How to stop streching pages

madelaine · 19 May 2008 at 9:22PM

Hi

We have just got pc back, after being in for repair, Luckily it was covered by pc performance agreement, so no financial cost, but we have lost all our saved documents and pictures. I know nothing can be done about those, but very upsetting losing all your personal stuff. Wish that i had backed them all up.

We have had a new power supply -Dvd and Cd drives, replaced remastered and soak tested, whatever that means.

Could someone please tell me, what i need to do regarding pages streching, probably something simple, but i am a bit of a numpty with regards to pc.

Thanks

bat999 · 19 May 2008 at 9:35PM

Hi
I don't understand what you mean.
Is it the tops and bottoms of the picture that are missing off the screen?

DatabaseError · 19 May 2008 at 9:41PM

all pages looking stretched, perhaps the resolution of your monitor is set wrong, maybe the guy who fixed your pc has a widescreen, set the pc up on that, forgot to reset for you.
XP - right click desktop, properties, settings, change the screen resolution, 1024x768 may be ok

CHR15 · 19 May 2008 at 10:16PM

Sounds like they screwed over your personal data for no reason whatsoever.

from that description, there was nothing wrong with the Hard Drive at all.

If you have only just got it back there is a chance of being able to recover some of your data.

I have no idea what you mean by stretching pages either. Could you describe it in another way?

madelaine · 19 May 2008 at 10:23PM

Hi, thanks for the replies, it was the monitor resolutions, back to normal now, thanks very much,

Chris interested in what you said about might being able to recover some of our personal stuff, if you an give me any ideas what we would need to do, would be very grateful.

Thanks

Mozart321 · 19 May 2008 at 10:59PM

madelaine wrote: »

Hi, thanks for the replies, it was the monitor resolutions, back to normal now, thanks very much,

Chris interested in what you said about might being able to recover some of our personal stuff, if you an give me any ideas what we would need to do, would be very grateful.

Thanks

You need to search for a free UNDELETE program - not a trial version, a genuinely free one - does anyone know if one exists?
However, don't create any more documents or moving anything about on your PC-everything you could do could write over the sectors with your pics & docs on.

madelaine · 20 May 2008 at 9:47AM

Hi thanks for repliies, din't realise lost data could be recovered.

Been on to PC world about this, we have a performance agreement, repairs get carried out in the home usually after being diagnosed by Tecnician, original problem pc overheating and switching itself off.

Problem been ongoing over a Month, originally diagnosed either Motherboard or power supply, or both.

Engineers first visit, changed motherboard, still had problem second visit new fan fitted, We still had the problem, was told pc would have to go in for repair, picked up Wednesday returned yesterday, was happy with the service till i realised thy had lost our personal data, didn't realise it could be recovered.

Phoned Pc World this morning to complain about them losing the data,told them i had been on a tecnical forum,and had been told they shouldn't have lost our data, he said we should have been advised to back up data, and told me the pc had been reset to original factory settings, i asked why this was done, couldn't give me a reason, said to read my agreement which stated they couldn't be held responsible for lost data.

Have read the agreement it states, We recommend that you back up data regularly. as we can't guarantee to restore data if your machine needs repairs.

Have been on to Consumer Direct about this, they have advised me to write stating , section 13 of the supply of good, and services act, which is reasonable care and skill should be carried out by a competant trader while carrying out a repair. Also they said they should have informed me, to back up data knowing the machine was going in for repair, I have to get an estimate off a qualified tecnician to carry out recovery of our lost data.

does anyone have any idea how much this repair would cost.

Thanks

CHR15 · 20 May 2008 at 11:49AM

Remember the more you use the PC the less data will be recoverable.

I hope you are using another machine. the more you use it, the more New data will overwrite the old stuff.

I have used lots of recovery tools in the past with lots of success. Most of the free versions (or trial versions) will find loads, but only allow you to recover a small portion.

I have no idea how much it would be to pay someone to recover data, a bit like "how long is a piece of string?". A major company could pay thousands if their data is critical.

You may be best off asking in a local PC Shop. They would take out your hard drive and use another machine to recover the data. It isn't difficult but does require a bit of geekiness.

PC World are renown for that. They don't employ IT engineers so the fault finding is fairly limited. A reformat and return to Factory settings is one of their first lines of repair.

I agree they should make it quite plain that they will overwrite all your data if you return it for repair.

Your problem as detailed above shows there was no reason to reformat at all (perhaps part of their handy Health check to make sure everything is Tip Top).

wendy05 · 20 May 2008 at 7:33PM

madelaine wrote: »

Hi thanks for repliies, din't realise lost data could be recovered.

Been on to PC world about this, we have a performance agreement, repairs get carried out in the home usually after being diagnosed by Tecnician, original problem pc overheating and switching itself off.

Problem been ongoing over a Month, originally diagnosed either Motherboard or power supply, or both.

Engineers first visit, changed motherboard, still had problem second visit new fan fitted, We still had the problem, was told pc would have to go in for repair, picked up Wednesday returned yesterday, was happy with the service till i realised thy had lost our personal data, didn't realise it could be recovered.

Phoned Pc World this morning to complain about them losing the data,told them i had been on a tecnical forum,and had been told they shouldn't have lost our data, he said we should have been advised to back up data, and told me the pc had been reset to original factory settings, i asked why this was done, couldn't give me a reason, said to read my agreement which stated they couldn't be held responsible for lost data.

Have read the agreement it states, We recommend that you back up data regularly. as we can't guarantee to restore data if your machine needs repairs.

Have been on to Consumer Direct about this, they have advised me to write stating , section 13 of the supply of good, and services act, which is reasonable care and skill should be carried out by a competant trader while carrying out a repair. Also they said they should have informed me, to back up data knowing the machine was going in for repair, I have to get an estimate off a qualified tecnician to carry out recovery of our lost data.

does anyone have any idea how much this repair would cost.

Thanks

there are programmes that will recover from the hard drive but if they have overwritten the hardrive that is done a reinstall then getting that data back would be difficult .. getting a 'technician' is an expensive job.

what did they do exactly to lose your data - ie was it a reinstall of windows etc?

madelaine · 20 May 2008 at 9:27PM

wendy05 wrote: »

there are programmes that will recover from the hard drive but if they have overwritten the hardrive that is done a reinstall then getting that data back would be difficult .. getting a 'technician' is an expensive job.

what did they do exactly to lose your data - ie was it a reinstall of windows etc?

To be honest don't know how they lost the data, i presume by resetting it to factory settings, We do keep getting the message you need to activate windows, we followed the link and found the numbers it asked for, but if failed to work, have tried to phone up but not had any luck so far to speak to a real person. Will try again tomorrow, they also installed a cd rewriter, we didn't have one on the machine before,so why they did this i don't know.

Chr15 I will do as you suggest and try and get a quote from a local PC repair shop, unfortunately we only have the one PC so are still using it, but haven't reinstalled all the things that where previously on PC yet and are trying not to visit too many Sites. Thank you very much for your help.

CHR15 · 20 May 2008 at 9:59PM

They would have fitted a DVD Rewriter as they cost peanuts these days (and probably make you think you have a great free upgrade)

This one costs £16.20 so makes it hardly worth replacing like for like.

Do as little as possible on your PC, remember, the more you do the less data can be recovered.

Don't install anything!! until it has been looked at by a competant nerdy IT Geek.

How to stop streching pages

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