What happens when you go take your computer to a shop to be fixed?

clarksonwayne

Lets say you get a virus or windows crashes and you don’t have the OS CD so you take it to an engineer. He then restores your PC to factory settings, but what does he use for this and what about the license number?

closed

He would use either the restore to factory condition function built into many new systems, or any equivalent operating system disk, with your serial number from the sticker supplied with your machine.

In many cases, a good engineer would be able to fix it without resorting to a reinstall.

Strider590

closed wrote: »

In many cases, a good engineer would be able to fix it without resorting to a reinstall.

Agreed, too many of these "wipe everything cowboys" about.

clarksonwayne

Thanks for the replys.

I often send people off to get their PC's fixed and wanted a better understanding, i often come across viruses that stop the system restore. What is a pc engineer likely to do if the computer doesnt have its serial number anymore.

Strider590

clarksonwayne wrote: »

Thanks for the replys.

I often send people off to get their PC's fixed and wanted a better understanding, i often come across viruses that stop the system restore. What is a pc engineer likely to do if the computer doesnt have its serial number anymore.

If he knows what he's doing he'll extract the license key from the registry, which can be done even if the PC won't boot into windows by using the drive in an external HDD caddy (provided the boot sector is OK).

If he doesn't he'll either install a VLK copy of Windows (volume license key), which is a bit naughty to be honest, OR he'll use a non valid license key and let the customer deal with the windows update problems.

Laz123

The engineer may also do this http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/262978/exposed-the-pc-repair-shops-that-rifle-through-your-photos-and-passwords

enigma52

nothing as sinister as that, just take a copy of wpa.dbl and put on new install as long as no hardware upgrades have taken place it bypasses windows activasion.

Redmikee

Laz123 wrote: »

The engineer may also do this http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/262978/exposed-the-pc-repair-shops-that-rifle-through-your-photos-and-passwords

Why are we suprised that repair shops snoop through your personal files?Isn't that the way Gary Glitter got caught? I don't condone anything of that nature but if we say say ''well done, you've caught a !!!!!phile'' it gives people carte blanche to look at whatever they like.

Mike

Taffybiker

Redmikee wrote: »

Why are we suprised that repair shops snoop through your personal files?Isn't that the way Gary Glitter got caught? I don't condone anything of that nature but if we say say ''well done, you've caught a !!!!!phile'' it gives people carte blanche to look at whatever they like.

Mike

By the same token a company processing film photos will look through each one and check the quality; and report any illegal pics. Personally, I think it's reassuring.

Redmikee

Taffybiker wrote: »

By the same token a company processing film photos will look through each one and check the quality; and report any illegal pics. Personally, I think it's reassuring.

It's hard not to agree with you about the Gary Glitter and similar cases but would you be happy if repairers thought ''while i am looking at this computer I will just check this guys accounts to make sure he is paying his taxes properly''
Would you be ok if someone doing repairs in your house thought ''Oh look the family photo album, I really must make sure there is nothing dodgy in there''
My point is unless repairers find a folder called 'illegal pictures' or 'dont show the taxman' why do they have a right to snoop?

Mike

Pssst

There was a featurette in a newspaper a couple of weeks back. Trading standards submitted a number of pc's and laptops for repair at various places. They also installed covert tracking software. The machines were examined on return and the software indicated that repair staff had browsed and copied personal info in several cases whilst laso charging for un-necessary repairs..£££££

In one instance, a repair person copied several images of family holiday pics onto an external usb stick,,presumably they were bikini shots or similar??