Just new to it

[ifelloutofatree]

Just got my networking Diploma through Tafe in Queensland and haven't officially started "my own business" how scary is that? but getting more and more requests for help by the day. I feel such a noob, so many problems I've never heard of before. Not sure if I want to start my own business I've read so many techs hate the public because "they blame them if their budgie dies cause it was okay before you fixed my computer"

I'm helping a friend in the middle of Oz on Satellite, I tried to remote in with Team viewer but so painfully slow, (i'm completely wireless with skymesh 512 up and down) it was easier by email to do screen shots and explanations.

His machine keeps doing a checkdisk each boot - I've given him the instructions for chkntfs /x c: to stop the scanning but he says it doesn't work. He says he was installing zone alarm and the computer told him his drive was unreadable.

I suspect he's not entering it correctly and not following my instructions, can anyone recommend a good remote software application that isn't like pulling teeth..... so I can remote in -
thanks,
hummingbird

 

[purple_minion]

crossloop, ultravnc, tightvnc. Personally I haven't played too much with them, but crossloop might be easiest for you right now. Just have them download and install, and they can skip registration as you can too I believe. They just read you the code and you should be in.

For a business ultravnc with singleclick has my vote for easiest from the customers end, but again I haven't played much with it. I know with ultra you can install a video driver that speeds up the remote display, and perhaps you need to find something like that as well to help it along.

 

[l337]

ive actually found teamviewer one of the best. altho logmein will give you a free trial and you may find performance slightly better. ideally microsoft remote desktop is very good with slow connections but the average person wont be able to configure their routers and etc to get that working for you.

as for the problem at hand i think you seem to have the right idea with trying to disable chkdisk other then the command youve got there i really dont know. id probably try and run a hdd regen program thru the hdd just incase its a legit problem to be on the safe side but i can understand how its not possible remotely

 

[purple_minion]

ive actually found teamviewer one of the best. altho logmein will give you a free trial and you may find performance slightly better. ideally microsoft remote desktop is very good with slow connections but the average person wont be able to configure their routers and etc to get that working for you.

as for the problem at hand i think you seem to have the right idea with trying to disable chkdisk other then the command youve got there i really dont know. id probably try and run a hdd regen program thru the hdd just incase its a legit problem to be on the safe side but i can understand how its not possible remotely

I have had the endless chkdsk thingy before, can't remember how I fixed it.
REmember google is god.
http://www.allpostnews.co.uk/ii28/Endless chkdsk loop on startup.php
http://www.experts-exchange.com/OS/Microsoft_Operating_Systems/Windows/XP/Q_21779490.html
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/316506/en-us
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310353/EN-US/

If this was in person I'd say boot into UBCD4Win and run a chkdsk there. Or have them run their hard drive diagnostics, they'd have to download and burn a cd though. Are there any errors when chkdsk runs??? Anything in startup or the registry calling for it repeatedly?

 

[ifelloutofatree]

Purple - Thanks for the great links - interesting actually because I noted in msconfig that he had a Hewlett Packard listing at startup but as yet I don't know what - will look into that one - it could be the culprit ....

checkdisk never finishes to find out if there are errors it just freezes and wont advance - but as I mentioned previously he got a windows error message saying the drive was unreadable .

As for looking in the registry, my diploma never taught us how to play in there ..... it was a very broad dip. in networking ..... of course I play in my own registry but probably not yet in anyone elses and I wouldn't know what to look for

he's concerned about losing his only form of entertainment if the hard drive goes down (he is near Ayers Rock) and so he is reluctant to follow my suggestions for repairing it - but has decided to grab a laptop when he's next in the Alice and we will attempt to repair the desktop when he has the spare -

 

[ifelloutofatree]

HP was causing constant checkdisk

Purple Minion - unreal - checked up on the link to the microsoft article in one of your previous comments about the hewlett packard scanner and it WAS causing the constant checkdisk. I would never in a million years have thought to identify that as the culprit. I contacted the client and he unplugged the scanner and unchecked the HP notations in msconfig and voila!

On restart checkdisk did a full scan, repaired sectors etc, finished successfully and he has now done a defrag that took him several hours. He is really happy and I am very grateful for your great advice. thanks.....

 

[purple_minion]

I wouldn't have guessed it either, but thank god for google. Did you know that sometimes usb connected devices (self powered, like a printer say) can feed power back through the cord and keep the computer from powering down? One of the things found while googling, may come in handy some day when I'm on Win Ben Stein's Money.