We’ve all had it happen. The deadline is in a
few days or a few hours. You leave the computer on while
you go eat some dinner or catch a little rest before putting
the final touches on the report. You come back and your
computer is ‘frozen’ or it’s showing you
a blank screen. You try everything, you re-boot –
nothing happens. You call a friend who knows ‘everything’
about computers and he can’t help. What do you
do?
1. BEFORE this happens make sure you have an “emergency
boot disk”. This little floppy disk can save your
butt! When your computer ‘crashes’ it may
be the result of a bad spot on your hard drive. All
your data is OK, but part of the Operating System may be bad.
By using a ‘boot disk’ you can use your computer
to fix itself! Here’s the link for the complete
step-by-step details on creating your Emergency Boot Disk:
http://www.pchell.com/tensteps/step2.html
2. Now re-boot your computer with
your boot disk in the floppy drive. If you can get into
Windows, use Norton or other repair programs to fix any problems
it uncovers. Now re-boot without the disk and you should
be back in business.
3. If after using your boot disk,
you still can’t get into your computer, your hard drive
is beyond repair and will likely need to be replaced.
Contact RIMO Bali Computer Center in Denpasar or Mega Systems
in Ubud and see if they can help you.
For other, less critical problems, here’s where you
should go before you call in the experts or take your whole
computer in: http://www.pcguide.com/ this is a very
comprehensive and well put together site (Plenty of warning
that you MUST read before doing anything).
Of course to use the site your computer must be working a
little. If you are stuck in step3 above, then you must
either use another computer to go to the web site, call a
friend and ask him or her to go to the web site, or got to
an internet café and do it. The easiest thing
to do is take your computer into an expert. RIMO Bali
Computer Center in Denpasar or Mega Systems in Ubud are two
such places that can help.
Additionally you can check these sites to have other (less
pressing) questions answered:
Data Doctors at: http://www.computerproblems.com/
Free Answers at: http://www.freeanswers.com/ you ask you question
in plain English!
Windows Annoyances at: http://www.annoyances.org/ covers how
to fix small irritants or major problems! You can even
post a message and get an email when it is answered!
