Al Lustie's Tips and Tricks

My friend and client was having repeated troubles booting his computer.  Repair, Safe Mode, and finally an opportunity to log in.  Then, often, two rounds of Repair, Safe Mode, another Repair, another Safe Mode.  He asked me to fix it. 

Easier said than done.  The dreaded Blue Screen of Death began appearing.  Another friend had backed up his data.  I used a disk scrubbing program (Killdisk) to wipe the hard disk clean.  My friend did not have system disks, so purchased a new copy of Windows 7 (64 bit) Home Premium.  I did a clean install.  After restoring his data, doing a couple of reboots, I returned the computer.  Blue Screen of Death again.  Darn!

I did it all again, and this time went to the manufacturers site and download all the known drivers for the chipset.  I burned them to a CD, on my iMac while cleaning off the hard disk (again) and reinstalling Windows.  Then I booted and installed all the drivers (for the video, network, wireless, keyboard, trackpad, mouse, USB ports, etc.)  Then I installed MS Office, restored his data, and set up his Internet Explorer.  We had decided to "keep it clean" so I did not download Firefox or Chrome or any other utilities.  My friend says he will monitor his fingers and the mouse when he sees the word "Download" on the screen.

I forgot his printer and had to install that as well. 

So far it's working.  It took several hours, and he actually could have purchased a new computer for what I charged him.  Think about that when you are tempted to download something that will speed up your computer, or clean up your computer, or somehow magically make your life better.  Even recent Windows updates can be damaging. 

What do you think?  Have you had experiences like this?  Leave a comment and let me know.