Hey everyone,
I truly hope to find someone that can answer a few questions about a crashed home computer of mine…preferably in the least-technical terms possible 😉
Problem: I have a home computer that was given to me about 2 yrs ago & as I recall, its a custom-built PC.
I didn’t expect it to acquire any viruses b/c I was assured that it had all the anti-virus protection & software it needed- already installed for me. But as it turns out, I managed to acquired a virus on it anyway. One day it just froze; I tried restarting it in every way that I could think of- but eventually had to unplug it from the wall altogether b/c it WOULD NOT shut off! Since then, it hasn’t worked since. I’m not 100&% sure if the fan even spins b/c @ one point it wouldn’t, but sometimes (if I was lucky) I could get it to go to the main page w/black background & white font letters. Needless to say, I was pissed that all my digital pics were stored as albums on that computer- but I eventually forgot about it & decided to cut my losses until I could pay a Geeksquad person to fix it for me- rather than having my dad do it! It’s been about a year and a half since that mis fortunate accident- and I haven’t worried about fixing the PC since then, b/c the pics that I was so upset about losing “forever” have since been given to me by another friend who was smart enough to store her digitals elsewhere…
Bigger problem: Out of the blue a certain-someone within the family decided to whine about wanting this specific computer (even though he just got a brand new laptop!) so now my dad is disassembling the motherboard, along with 3 removable hard drives (that are about 4 X 6 inches, about an inch thick) that are 120 GB, 60GB & a third hard-drive which still remains in the “stacking unit” of the computer case that says its 120GB. I have no idea how this “re-booting from the dead” happens, but my question is- what exactly will be visible to him???? I don’t recall there being any passwords on startup (which I’m sure he’d be able to bypass anyway) I just need an idea of what kind of things he’ll be able to recover from this crashed PC. several people have told me that w/the amount that has passed since the crash happened, its possible that the pics I’m worried about my dad discovering could very well be gone forever by now – which is FINE with me now!
Does anyone have any quick tips for me to pull in order to cover my ass, any future suggestions to prevent this from happening again, or just some accurate information about the things I should be expecting him to find???
If you actually read this all the way to the end, thanks for taking the time to read about my dilemma,& as a FYI for all the prodding daddies out there: pay someone ELSE to fix things like THESE in order to keep your kids on talking terms with you!! Thanks!!!
