when your computer stops working, do you...?

A place for members to talk about things outside of Virgin Islands travel.
Post Reply
AquaGirl
Posts: 913
Joined: Mon Aug 21, 2006 6:59 pm
Location: Fairfax, Virginia

when your computer stops working, do you...?

Post by AquaGirl »

Well, of course the first thing to do is stomp your feet and cry/yell/whatever. Then after that..what do you do?

Our primary HP desktop computer (new in March 2012) has died, much to our dismay. It was a high end model at the time. We've tried multiple trouble-shooting things, to no avail. Had a IM chat with HP and they are going to send us a postage paid box to send it in for repair (based upon the description of its "death"). Its still under warranty. We are not IT experts, so we need assistance.

Of course we have tons of personal data on it. When you get your computer repaired, do you:
- mail it to the manufacturer and hope they don't steal your personal identity info in the process of repairing it?
- take it to a local computer shop and trust them?
- other ideas?

My husband wants to take out the hard drive and hook it up to another computer to try to copy over all the data, then erase our personal files before sending the computer to HP. We also have software that we purchased installed on it, so not sure what happens with those licenses. I have a feeling this is easier said than done.

I'm sure this has happened to other forumites. Any input is welcome.
Thanks
User avatar
Anthony
Site Admin
Posts: 3042
Joined: Sat Aug 05, 2006 10:45 pm
Location: Clermont, NY
Contact:

Re: when your computer stops working, do you...?

Post by Anthony »

Hmm - I come more from the Mac side so my experiences are a little different - but - just how did your HP die? It seems like you know that the hard drive is okay if you are thinking of taking it out.

So if it is not the HD, it is motherboard or ram - most likely.

If it is under warranty, and the option to send it without the hard drive to the repair - I would do that. Should be pretty simple, your data is with you - etc.

I have sent Mac back to the "depot" as they call it - and never worried about that kind of stuff (personal info on the machine, etc.).

Personally, I like to try to fix whatever I can myself first. With the Internet, you can usually troubleshoot and fix just about anything now. But I would not do anything that voids the warranty. I just had a laptop die from what was apparently a spill. Took it to the Apple store, and the diagnostics had so many things wrong with it that my only solution was to mail it back to the repair center for a minimum of like $750 -

Long story short, I took it home, did some research, and just wrote this message with it...
Anthony for Virgin Islands On Line
AquaGirl
Posts: 913
Joined: Mon Aug 21, 2006 6:59 pm
Location: Fairfax, Virginia

Re: when your computer stops working, do you...?

Post by AquaGirl »

Thanks Anthony. We did some trouble-shooting and spent more time with the HP tech online, including their diagnostic steps. The computer tries to start, the fan kicks in and runs super fast, then it shuts down. Initial indications are a bad sensor, so it thinks its overheating, tries to cool it by running fan in high mode, then just shuts down. Sometimes when we try to boot it up, nothing happens at all. The current recommendation is send it back for repair - apparently this sensor is not easy to get to and replace. HP is sending a postage paid box and says hard drive needs to be in the computer. We will take it out and hook it up to a different computer, so we can wipe the disk. We decided it's just too risky to have all our info on it in these days of identity theft. Thankfully we have a backup of everything!
User avatar
Anthony
Site Admin
Posts: 3042
Joined: Sat Aug 05, 2006 10:45 pm
Location: Clermont, NY
Contact:

Re: when your computer stops working, do you...?

Post by Anthony »

Did you try a can of compressed air and check the fan itself? Depending on where the computer is (floor, desk, carpet, near a vent, etc.) the fans can suck up so much dust and dirt etc. that they stop functioning properly - and then all the other problems you mention can happen (the computer won't boot if the sensor says the fan isn't working right, because it is afraid it could over heat, etc.). You should definitely check the fan out - and use a can of air to spray clean it.

Also - if you are backed up, why not just erase the sensitive info that could be on your hard disk? Not sure why you are removing it, then putting it back in? Can't you copy everything to an external drive, and then reinstall a clean copy of the system and reformat the disk (which will erase everything) when you do?

Just sounds like an extra step to me but maybe I am missing something?
Anthony for Virgin Islands On Line
AquaGirl
Posts: 913
Joined: Mon Aug 21, 2006 6:59 pm
Location: Fairfax, Virginia

Re: when your computer stops working, do you...?

Post by AquaGirl »

Thanks for the ideas. First thing we tried was a thorough cleaning with compressed air.

Regarding erasing the sensitive data on the hard drive - if we could get the computer to boot up one more time, we would do that. At this point, it won't boot up at all, so we can't use it to erase the data on the hard drive. We try every day to see if it will "come alive" one more time, but no go. That's why we would need to hook it up to a different computer. We heard there may be a cable we can use between a working computer and the disk in the non-working computer, so that we don't have to physically take it out of the non-working computer. Looking into this.
AquaGirl
Posts: 913
Joined: Mon Aug 21, 2006 6:59 pm
Location: Fairfax, Virginia

Re: when your computer stops working, do you...?

Post by AquaGirl »

Ta da! After multiple trips to MicroCenter for various computer parts, we got an enclosure device. We put the drive from the broken computer into this enclosure, then connected it to our old computer via USB. Voila! The old computer recognizes it as an external G: drive. So we were able to access the disk and erase our personal info. We put the disk back into the broken computer and shipped it back to HP. Hopefully they can find the issue and correct it quickly.

We recognize that the files we deleted can be retrieved, even though they were erased, if the HP tech really wanted to get to them. Hoping they are honest and it will be ok. We felt that with the threat of identify theft, we needed to at least make the files more inaccessible.

HP said they may have to re-install the OS, depending upon the issue. They will only install the version of the OS that was installed when we bought it. That would mean we will need to apply the OS patches from the past 2 years, then re-install all the software packages (like Photoshop, etc). Ugh...

Lesson learned...Going forward, we are not going to keep any personal info on the C drive. The computer has a huge D: drive (where we store photos now) that we will use instead. Then if we ever have to have someone work on the computer, or when we recycle it, we can take out the D: drive, and just have the C: drive with the OS.
Post Reply