Help me help a friend (1 Viewer)

[Jon_Are]

A friend is having major computer problems...

It started after a huge storm and a power outage. When the power came on, her computer screen was that of the basic set up when she bought the computer new. She can see her other programs that had been added, such as Quicken and Word97, but cannot open them. She is getting error messages such as not enough hard drive space when trying to open Quicken.

I asked for more specifics about her system, but until then...

...anyone heard of a storm or power surge having this effect?

...any suggestions at this early stage of diagnosis??

Thanks!

Jon

 

[KyleS]

I have not heard of a storm or power surge causing problems like this it is usually a total system or piece of the computer that becomes fried. It is possible that there are errors in the OS that were caused by the power going out. You may want her to try an OS repair to see if it fixes the problem. If that doesnt work then she may need to reinstall all the programs that are causing her problems.

KyleS

 

[Jon_Are]

Thanks, Kyle...

When you say try an OS repair, are you referring to scandisk? Something else?

Jon

 

[KyleS]

Depending on the OS that she has you should be able to insert the original CD in the drive and use the option of repair. It will reinstall the OS without harming the other software that you may have already installed. If she has an OEM computer like a Dell that comes with a restore disc it should work the same but some OEM discs only allow a full restore. It is different then a scandisk which only checks for errors on the HD (& repairs).

KyleS