NazcaC2
EGC Admin
- Total Posts : 7420
- Reward points : 0
- Joined: 2008/06/21 09:43:08
- Location: Niagara Falls, Ontario Canada
- Status: offline
- Ribbons : 38
As a computer technician and consultant, I work with computers on a daily basis fixing hardware and software issues with other tasks. My main goal is to avoid resorting to formatting regardless about how bad an issue is. Sometimes however, formatting is inevitable. My success rate is pretty high and when I finish a job, it's gratifying. I enjoy the problem solving and research to try to fix and optimize the PC or Mac to the best of my ability. Here is one of my stories. I'm putting it into point form for readability. - I got a call from a client at a business who uses the computer as a POS system that when turned on, they only see a black screen
- I arrive, turn it on and see the same as above; they previously had a bystander look at it and pointed out blown capacitors - I confirm that as being a problem (an older Dell with a Pentium D CPU with Vista Business Edition)
- Immediately, when I arrive to the shop, we attempt to image the HDD to another HDD; this process took about 24 hours; we check the HDD for errors, there weren't any but it was still definitely an issue
- We had a Dell Vostro 200 that had come in from another business for resale and we put the HDD in to test to see if it would boot up by chance - no go
- My colleague, less knowledgeable than I decides to install a fresh Vista Business on another HDD
- I look around on the imaged HDD to see if I could find their POS software and any clues - a lot of the files originated pre-2010
- We ask the client if they know what POS software they used, they don't have a clue - the previous user who setup their POS past away and didn't give them any information
- I knew that recovering an exact copy of the working drive before the issues was the most important option at that time
- Having worked with Acronis True Image, I was knowledgeable about its Universal Restore - I restored another system on dissimilar hardware like that previously successfully
- I took the imaged HDD and put it on one of our shop PC's and using a bootable version of Acronis, created a full backup (.TIB) and put that on another shop HDD attached
- Recovered the TIB backup onto another shop HDD using Universal Restore; near the end, it prompted for the Mass Storage Device driver but I skipped it and it finished successfully
- In case you're not familiar, performing a Universal Restore, purges all of the device drivers so it will boot on dissimilar hardware so it doesn't endlessly reboot or not boot at all
- I installed the recovered HDD (using another HDD than their iffy HDD) into the Vostro and it booted right up into the same OS state that they were used to
- When prompted, I installed the drivers from the Dell website for the Dell Vostro 200 successfully
- I ran a clean up of the OS since they had a few viruses, malware, etc. and optimized it considerably
- I brought it back to the business, connected the wires and asked the cashier to try it; it worked with their POS hardware immediately; it only needed to install the keyboard and mouse they were using but the drivers installed automatically
- SUCCESS! I was happy and they were happy.
This is one of my many success stories while in a crucial situation.
post edited by NazcaC2 - 2014/06/12 20:59:04
Intel i9-12900K ASUS Prime Z690-A Corsair 850W RM850x Windows 11 Professional Arctic Liquid Freezer II 360 A-RGB Corsair Dominator 32GB DDR5 5200MHz EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti FTW3 ULTRA GAMING 4x Samsung 2TB 980 Pro SSD + 1x ADATA 512GB SU800 Corsair iCUE 5000X RGB SIGNATURE SERIES Mid-Tower - Neon Night
|
James_L
CLASSIFIED Member
- Total Posts : 4336
- Reward points : 0
- Joined: 2009/07/29 12:27:56
- Status: offline
- Ribbons : 46
Re: Troubleshooting Success Stories
2014/06/12 20:53:01
(permalink)
 Nicely done.
|
NazcaC2
EGC Admin
- Total Posts : 7420
- Reward points : 0
- Joined: 2008/06/21 09:43:08
- Location: Niagara Falls, Ontario Canada
- Status: offline
- Ribbons : 38
Re: Troubleshooting Success Stories
2014/06/19 20:49:32
(permalink)
Thanks, James. Today, I had a similar issue but not as lengthy. To those who have a HDD or SSD with a working OS that has been diagnosed with bad sectors and will not image, I suggest the following: I'm going to keep it simple, if some of you would like a more elaborate guide, I can make one to backup and restore an image using Acronis True Image 2014 Premium. Today, I had a client's HDD that wouldn't image. I created a disk backup (.TIB) selecting the entire disk including all partitions using Acronis True Image 2014 Premium, storing the backup image on a separate HDD. Next, when the image completed, I replaced the bad HDD with the new HDD and restored the backup image to the new drive. I installed the restored HDD into the customer's machine and when it booted into Windows, it detected the new HDD, installed its drivers and prompted a reboot. Initially, the computer came in for other reasons (the user accidentally deleted a device driver, plus, they wanted an antivirus software solution installed).
