Lee247

Am chewed to bits about this one. Got all my work on this machine. Payroll, accounts etc. Went to switch on tonight to finalise some work, and na na. Contacted Dell, who have advised getting someone in to remove the information on the machine, they will call us on Monday night to put things right.
I can't wait that long, I have a payroll to do for Monday. Got a company coming out in the morning to, hopefully put things right, ie take my info and save it to cd or memory stick. Then try to fix the computer.
The question is, is it easy for these people to remove the relevant "stuff" without losing anything important. Sorry if this is garbled, but I just put info into the computer, I have no idea how it works

pimmo2000

iTrader: (6)

If its not XP everything is very easy to remove.

XP, NTFS might cause an issue, but I doubt it, if these people know there stuff it wont take 20 minutes

tricksterfiregod

f your computer wont switch on at all.ie no power then it could well be a faulty power supply,motherboard blown etc.. connecting to your hard drive where your data is stored is not difficult,and any competant engineer should be able to backup your files easily enough..lets hope the guy/gal is not a retard and reformats your drive before backing up your data.if by some weird concidence you happen to live in Lincolnshire somewhere then i would be happy to do it for you sometime over the weekend in exchange for a big mac.

tronlc

Easy to do mate dont worry!

Lee247

It's Windows XP Professional. I am honestly, wound up beyond belief. There is so much important info, I really can't lose
Thank you for your positive responses

SwissTony

iTrader: (19)

Lesley,
it should be safe.
If there is no power to the unit, then suspect a power supply issue.
if the unit power up, but no video, then graphics card or motherboard issue

in both cases, data should be secure, all it takes is a competatnt engineer to either diagnose the issue and replace the parts or worst case back up the data and then fix.
Either way if you need the data to do your payroll, then yes they can give you that, but remember, it will be data not the actual programs, such as sage etc.
so you mujst have the same program on your laptop to open up the data/files etc.

hope that makes sense

pimmo2000

iTrader: (6)

Worst case the Hard drive has died.. this can still be recovered.. so really no worries

Lee247

Thanks very much for the help folks. I had an engineer here at lunch time. The hard drive is fine, thank God. All data is ok.
Don't know what happened but all back to normal now. I've been given good advice about backing up more often. I most certainly shall be

tronlc

Depending on how much data you have that is critical, get a USB key or an external USB HD and copy it to there every few days

djuk

Might be worth getting yourself a copy of the (free) Microsoft SyncToy utility - it allows you to create lists of the files and folders you want backed up and synchronize manually or automatically:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/u...o/synctoy.mspx

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

I do some computer work for people still.

If the people whom you have contacted have any doubt at all about the security of the information on your machine then they do not know what they are doing.

There is software out there that can boot your machine from your CD drive, then backup everything that you have on your hard drive to an external HDD. They are able to take an image of the machine in the state that its currently in. That means that they can have an infinite number of attempts to repair it As any unsuccessful attempts result in your just restoring the image of the broken image.

The only problem is if the hard drive itself is damaged. Then your need specialist date recovery services that will cost big ££££. You DONT want anyone pissing around with the machine if the hard drive itself is damaged and you need the data.

PM me if you want, you can call me up on my mobile if need be.

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

Dammit, just saw your second post

Glad all is fine


You really DO need good backup options. External HDDs are good options. Plug them into to do the backup, then uplug and store them safely away somewhere. Its also advisable to have an offsite backup that is not far out of date (say once per week/month) if you are dealing with business data.

Lee247

Loomy
Glad to see you haven't changed, hope you are well
Thanks

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

Aye, some ppl never change. I am well thanks

Hope to see you at a TTS meet when the weather is better