So my Girlfriend goes into one of our computer fixer upper joints in town, she wants her system cleaned up and wishes for a backup disk, gets system back and can not get in,nor did she get backup disk as requested.Takes system back asking for her harddrive to be put back, now can not even connect with citytel. A few days later a friend of her gets what is supposed to be new harddrive installed he gets it home and can not get in but he has all my girlfriend’s programs on his system. She had all her banking on her system and important paper data. Yes they are both very pissed but her fear is how many other people may have her program as well. Can anyone come up with a solution as to how they can get everything back and what can they do to justify this kind of bullshit? This is very serious and she has already thought of legal action.
What shop 
??
Hint windows.
Gotcha
Any hints or suggestions to help us straighten this shit up or are we just in limbo? I know that someone has done some bad shit and this all amounts to big trouble for certain parties.
well I would take both computers to that old guy Rob and ask for a refund, then buy a Dell.
I would approach the computer repair facility and calmly relay your concerns directly to them. Perhaps they are unaware of the full nature of your problems. Maybe they’ll do something to help you.
Good luck. 
Thanks Hitests,we intend on a visit this afternoon and he has already been made aware of the situation they have put us in.
You’re welcome.
I hope you get this sorted out.
dell.ca 
they are selling nice new laptop’s, however id buy a macbook
I’m sorry to hear that this happened, i know how important it is for you to be the only one with your banking information, and pictures. Hope there were no pictures of things that were not suppose to be leaked out
Got the money back for repairs never done but problemstill out there maybe. Both parties went in to see about problem long story but no solution as of yet.
No goddam wonder people always act like I’m going to do that to them if they aren’t watching! Kick their butts!
My new tech fixed an older guys HP up for him the other day, the guy called because it wouldn’t go on the Net and his printer didn’t work. So I went to his house to discover it wouldn’t go on the Net cuz the network cable fell out. The little plastic tab broke off. The printer didn’t work because there were no chip drivers, no sound drivers, no display driver, no NIC driver in Device Manager. The old guy told me the Telus Guy told him it was his 1394 driver and call HP. The Guy From HP in India told him to remove this, remove that and finally tried a system restore. Completely fucked his computer.
So I took it back and made the tech SHUT OFF System Restore download ALL the drivers to CD and install them, reinstall over 90 XP updates, AVG and Firefox and make a new System Restore point called “Always Use This One”.
-NO EXTRA CHARGE.-
Then for some reason when the guy got it home it brought up the Telus hsia registration interface like it was a new NIc or something. I gave him the 310 TECH number, went there at 6:00 and discovered FUTURE FLOP sold him an HP all-in-one and a shiny gold plated $50 printer cable that was 10 ft long. HPs don’t like USB cables over 6 ft!!!
Eyyahhhh!!!
Then I had to uninstall the HP software and reboot (it gave you no choice) and reinstall it. It warned the “Express setup” took 25 minutes… HP is CRAP!!!
So I finally get to go at 7:15 and the guys says wait, and hands me 2 large all-meat pizzas that the pizza guy dropped off a couple minutes before.
“I ordered them for you. I really appreciate the help you’ve given me”
Made my day!
I wouldn’t blame the fs sales person, id blame the customer, most of the time and personally i have seen this customers want a long cable so they look for the longest one.
2 free pizzas WICKED!!
Yeah you’re probably right. Have you noticed that with the printer cable length yourself?
We spent a whole day cursing Vista in a lab only to discover the Canons they had just would not work with 10 ft cables. It was a fluke to discover, we’d hauled a comp and printer to the shop and it worked fine. Put it in the lab, no go. Then it clicked that the only thing different was the cable length. Zap… all 10 stations worked fine with the cables replaced…
I love old PCs and regularly use them. A good way to get rid of the sensitive data is to re-install over top of the existing OS. If your PC will still boot from the CD drive you can try this method.
Ubuntu Linux makes a good live CD which will run your computer from the CD drive. You can also use the CD to install Linux which if you choose will format your HD and remove Windows. Ubuntu will also set-up a dual boot with Windows. You can order free Ubuntu CDs here:
hi your comps are worth very little; it will cost you more to recycle them, there is nothing you have for hardware that’s worth anything, sorry to be so blunt, as Hitest said your comps still can have value, you could do the reinstall to wipe out all old data, but really just because you have a clean install does not mean people could not find your passwords to bank account there are a lot of free programs that will let you see what’s on a hard drive even if it’s been reformatted.
I would take out hard drives and grab yourself a drill and drill one hole into them. that’s the best way to destroy hard drives.
I would then donate the comps to the sally-Ann, I have done this before and some one will always come by and buy it.
Or again like Hitest said play with live Linux, that’s always fun and you will learn more about a different operating system.
So remember that just becouse you reformat your hard drive does not mean everything is gone its stilll there and with a few tools can be found …
True enough, Astro, a determined hacker will be able to see your data.
You can find some programs on the net to shred data on your HD. Also you can make it awkward for a hacker to access your data, you can remove the RAM from your unit. But, if you’re really worried about banking information destroying your HD will give you peace of mind.
Yeah I am back with another silly question,how does one know if they did get a NEW Hard Drive installed in their system after all the shit that went down?
when i worked at the ministry of health doing computer repairs and replacements we HAD to remove the hard drives and physically drill a 1/2" hole through the drive 3 times, it was mandatory, they didn’t care what we did with the parts machines etc etc, if you are worried or not caring about the drives, id drill a hole or so and then toss em. IF you don’t want the towers i know some one that might want the parts if it is free.
Yeah we’ve had hard drives replaced at work and when the guy comes to do it he has to drill them on the spot. He can’t even leave the office with them until he drills them.