PC Flu Season

In the last few weeks the number of PC problems people have brought to me has increased. It looked like PC flu season. I was thinking I should charge for it. Currently I've been working on the barter system, PC fix for dinner and drinks. But as the complexity of the fixes rise so does my time required to perform the fix. Part of the repair process is fun so I guess I may continue this way.

One thing I've learned over the last few weeks is the importance of backups or having no important data at all. Both seem to work equally well for fast recoveries. One fix I did involved a computer that had a worm, and to remove it manually was a big pain in the butt. Luckily the owner had no data to save so a format and fresh install was all that was required. I need to make a library of restore images for different chipsets to save me time...

Another fix involved backing up large amounts of data to the server and then copying it back. This took a long time due to the amount of files, and waiting for prompts. My own incident with a failing hard drive was also I reminder that data can disappear at any time.

So the lesson for the day is backup your stuff!