere, stuff dumped on and in the way of the PC - so they expect me to sort it with crap everywhere. I think I'll leave it a few weeks.

My two kids don't seem to be able to mess up any of our PC's or laptops.

RANT OVER !

 

[ohnovino]

You think you've got it bad...

Part of my job involves maintaining PCs that are used by pre-schoolers. If they can go a week without destroying a boot sector I'm impressed.

My personal "favourite" was when I was asked to look at a computer that wasn't booting. It turned out one of the 2-year-olds had managed to set a BIOS password - that required pressing the right button at the right time to get to the BIOS menu, then navigating about 6 sub-menus. Either it was an incredibly lucky sequence of random keystrokes, or the boy's an evil genius in the making.

 

[rusky]

Fossy, is linux an option? If not, change the account to a user account & disable the admin account!

ohnovino, the boy's an evil genius

 

[MossCommuter]

After losing many a weekend to mending family PC's the rule now is that they all have identical models (Dell GX260, £100 a piece 2nd hand), if there is a problem I restore from an image I cloned onto a hard drive, I do no data recovery or fixing - if they ain't backed it up they've lost it.

Firm but fair and I have my life back.

 

[2Loose]

Just say NO.

Since refusing to help out with computers of friends and family, my life has been bliss.

Teach them (once) how to reinstall the OS from scratch and inform them that it will solve any problems that arise.
Let them sit there for half a day or so reinstalling every little thing that they need, then they will may take an interest in the software\crap that they install. After that, only take short telephone queries. Do not 'go and do it for them', it won't help them or you.

Of course it did take several fraught 6hr+ sessions with little or no appreciation to get to that point. I wish I had done it a lot earlier.

 

[Ghost Donkey]

change the account to a user account & disable the admin account!

+1. Password protecting the admin account should do the trick as long as they promise not to use a boot utility to reset the admin passwords. Don't mention that bit, they may not know those utilities exist. You can do more restrictive things if you edit group policy and fancy a play. A user account should hold them off for a bit. They might complain but you can refuse to support them if they don't do it your way. If they don't keep the AV up to date you could try auto update settings or even the Microsoft security essentials (I've not tried it so can't comment on it's effectiveness) which allows automatic updates in the background and warns when it isn't updating.

As a general rule the less crap that gets installed the better it'll run.

Have you tried the last known good configuration?

An AV boot disk may work on the viruses but probably won't bring the boot sector

The linux idea is a good one. It's harder to just click and install any old software they find. There's less rubbish software to install and if they bother to learn how to use an OS they might work out how to look after it too (the last line would apply to windows. Don't want to upset anyone ).

 

[fossyant]

Can't even get last good configuration.

Very tempted to sling them the 'instructions' I've downloaded for recovery console comands for the MBR etc (never needed to use it in the past) and sling a XP Home disc their way and say - follow this (fling)...

It's only what I'd do. If they can't fix that, it's a re-install (or most likely new HD, re-install then recover data from old HD).

Going to leave it for now until I get really mithered by them. If I fix it, user account only may be the order of the day. Last time I stripped off limewire and all sorts.

It's their main PC, so they should be more careful (e.g. photo's, assignments for college etc. etc.). She's got her own netbook to break, but keeps screwing up the main PC.

Thanks for the tips - at least occasionally we get a couple of hours baby sitting back as repayment, but not often.

 

[Ghost Donkey]

You could use a linux boot disk to recover data to an external HDD if they have one available and then format and re-install windows on the original disk to cut down on costs. If you're worried about root kits a boot and nuke should see to that. You won't be able to recover anything after doing that though.

 

[Sh4rkyBloke]

Just bin the computer and tell them someone stole it and that they'll have to get a new one. When they get the new one tell them it runs on an OS that you know nothing about so can't fix it in future.

Then shoot them and burn the evidence.

Pub, pint, bed. Sorted.

 

[Jezston]

Just bin the computer and tell them someone stole it and that they'll have to get a new one. When they get the new one tell them it runs on an OS that you know nothing about so can't fix it in future.

Then shoot them and burn the evidence.

Pub, pint, bed. Sorted.

What a terrible thing to say.

You can't burn a gun!

Sometimes I think people just don't think before posting

On a more serious note +1 to giving them a non-admin user account.

I recall once getting the internet set up around my then student house. Within about 15 minutes one of my flatmates had completely destroyed their computer - turns out they had immediately hit whatever porn sites they could find and hit 'OK' on whatever pop ups appeared! I had to resintall Windows.

Worth mentioning that this particular flatmate was female.

 

[Carwash]

Worth mentioning that this particular flatmate was female.

Why?

 

[Black Sheep]

People assume that girls don't look at porn?