What's so wrong with fromat/reinstall?

[l337]

Well Said RR.

 

[LunchBox]

At my old job one of the "SENIOR TECHS" said "Well, I saved you the time, I was was walking by and the user pull me aside. I worked on it but I have to tell you that in my experience you will have to re-install (re-image)"

I looked at him and said " okay are you sure?"

Even the user who knows the "SENIOR TECH" said to me, he said it needs to be re-installed.

I said why does he think it needs to be re-installed? This error is the equivalent of 2+2=4. I did my best to not insult or question the "SENIOR TECH'S" skills and knowledge.

I sad down, pulled out my windows XP CD pop it right in, went into the recovery console and extracted a couple of file (I can't remember exactly the problem).

Worked my magic and the user was up and running in no time. The user said "how did you fix that and why did the other guy who worked on it and said it had to be re-imaged" I told the user, "Well sir, he is the "SENIOR TECH" and that is because he has been working here for a few years. I started working on computers when he was worried at what would happen once he go into High School. (yes, I was very insulted by the user and my co-worker).

I went back to the office and the "NUMB NUTS" gave me that look like "you noob" and proceeded to ask and say "he is a team lead and needs to be up and running soon, the imaging should finish in about 15 minutes and you'll have to install a couple of apps.

I felt like really being an A** to him but was nice and said. What are you talking about the imaging should be done in 15 minutes? his response "I told you I looked at it and it can't fixed it needed to be re-imaged" I said "I asked you if you were sure about what you were saying. I see no point in re-imaging when the issue can be fixed in 3 minutes. He has been up and running already for some time.


The morale of this story is that there comes a time to nuke and pave. But skill, which comes with experience, time etc will always win in the long run.

Yes, nothing beat a freshly installed OS but in less time that it takes to re-install everything I can come pretty close.

What nuke and pave does is it removes the skill you can learn by thinking about the problem at hand, and fine tuning the troubleshooting skill.

 

[NYJimbo]

What nuke and pave does is it removes the skill you can learn by thinking about the problem at hand, and fine tunning the troubleshooting skill.

+1 I'm not going to go into all the back and forth on doing a N&P, but people here who defend it are most likely looking for an excuse to keep turning to it before they really should.

 

[Rodel]

no challenge.......last resource...God bless...

 

[studiot]

I think it is now a couple of years since I last had to do a Windows reinstall.

Windows has definitely got better in that respect. In the W95/98 days an annual (or other interval) reinstall was undoubtedly the most efficient maintenance technique.

But I think both sides of the argument are missing the point.

There seems to be a deal of discussion about the Tech's professional 'face'.

But nothing about the customer's best interests.

One of the reasons Studio T achieves a very high level of repeat business is because I put the customer's best interests first.

Yes it is professionally saddening to look at a system and say I could find out and fix the problem, but it would simply be cheaper to replace.

This has applied in the hardware field for a long time. So I often have to say I know the problem is that board, but a new board is cheaper than my time in diagnosing, let alone fixing. How much is a new NIC and who would suggest board or component level repair?

A final comment, Windows is an application. The official M$ troubleshooting technique for applications, drivers etc is guess what?

Reinstallation.

 

[mike_tech]

Another reason is it is thrown out as a solution to customers when they are usually mis-informed by the tech. Some customers do not realize that they will lose everything or that their computer contains so much. In the end, all of us get a bad name because someone really didn't know what they were doing or took the lazy way out.

This is so true!!!

A client of mine bought a new laptop about 2 weeks ago and had some powering on issues. He wanted me to have a look at it, but for the sake of voiding the warranty, I suggested that he contact the manufacture first.

His lappy had windows Vista and from what he told me they did no diagnostic tests at all! To make matters worse there final out come was to do a format to resolve the issue , (ha ha a reformat is going to fix a power supply issue, you numb nutz!!). No offence but he was probably talking to a call center in India, following a script.

Joking aside this really annoys me as a tech. To make matters worse they didn't even tell them to make a back-up of their data and what a format actually does to their machine.

They lost their entire important doc's and photo's due to the Idiocy of this companies support team.

How bad do I feel now!....

The computer was still playing up after the format, as I knew it would. But I managed to recover every bit of data back! With good old “OnTrack easy recovery”.

I did a secure delete of the hard drive and loaded the factory restore back on.

My client, was still not happy with me, but I explained that being under warranty, contacting the manufactures was the best option.

Any way, I contacted these people in regards to this situation they had left my client in, and I managed to get his laptop replaced to a better model! Not only that but I got them to throw in some extras! I gave them a proper ass kicking.

Now the client, always runs things by me first.

 

[studiot]

Pretty well all the big name manufacturers will return a PC or Laptop in 'Factory Restored' condition ie Windows n/p. this applies whether you send the machine to them under warranty or for subsequent repair.

Yes I had a customer whose Medion (under warranty) needed a new modem.

