Doctor Google; we all use it; and I still use it now.
All the information you could ever need, just at your finger tips. The allure of repairing your computer by Googling how to do something can be very compelling. But, the pitfalls can be disastrous,
We have people emailing and calling us, saying they have lost all the their data, their computer no longer starts, or they have lost all their emails because they tried to fix their computer yourself.
This isn’t one of the articles where I try and tell you, don’t do it yourself, pay me instead.
I just want to go go over the most common mistakes people make when trying to diagnose and repair their own computer repair problems and what to look out for in hope you do not make the problem worse. Because if you have, by the time it gets to me I might not be able to help you.
Data Recovery
On Your Computer
The scenario usually goes like this. You are using your computer then one day you realise you have lost something. Usually something important like a document you have been working on, or some important family photos, that holiday trip!
Or maybe you just accidentally deleted something and emptied your trash can and you are desperate to get it all back.
Your instinct might be to download or buy some kind of consumer data recovery software you have found online.
Most, if not all of these do not work. More so than not they are poorly written, fake and usually have viruses in them, only give you a trial version until you pay only to find out the data is not recoverable even of they say it was, or simply do not work.
Real data recovery software is quite expensive and labor intensive.
When your computer deletes data from your hard drive, believe it or not it is usually still there, at least to begin with.
All your computer has really done is marked that bit of storage space on your hard drive as empty, until more data is written over it.
Just say you do find some kind of great data recovery software which works, installing it on your computer could very well write over the data that you are trying to recover. That is, installing in the space on the hard drive your data use to be.
External Hard Drive
External hard drives can be very difficult to work on.
They usually have no operating system and you are limited to what you can do to them. Unlike a computer which you operate from and on, your external hard drive is basically a dumb device, you plug into your computer which gives you expansion on your existing storage capacity.
Either to store data on to, or back up your existing data from your computing devices too.
The biggest mistake customers make is thinking their external hard drive has a physical problem. Because your computer can not see the drive, or can but can not see the data, many people believe the drive is physically damaged and see p[people in Youtube taking them apart to repair.
WARNING: Taking your external hard drive apart and playing with the disk platters will usually cause damage to the drive and seriously compromise the integrity of the data.
The people who do this professionally invest heavily in very expensive equipment and training.
Most of the time we see external hard drive problems usually arising from logical errors on the drive. That is software has caused the problem and can usually be recovered.
Computer Not Turning On
Buying a New Battery or Charger
The number one mistake people make which costs them money straight away up front is they go out and buy a new battery or power cable for their laptop when it does not start.
There are 100’s of reasons your laptop will not power up properly. Very few times is it because their battery or power cable is no longer working. In fact, most times your battery is not working anymore, you will still be able to use your laptop by plugging the power cable into the wall.
It is much more likely that the motherboard has failed, the power supply unit has failed or something has climbed into and died, or wear and tare over the years has taken its toll on it.
Damaging the components when taking apart
When computers stop working its common for people to think something must be loose or has come out.
But things do not just fall out by themselves, and even with a bump it can be very hard for something to just slip out. So sometimes people will take the parts out, put them back in and hope they will work.
The problem is, many of the components in your computer are very sensitive.
Some parts can even be damaged just by touching with you hand and should be used with anti-static risk bands to ensure they are not damaged.
Hard drives are also very sensitive. Most hard drives have record like players platter disks inside of them which can easily be damaged if moved or pulled out of the computer to quickly.
Thinking Everything is a Virus Problem
It’s very easy to always assume the worse and think anytime your computer is doing something wrong, it could be a virus or some sort of malicious software or person doing it.
And, there are a lot of virus problems out there, but they do not account for all of the software problems computers encounter not even close!
With access to the internet and plenty of websites offering free download and trial ware of antivirus software, many people download these programs and think they might be able to solve their problems.
However, so many of these programs are actually worse than if you did have a virus on your computer.
Nearly all of them will tell you, you have 100’s of errors and viruses and they will all ask for money to repair and remove it. Which can sometimes be easy for them, when they are the actual ones reporting the false positives.
Townsville Computer Repairs Nerds
There are many things which can effect your computer performance and even its ability to operate properly.
Even us at Townsville Nerds are seeing and learning new things every day. If you have a computer problem and you do not want to tackle it yourself, please give us a call today.
We offer a 100% completely free diagnosis and quote. If you do not accept my quote, it still cost you nothing.
