RIP Dell Computer

[robmob]

My 6 year old Dell computer contracted a virus over the weekend thanks to most likely my 9 year old son.

Needless to say Norton was unable to stop it and now it won’t complete the boot process without restarting.

My IT guy says the only thing he can do is re-build the HD, but recommends that I just get a new computer and transfer the old data files I need.

I don’t have the time or patience to mess with this and it would cost about $600 for him to do the re-build so I am forced to put down my old computer in favor of a new one.

Old one was a Pentium 4 2.4GHz with 512mb of RAM

New one is a Core 2 Q200 Quad-Core (4MB L2 cache 2.33GHz) with 6GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz

More computer than I will ever need, but then again so was my last one and it lasted 6 years. I would not even be thinking about replacing it if it weren’t for the unfortunate event over the weekend.

The only bad thing is that it will be running Vista and not XP. I will just have to get used to it.

I will most likely swap the HD from my sons computer to the infected one since his is slower and has less RAM which is why he was using the home office computer. I am assuming it will work.

 

[HeartBreak]

Sounds like it will work (the harddrive transplant). Just make sure you format the drive when you do that, and install a fresh OS.

 

[h8z2luze]

not surprising. Norton sucks!

 

[alpinehyperlite]

I was dreading switching to vista, but i have had no problems, and rather enjoy it.

 

[Xiris]

not surprising. Norton sucks!

I second that!

 

[marauder]

When my PC dies, I'm going Mac. Sad to hear you lost old faithful.

 

[Mayhem]

good idea Go mac! Have had my macbook for over 4 years and not a problem to date but when the computer is starting up hit f11 a bunch of times this will take to to restore mode just restore it to factory.

my buddy's dell would do the same thing start to boot up than restart I restored it and has been running pretty smooth, well for a dell.

 

[beason]

600$ to reload a PC? wow!! even if he just cleaned it all up it shouldnt cost nearly that much. hell id do it for like 100$. if your gonna give it to the boy, just format and reload XP and give it to him. reloading is very simple and takes about an hour or so plus the after install setup of AV, updates, and softwares.

 

[robmob]

It was my 2nd Dell and the first time I have ever encountered a problem of any kind and it wasn't even a Dell issue.

First one I had for 4 years before I upgraded from a Pentium 2 to a 4 just to speed things up. Nothing was actually wrong with it.

I ordered the replacement today from Dell.

I pan on getting a Mac laptop for my daughter sometime this year.

The last Mac I had was a Mac Plus with the black and white screen.

 

[MrClean]

After reading the title I was hoping to see you out in a field with a baseball bat while the music from Office Space was playing in the background. :\ Oh well.

Sorry to hear about the virus, but the new puter sounds pretty bad-@ss.

 

[Hunter]

I HATE when I get a virus on my computer. Norton sucks and would tell anyone who is on the net to get AVG. Best watch dog I've had to date hands down.

 

[alpinehyperlite]

After reading the title I was hoping to see you out in a field with a baseball bat while the music from Office Space was playing in the background. :\ Oh well.

Sorry to hear about the virus, but the new puter sounds pretty bad-@ss.

"Damn it feels good to be a gangsta, a real gangsta ass *&%$ dont run his *$@#$ mouth, because a gangsta ass $*@& dont start fights."

 

[Runaway Jim]

I went Mac about a year ago. Needed a laptop while I was recovering from a below the knee amputation. Honestly I regret ever having seen a PC after using my Mac Book. Viruses don't exist for Macs. I don't even have anti virus software on it, it's not needed. Everything runs through the desktop so if a virus tried to work its way in the computer automatically sees it as something I may be trying to download and doesn't allow it unless I put in my password. Macs are way faster and more reliable than PCs and, in my opinion so much more easier to operate. Once you go Mac, you'll never go back!

 

[Hyster]

After reading the title I was hoping to see you out in a field with a baseball bat while the music from Office Space was playing in the background.

Better yet, he should make a video of his RC's bashing into it with the shell off.

The only bad thing is that it will be running Vista and not XP. I will just have to get used to it.

Yeah too bad Bill Gates made sure people couldn't upgrade thier Vista OS to XP...

 

[Suicide]

it cost 1500 dollars to get some info off my dads crashed hard drive

 

[Amoeba]

Jesus H Christ. The prices people charge for transferring data you guys are mentioning is outrageous. Next time, PM me and I'll call you & walk you through it. It's not difficult and shouldn't take very long at all.

I do most of my day-to-day computing in Ubuntu (linux). Vista & mac OSX are for times when I want to play games that won't run well in a VM or wine.

 

[robmob]

The wife has already informed me that I will not be transferring the data myself. She probably doesn't want me to Godale all her pics that weren't backed up.:green-grin:

Our IT guy will charge us $125 to do it.

 

[jon2]

The wife has already informed me that I will not be transferring the data myself. She probably doesn't want me to Godale all her pics that weren't backed up.:green-grin:

Our IT guy will charge us $125 to do it.

Seriously,

Friends, I do it for free or just buy me a meal.

Wish I lived closer.

 

[olds97_lss]

I had a similar issue. Thought I was boned because McAfee couldn't get rid of it, so I did some digging on google with key words from the popups I was getting. Whatever it was killed my internet connection and wouldn't let me google anything. I'd type in a search for anything and get back some sort of porn... usually I'd be ok with that, but I needed to work!

Found malwarebytes, installed it, it found a bunch of junk, let it run, rebooted, let it run again, rebooted, computer is now fine and has been fine for a couple months. I bought malwarebytes ($30) so I could have the daemon running in the background all the time to avoid a future issue. I figured the free version got me going, the least I could do was buy something from the company and hopefully ward off any other issues.

Granted, I was able to at least boot mine up, but it was basically useless after that. I didn't have authority to edit or view anything.

The computer it happened on was new, which I had gotten from work when my old one appeared to fail on me.

The one I found the info with (the old one that "failed") to fix the new one sounds to be a spitting image of your old dell! 2Ghz p4, 500M ram, XP, 4+ years old. It's now just my backup/tester PC in case a friend or family member needs something worked on. I replaced it because the HD in it died and I wasn't sure if it was the HD or the MB. The HD was a 3 month old WD 500G drive. I put the original back in, formatted, reinstalled XP and everything else and ran drive defrags/scans and uploaded 20G of data (30G drive) and repeated uploaded/deleted it at least once a day every day for a month. Hasn't had an issue since. The WD HD won't even spool up anymore. 3 months... needless to say, I won't be buying WD anymore.

 

[SMaxxin]

She probably doesn't want me to Godale all her pics that weren't backed up.:green-grin:

Now thats funny right there