Intel i9-12900K ASUS Prime Z690-A Corsair 850W RM850x Windows 11 Professional Arctic Liquid Freezer II 360 A-RGB Corsair Dominator 32GB DDR5 5200MHz EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti FTW3 ULTRA GAMING 4x Samsung 2TB 980 Pro SSD + 1x ADATA 512GB SU800 Corsair iCUE 5000X RGB SIGNATURE SERIES Mid-Tower - Neon Night
|
NazcaC2
EGC Admin
- Total Posts : 7420
- Reward points : 0
- Joined: 2008/06/21 09:43:08
- Location: Niagara Falls, Ontario Canada
- Status: offline
- Ribbons : 38
Re: Troubleshooting Success Stories
2018/05/21 13:10:35
(permalink)
Four years later, I'm updating this thread... You couldn't pay me enough to buy an AMD system. The hassle factor is high with the systems I troubleshoot. Why? Sometimes AMD can't even detect the device used (laptops especially). Often, when there's switchable graphics ("Switchable Graphics is a technology that utilizes both the graphical processing capabilities of a discrete graphics adapter and the power efficiency of an integrated graphics adapter"). AMD almost always falters. Intel and NVIDIA? Practically never. After AMD drivers were loaded with Windows 10, the laptop would stay on a blank screen for about three minutes, then proceed to the desktop. The problem? Almost always ULPS (Ultra Low Power State). Except, disabling it via registry this time didn't do anything this time. I had to use DDU and disable the device when it showed itself as Basic Display Adapter. Now, it works as it should without pesky AMD problems getting in the way. Edit: Windows 10 (and Windows 7) continued having issues after the AMD drivers were installed. I had to scrap the laptop.
post edited by NazcaC2 - 2018/06/12 11:52:33
Intel i9-12900K ASUS Prime Z690-A Corsair 850W RM850x Windows 11 Professional Arctic Liquid Freezer II 360 A-RGB Corsair Dominator 32GB DDR5 5200MHz EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti FTW3 ULTRA GAMING 4x Samsung 2TB 980 Pro SSD + 1x ADATA 512GB SU800 Corsair iCUE 5000X RGB SIGNATURE SERIES Mid-Tower - Neon Night
|
XrayMan
Insert Custom Title Here
- Total Posts : 73000
- Reward points : 0
- Joined: 2006/12/14 22:10:06
- Location: Santa Clarita, Ca.
- Status: offline
- Ribbons : 115
Re: Troubleshooting Success Stories
2018/05/21 21:32:03
(permalink)
Be careful. There's a few AMD fanboys around that will try, and debunk your views. ;)
My Affiliate Code: 8WEQVXMCJL Associate Code: VHKH33QN4W77V6A   
|
NazcaC2
EGC Admin
- Total Posts : 7420
- Reward points : 0
- Joined: 2008/06/21 09:43:08
- Location: Niagara Falls, Ontario Canada
- Status: offline
- Ribbons : 38
Re: Troubleshooting Success Stories
2018/05/22 04:47:51
(permalink)
Lol. If they dealt with what I deal with, they'd change their mind. 🤓🤠I ended up having to scrap that system above due to persistent AMD driver installations through Windows Update (even though I turned that off).
post edited by NazcaC2 - 2018/05/22 09:32:34
Intel i9-12900K ASUS Prime Z690-A Corsair 850W RM850x Windows 11 Professional Arctic Liquid Freezer II 360 A-RGB Corsair Dominator 32GB DDR5 5200MHz EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti FTW3 ULTRA GAMING 4x Samsung 2TB 980 Pro SSD + 1x ADATA 512GB SU800 Corsair iCUE 5000X RGB SIGNATURE SERIES Mid-Tower - Neon Night
|