Guess what the Medion India solution was

Yup n/p by customer,
followed by
Return to Germany and a further n/p by Medion after replacing the modem.

And if that didn't do for the customer's data they offered to n/p again.

 

[gadz00ks1]

I think it depends on amount of time you are willing to troubleshoot an infection on a computer before you consider it a loss?

I enjoy the challenge of removing all the threats w/o a N/P and this is the first course of action I take when this come up, but you have decide at some point if you will make money or play cat and mouse with the latest stubborn infection.

As long as you have adequately exhausted your options to remove the problem in a timely manner there is nothing wrong with a N/P.

 

[topshelfpc]

If you know what your doing and use the right tools you can fix most problems for less and in less time than a wipe and reload.

Exactly what I was going to say. I agree completely with this!

 

[bagellad]

I think re installation has its place, Personally I pick whatever is best for the customer. If they are 100s of viruses and a small amount of stuff to back up, Then I can spend all day cleaning out stuff and testing, but it doesn't really make sense for either of us. Since the only way I can say for certain is a re install. Lots of issues are fixable but sometimes I find a customer is generally happier with a re install.

 

[dk99]

whats wrong with reformat

In my opinion Pizza Techs reformat. their are two reasons why I would reformat a hard drive 1) It is not repairable without 2) the customer asked me to.

 

[NeutronTech]

This is a pretty old thread, but why not. I can't tell you how many times a customer is amazed by the fact that I was able to fix their computer without wiping it out. Their reactions are like a kids on Christmas morning. I think this, more than anything else, gets them talking and referring more people to me.

 

[Xander]

I give them the worst case scenario in case, well, it is; that the data may be irretrievable and the hard drive may be toast. When I'm able to clone the drive and bring it back exactly as they left it, they're overjoyed.

It makes me look like Scotty on Star Trek.
"Nay, Cap'n. I dinnae think we can fix it."
"I had my crew working overnight on it, Cap'n. She's fixed."

 

[NeutronTech]

The area I live in has had tons of techs come and go. There are still a lot of pizza techs. People here have never heard of taking a computer in to be fixed and not losing data. Most don't even know it is possible. They just assume that when the computer needs fixed, that means they are going to lose everything. That is one reason why people hesitate bringing their computers in to be fixed at all. That is, until their viruses have gotten so bad they have lost everything anyways.

I had a guy the other day come in. He had gone to a guy working out of his house to get a power switch fixed on his laptop. This guy has been in business for a few years and has yellow page ads as well. So, he's not the true definition of a pizza tech.

Anyways, while the guy was there with his laptop, he asked him to take a look at it and do a tune up to speed it up. He got it back wiped clean and had to then reinstall everything. He was not happy about this. It's blue screening now, that's why he came in here to see me.

What in the world would make someone n&p a machine for a "tuneup"?

 

[usacvlr]

The majority of my customers want the system wiped and reloaded. The number of people who even KNOW how to customize anything is very low and therefore they don't care. That being said I just remove the viruses etc in most cases unless I can tell it's going to take too long.

Most people just want their music and pictures backed up and they have no other settings. They use webmail for email so beyond that the only thing they may be missing is ms office which I reinstall if necessary after first extracting the product keys from the system.

 

[iisjman07]

I give them the worst case scenario in case, well, it is; that the data may be irretrievable and the hard drive may be toast. When I'm able to clone the drive and bring it back exactly as they left it, they're overjoyed.

It makes me look like Scotty on Star Trek.
"Nay, Cap'n. I dinnae think we can fix it."
"I had my crew working overnight on it, Cap'n. She's fixed."

LOL, loved that post.

Most of my customers are happy if their pictures are safe; they don't care about the machines at all (which is also evident from the terrible condition they're in)

 

[Ccomp5950]

I avoid N&P unless that's what I'm told to do, or I've made the customer aware the problem is dire otherwise and they approve.

I'm hard headed and will bang my head up against a wall before I'll give up chasing a virus down, though lately they've just gotten easier and easier to remove.

Find the problem causing the system to be unusable "YOU'VE GOT VIRUSES, NOTEPAD.EXE IS A VIRUS, PAY ME" variants and then let the regular scanners do their thing so that when they get home and run scanners no traces show up to confuse them.

 

[Martyn]

In my opinion Pizza Techs reformat. their are two reasons why I would reformat a hard drive 1) It is not repairable without 2) the customer asked me to.

and it should be 3) when it makes (business) sense.

 

[joydivision]

It depends on the customer most only use them for basic stuff and the don't even have any customised settings. You will be amazed how many people have the default backgrounds on.

I have have nothing against formatting if it is the best solution to the customer but it is a judgement call.

Those that never N&P can you be 100% certain the system is still clean?

 

[meanderer]

depending on what the computer is used for....
people where I work mostly use computer as a online replacement for TV. So really, just backup their pics and N/P. Put that pics back and they are infinitely grateful.

nothing's wrong if used judiciously.