"WHAT did you DO, Ray?!"

[Dreamstalker]

A tale of auto-updates, vanishing data and "what the hell happened"...

A friend called me a few weeks ago after a Windows auto-update crashed her computer; unbeknownst to me, the admin password had been changed from what I set it to, nobody knew what it was and so I had to talk her through resetting it (which I managed to do successfully) and do a system restore to a point before the update. Not knowing precisely what happened, I walked her through disabling auto-updates until I would be able to get a look at things.

Tonight, she applied an "update" that somehow wiped the hard drive

She says (and of course I'm 100 miles away so have no way to verify it for myself) that everything was deleted. I can't get my hands on the hard drive myself to investigate as she's taken it to a local person (I had no idea there was a repair shop in her neck of the woods). I'm suspecting a virus if the result reporting is accurate, but how could a virus get into the update server (and if it wasn't a virus, could a Windows update hose things that badly)? Adding to the shakiness of an update being the culprit is that her computer has the same OS as my mom's desktop, and I've updated her computer with no issues. I suspect something was fiddled with that shouldn't have been (but what and how?).

Holy crap. I get back from vacation to find out about that...well, at least all the computers I'm directly responsible for are still running.

[otakuneko]

Don't recall a legitimate windows update nuking a drive. Hosing an installation, sure, which might appear to a novice user the same as a wipe.

I suspect other malware at work, though these days malware is rarely so destructive, the type still exists. The malware writers are usually more interested in keeping your system alive to use as a bot.

[Dreamstalker]

Yup, we're discussing a quite novice user here. She has antivirus installed, but doesn't use it. Based on what I can gather, I'm leaning toward something that would cause her to freak out but would be a relatively simple fix (such as the OS-hosing, I've dealt with that before).

She still uses AOHell's software "suite", which as I've witnessed will cause bizarre things to happen.

What I'm worried about is that the guy she took it to might muck things up more...well, we'll see if I get a call.

[Hyndis]

Sounds like just OS troubles. Since we're talking about a user who doesn't know much, if anything, about computers, you're getting bad information.

Its probably a simple issue that can be easily fixed with even basic knowledge, but as most people refuse to educate themselves about it, the repair shop will keep on doing business.

[Dreamstalker]

Yup. I probably charge half of what a repair place in that neck of the woods would (and have more knowledge to boot). Well, we shall see what results from her taking it in, and what the ID10T tax turns out to be if I get to clean up a bigger mess.

I did have her get an external HDD when she bought the computer, but I suspect that even with tutorials, written reminders and walkthroughs, it was never used.

[Hyndis]

Its not like computers are particularly difficult to learn either. Its just that there is a segment of the population that simply refuses to learn about it, then they complain about their helplessness with computers or try to rely on others to do everything for them.

My mother is one such person.

[Dreamstalker]

My mom also used to be that way (she still uses the desktop just for email, internet and downloading/printing knitting patterns), but when I went off to college she decided to learn simple fixes on her own. She knows enough to not even try opening the computer up though; if something inside fails, that's my domain.

This friend...recipe for disaster here. "Deleted" from her could mean that only the shortcuts are gone, but if she says "everything's deleted" to the self-proclaimed tech down the road, Bad Things could happen.

[valhar2000]

Don't forget about failing hardware. A failing harddrive can give you deleted MBRs, corrupted system files and random freezes long before it finally stops working. Even a bad PSU can cause all kinds of trouble (if I had a nickel for every PSU swap that resulted in a stable system...).

[Dreamstalker]

The POS in question is a Compaq...probably about 3 years old at this point. Compaq stock PSUs are notorious on one of my techie forums for sucking. I've already had to replace the RAM once, and who knows what the "techie" in the house did to it since then. The location it's in has zero airflow especially in warm weather, so there also could be an environmental cause.

Of course, knowing fark-all of what actually happened...can't do anything now. Hopefully I can use this as an opportunity to impress upon her the importance of backups...but knowing my luck she'd expect me to maintain it.

[Pedersen]

That's when you offer to have her buy a tape library system (which will hold, at least, 30 tapes and 2 tape drives), the drives, the tapes themselves, and the software to power it all. Once that's in, she pays you to do the installation, and you install it so that it's in a set it and forget it mode of operation.

Once all that's done, you charge per service call and/or for continued monitoring of the system (if she wants that, just have it email you reports daily).

She'll drop having you maintain it like a hot potato

[BaristaTrav]

I'll bet you it's a registry error and all her precious data is just fine.

[valhar2000]

I'll bet you it's a registry error and all her precious data is just fine.

Yeah, that is exactly the kind of thing that has happened to me when my boot drive is starting to fail. You can recover from a lot of these errors, but when it happens you know its time to check out prices for a new one.

[Hyndis]

Yeah, that is exactly the kind of thing that has happened to me when my boot drive is starting to fail. You can recover from a lot of these errors, but when it happens you know its time to check out prices for a new one.

It could also be a rather mundane windows registry error, the kind that happens all too often but doesn't harm any data. Usually just a single corrupted file that happens to also be important.

However, if the person thinks that all of their data has been wiped out and they go tell that to the tech, the tech will probably just reformat and reinstall. Easiest and quickest to do if there's no data to recover.

Thus, ignorance and miscommunication will destroy the data, not the actual software error.

[Dreamstalker]

Another person we know (not the same location as the one in the OP) had pretty much just that happen--boot sector corruption, I could fix it but it would require taking temporary ownership of the drive as my place is better set up to deal with that kind of thing.

Him: "Oh no, I'll just take it to [yellow tag]. The local guy here doesn't know what's wrong with it."
Me: (um...a technician who doesn't know how to google error codes?) "You know they're going to charge $50 just to look at it, maybe more as this thing is way out of warranty, and what happens if they muck something up?"
Him: "This is more convenient."
Me: (you can't use your rig anyway, so...) "I can have it done by next week, and charge a lot less."
Him: "I don't have a lot of money to spend on getting this fixed..."
Me: "That's why I'm offering my services. Yellow Tag will charge a lot more than I, and they won't accept food or coffee. I will."

So far, 3 weeks and he hasn't heard anything about the hard drive (if he even took it in).

[ano]

"WHAT did you DO, Ray?!"

"I crossed the streams...."