Very long post ease my mind for me please

No3ntry · 23 Feb 2006 at 19:21

First off very sorry for the long post but here goes

I was handed a laptop in work by my boss last week as he knows that i know about computers

said can you have a look at it

it is an old crap thing that is running windows 98 and wouldnt boot it brought up an error message about missing files

so i thought i would run a scan disk which found a billion corrupted files and does what it normally does and renamed then deleted them

i then ran a surface scan which brought up no errors at all
the tried to reinstal windows and got some kind of error message so i rang our IT department and asked them what it meant they said they didnt know and send it down to them (another offic many miles away) so before is ent it off i went into the bios and it had a virus protect thing on I turned it off and it let me install windows
so i reinstalled windows 98 (in a different directory windows.000)

so effectivly all i have done here is scan disk and instal windows along side the old one

so i had a quick look round and realised about 70% of the old files were missing and decided best to send it to head office to let them sort it out as they had the diagnostic software that needed reinstalling on it that had been lost

anyway i have been chasing them up all week to find out what is happening with it they kept telling me that they needed to have a word with Peter (head of department i think)

rang them today and they said peter has spoken to ken (my bosses boss) and is waiting for an answer
so i rang ken who said he knew nothing about it
rang It back and they actually put me through to Peter

told him what Ken had said and that ken was off on holiday so speak to his boss instead

Peter says I have spoken to Ken about it and I am waiting for him to answer me

yeh but he is on holiday he said ring his boss

then Peter says you have knakcered this one anyway
I said why
he says you should have sent it down here to let us look
at it you have installed windows again and lost all the data we could have recovered it

i said that my boss had asked me to have a look at it so i did he then said yes but we said send it here and dont touch it

i said right i have installed the new windows in a new directory so it wont affect the old one

he then said you shouldnt have run scandisk that has knackered it all up i said i had already run scandisk when i rang you up about it

I dont think I have done anything wrong

why do we have an IT department
(well its fairly obvious why) i thought i would have a look to save having to send it off to you and wait for it
in future leav the IT to us will you and do as you are told

I do know that the laptop is knackered and they need to replace it I was told this earlier in the week

so obviously some hardware is knackered

so my points are

1 - They are replacing it so hardware is knackered which i defo didnt cause
2 - I only ran scandisk and installed windows in a new directory

so either 1 or 2 things here Peter is being a dick or I am a knob and broke the lappy
Maybe hsi problem is that he deals with people all day that know NOTHING about how a pc works and assumes all people to be the same now whilst i am not a PC god i do know how to install and tweak pcs have been building them for about 6 or 7 years for myself and a few friends and have yet to come across any serious problem that i could not rectify

apologies again for the long post but you need the full tory i feel to make a judgement

.Lethal · 23 Feb 2006 at 20:47

so ....scandisk brakes laptops.

Man, so much your IT department has taught me today

4T5 · 23 Feb 2006 at 21:00

Did you Switch it Off then On again.

Taxi.

Sanzy · 23 Feb 2006 at 22:15

hmmmm i wonder if those words are naughty word on this forum

gamesaregood · 23 Feb 2006 at 22:17

malc30 said:
Did you Switch it Off then On again.

Taxi.

LOL

Was it plugged in?

I do think though that it sounds like the files were already currupt by something before the laptop was given to you.

Virus / Dead Hard Drive?

AWPC · 23 Feb 2006 at 22:34

If you run scandisk and the files were already corrupt then it could make it worse on FAT32.

However, you have a get out of jail free card.

Unless it is disabled in the registry W98 automatically tries to run scandisk when you restart if their is a hardware issue affecting the HD!

Another thing is unless the HD was re-partioned (I doubt it was from what you have said) it is possible to recover some of the lost data.

maddad68 · 23 Feb 2006 at 22:56

So who was ken's boss again ?

Tell peter to get screwed and send him some email bomb's ...Better still join a few gay forums using his email address

Hope this put's your mind at ease

Steves_pc · 23 Feb 2006 at 23:25

I love IT deptartment's

In particular, a mate who works in London has an IT dept full of twonks
they've supposedly got all sorts on the network to stop internet access
via filters/firerwalls etc yet matey still reads THFC home page half the day along with checking his emails etc.... personally i reckon both my mate and You know nearly as much as half your IT dept's staff do.

For those who have Good IT staff your just lucky, they aint all bad thankfully

stvmor · 24 Feb 2006 at 00:58

Had the same problems with 'lost' windows system files on a couple of work stations. Turned out to be a wally trying to 'help' by using a 'diagnostics' package he got off the internet. Of course the source of this package was german and the translation read something like 'please load these .exe files onto somebody's work station and run them. Thank you for your cooperation in spreading our Trojans and virus's on your network. Oh! this will also destroy all data on the hard drive"!

No3ntry · 24 Feb 2006 at 01:14

Well i dont think the IT department are that bad its just that he had a bee in his bonnet about something (maybe noob users destroying pcs with silly problems often i dont know as our head office is 120 miles away)

I do remember walking in one morning to find my boss updating my PC with windows ME :eek:

and it had to be sent to head office It depo to get sorted out as it wouldnt boot after that
Peter was annoyed at that i seem to remember similar sort of speech that i got off him today actually

Energize · 24 Feb 2006 at 03:29

They can still recover the missing files. Pretty much any I.T. department would have professional recovery software, if not a free program.

lordedmond · 24 Feb 2006 at 08:11

its called making your department look important

we are IT and every body that is not in IT knows nothing about IT, we are the dogs you lot are just users

jpmonkey69 · 24 Feb 2006 at 12:57

lordedmond said:
its called making your department look important

we are IT and every body that is not in IT knows nothing about IT, we are the dogs you lot are just users

No, its about making sure things get done properly as opposed to some half arsed attempt to repair the laptop which ends up costing the IT department time and resources. I'd have had the disk out of the laptop and replaced with a new one, reinstalled W98 onto it and then used an IDE -> USB converter to plug the old disk into the laptop and copy off any data. (or into my PC to burn off cds)

I work in the IT department, and I don't try to sell my companies product to customers... I leave THAT to the sales guys... After all, isn't that what they're there for in the first place!?