This morning, my Windows 7 laptop failed with blue screen. Efforts to boot it yielded “disk access error”. I have no unique data on it, just need to get it functional again. I suspect the problem may be virus-related rather than a hardware failure. Where in Nashville should I look for qualified help?
UPDATE
Seems the HD failed. I’ll deal with it later, as it has little unique data on it. Got a replacement, found my Windows DVD and installing it now.
Two Best Buy locations with Geek Squad in/near Nashville.
6810 Charlotte Pike, Nashville · (615) 353-1184
21600 Galleria Blvd, Brentwood · (615) 376-0539
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He said qualified help.
I’ve had to undo the “help” received from Geek Squad for several friends. I have associates who work at their central location who are competent as individuals but the organization as a whole is overpriced and not capable.
I have a few contacts for you if you’re interested in local non-franchise folks. Certified techs that do work on the side. All gun enthusiasts themselves. Let me know and I’ll either have them contact you or I can give you their contact info. Would offer to help myself but I moved from Nashville to Atlanta a few years ago.
What make of laptop? It should have a factory restore partition that will automagically restore your laptop to out-of-the-box configuration. That will work if the hard disk hasn’t failed.
e.g. Toshiba: http://www.geekpolice.net/t18281-toshiba-recovery-partition-hotkey-instructions
F11 is a popular key to boot into a recovery environment (tap it during POST message).
Google “factory restore [laptop brand] windows 7”
do not take it to best buy… They will tell you that the hard drive is dead and they will load you a new one. Your hard drive can be put in a usb adapter and used as a storage drive, all your data is proably still there. Best buy proably has the adapter on the shelves. (I am in the business, retired but still active, and have a lot of experiance cleaning up after commercial shops). The most logical thing… if you can afford it, is to get a new laptop. transfer whatever you have on the cloud, and whatever you have backed up, and give the old system to some one who can use it. Be sure and NOT give the old hard drive. They make good targets, and your work won’t end up on the web.
I can help you out, or Trevor since he’s closer geographically. Sounds like a bad drive, probably under warranty.
Anywhere but here, I couldn’t tell you. But, I do this kind of stuff for a living.
Ultimate Boot CD (http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/) will have factory hard disk diagnostics for most common brands of HD, and Seatgate’s diagnostic can be used for the few that aren’t on there. This can help determine if it’s really a HD failure or not.
AVG’s Rescue CD (http://www.avg.com/us-en/avg-rescue-cd) is a good first step towards dealing with virus problems. Burn to CD, boot off that CD, update online, and scan.
For cloning hard disks that haven’t totally failed yet I’ve had good results using rdd (http://sourceforge.net/projects/rdd/) from a Linux live cd. This is far from the only tool.
Get someone who knows what he’s doing.