COMPUTER RESCUE SVC

unknown

I dropped it off in the afternoon. The next day on my lunch break, I called for an update. He had ruled out the fan being the issue, as it was clean and running fine. Because it was an intermittent issue, he hadn't been able to recreate the problem, but was running scans and checks on the software functions of my computer, as errors within that area would give similar symptoms that I had described. He asked why I did not allow the computer to automatically update itself on antivirus, spyware, and Windows like it was originally set up to do. I explained that with the internet connection at home, it was very difficult to do there, and I manually updated it at the library once a week or so. He said he would update things for me, and told me he would add another antivirus program to it, as the one Windows provides is usually insufficient coverage for a laptop. This, I knew, and I asked which one he would put on. Most cost more money, and the laptop itself wasn't worth much. His first one listed was one I'd used previously on another computer and was free, so I gave the go ahead for that one. The next day, when I called for another update, he said it was ready to be picked up. When I arrived to do so, he explained very simply everything he had updated and checked, what all needed patching or reinstalling, and that he'd done the annoying registration for the antivirus himself so I didn't have to. I thanked him, assuming that with such things fixed, the problem must be gone! It had received treatment, right? Within forty-five minutes of having it up and running at home, it had crashed again. I restarted it a few times, none of the running periods between crashes over two hours long. The next morning, I brought it back, again explaining what the screens had said when it crashed. He nodded and said he'd check a few more things out, defragment it and a couple other things. Again, I called to check in the next day, picked it up, and went home. Again, it crashed multiple times. This time, I grabbed a notepad and wrote everything verbatim from the different error screens. If he couldn't recreate the problem, surely he could look up the error codes! This time, though, a new error came up that suggested in its problems that it was possible new software had been improperly installed. I attempted to use a recovery point (quite common fixes for buggy Windows updates.) It informed me that no recovery point had been created. Now, basic tech protocol is to create a recovery point as soon as the tech gets the computer up and running before they fix it if it comes in with blue screen errors. This is in case the tech installs something improperly or if whatever they use to attempt to fix it instead makes the problem worse. It makes it so they don't have to start from square one if this happens, like a checkpoint in a video game. Not finding a recovery point was a giant clue that this tech was self-trained and had never worked for a professional computer repair center but his own. This time, he checked the physical connections within the hardware and checked out the hard drive. If it was the hard drive, he would try to recover my pictures and documents and music to a disc or flash drive, so they wouldn't be lost. Upon the check-in phone call, I was informed it was the hard drive and that it was broken in such a way that made data recovery very difficult. He could send it in to a data recovery center, but that, quite frankly, that would cost three times as much as the laptop originally did. The only good to come out of the situation was that I now knew my computer would be an expensive fix, and it took me over a week longer than it should have. The communication between myself and the technician was smooth, and he was very patient in explaining things in layman's terms. His pricing was excellent for computer repair; not too cheap, but one flat rate until the computer was fixed. Each successive time I brought it in didn't cost me anything. I paid $60.00 and that was all. However, his service was much below par, as he didn't successfully diagnose my computer before "treating it" twice. I will not be going back.