IT Help, Please

[valda]

so I need opinions, should I stick to Widows 7 or go Windows 8? vx

[blazed]

so I need opinions, should I stick to Windows 7 or go Windows 8? vx

It's generally an opinion of choice, windows 8 isn't a ground breaking change as it would be from XP going onto Windows 7.

Check out the features for windows 8 and see if you like any of them, I personally think it's a operating system for a touch screen, and I hate it windows tries to fix things that arent broken.
Even with windows 7 I reverted back a lot of the things to XP styles, as it was just better for my workflow.

[valda]

hmm they now want me to p*y £100 excess in advance, then some company come and colletc the broken laptop and try to fix it. If they can't, I get the £100 back, which is deducted off a voucher for the new one. My big problem is, if they can't fix it, they will only send the hard drive back, if I p*y £35.00, which to me is rather a lot, and a bit of a cheek.

I now have to decide whether to go ahead with the claim, bearing in mind, I''ll only get about £250 max, to go towards a new laptop, or cancel it, and destroy the HD myself

[steve9872]

I think its repairable by replacing the hard drive and simply reinstalling windows and then all your programs. It may be possible to transfer the My Documents folder from the old hard drive.
Having been through this process myself you should specify the following.

Any yellow exclaimation marks in Device Manager means the restore has failed and you cannot accept the machine as fixed.

Its possible that they may simply install windows and not bother checking if things like the network adapters are working or specific motherboard drivers are installed. The above statement will force them to check and download such drivers from the manufacturer site. You can check that they've done it right by RIGHT clicking on any icon of My Computer and selecting Manage from the menu. In the window that opens you will find device manager. Any yellow exclaimation marks will open automatically.
Its probably a good idea to insist they make sure windows is FULLY up to date so that you're not being bothered by 140 plus updates yourself before you can use it.

[newdot]

What do you use your laptop for ?

If it is browsing internet / simple office tasks etc, you don't actually need your hard drive at all.

b*y a cheap usb memory stick (8 gb is more than enough), and put a persistent copy of a linux os on it (Linux Mint is very good for those used to windows). Stick costs a tenner, at most & the os is free.

[valda]

Well I decided to used the re installation disk on the laptop last night. So there are no personal details on it. If the replace the HD I'll just sell the laptop to my mate, as I was going to to in the first place. If they decide not to repair, they can dispose of the whole thing and give me the voucher for a new one. Thanks for all the advice, but I'm not that savvy to open up and replace stuff myself

[valda]

I got the laptop back today, all fixed up, new hard drive, DVD drive and batteries.

Question, I have the whole thing backed up on my Iomega drive, but I've no idea who to restore it all

Is there an easy way to do this please?

[steve9872]

You need to plug in your drive and find the documents folder. Its usually c:\documents and settings\{username}\My Documents and copy its contents to your new documents folder. There are a few other folders you can copy over also from the same place, My Pictures, My Music and My Videos, and possibly a few others but they'll have to go into a corresponding folder.
You will likely need to install all your programs again - a look at the program files folder on the iomega should tell you what needs installing again.

There's no quick way to do this, sorry. How long it takes will depend on just how much needs installing and you cannot simply copy over the program files folder as that ignores all the stuff installed in the windows folder and the registry.

[valda]

You need to plug in your drive and find the documents folder. Its usually c:\documents and settings\{username}\My Documents and copy its contents to your new documents folder. There are a few other folders you can copy over also from the same place, My Pictures, My Music and My Videos, and possibly a few others but they'll have to go into a corresponding folder.
You will likely need to install all your programs again - a look at the program files folder on the iomega should tell you what needs installing again.

There's no quick way to do this, sorry. How long it takes will depend on just how much needs installing and you cannot simply copy over the program files folder as that ignores all the stuff installed in the windows folder and the registry.

Thanks Steve9872, I get cracking.

[Rainey]

I am having internet trouble, I have cleared the browsing history, cookies etc, but that didn't help, certain random sites just won't load, Truprint and Ticketmaster for example, they either load a very basic page which is not displayed properly or timeout. I have tried using a different browser but that hasn't helped either.

Any ideas?