Topic: Dell down

[Clark Kent]

I could see some remnants being left over after one reformat, but do it  few times and i would think that just about anything would be wiped out.

One through reformat is enough to wipe out the data enough to keep a newly installed OS from reading deleted data by mistake.  A OS isn't going to go looking for data to use that has already been deleted, at least not on its own.  Remember that you don't want to through reformat a bunch of times before reloading the software as all that reformatting will shorten the life of the hard drive.

My iBook has a setup where it will zero out all data a certain number of times (3 is the minimum I think) to ensure data is for the most part unrecoverable.  I was hoping to do something similar with the dell, that's all.  Takes forever, but in this case I think it will be worth it.  I don't know what that will do to the lifespan of this drive; how much does this type of thing detract from the life of a hard drive?

[IAF Lyrkiller]

I used a drive cleaner called Disk Washer by Stompsoft. It worked like a charm for the hdd on my server.

Priced at $30 where I live.

[Clark Kent]

I used a drive cleaner called Disk Washer by Stompsoft. It worked like a charm for the hdd on my server.

Priced at $30 where I live.

Sounds like a good choice, but that's a fair amount of money for a program I will most likely never use again (god willing)

[The Bar-Abbas Anomaly]

 

Send me your lappy... I'll fix it and send it back.  It'll only cost you round-trip shipping.

[Fedman NCC-3758]

Now there's a deal!     

[Clark Kent]

Send me your lappy... I'll fix it and send it back.  It'll only cost you round-trip shipping.

Are you for real man?  that's an awefully generous offer...

[Sirgod]

Send me your lappy... I'll fix it and send it back.  It'll only cost you round-trip shipping.

Are you for real man?  that's an awefully generous offer...

He's For Real. I trust him as much as I trust you Brian, he's a good guy .

Stephen

[Clark Kent]

Send me your lappy... I'll fix it and send it back.  It'll only cost you round-trip shipping.

Are you for real man?  that's an awefully generous offer...

He's For Real. I trust him as much as I trust you Brian, he's a good guy .

Stephen

Oh, I didn't mean to call trust in to question, it was just very kind of him to offer something that much of a pain to do.  I feel bad for imposing is all.
Let me hold off on that for now.  I've been unable to find my reinstall disks, so after talking to a friend, he agrees this sounds like the work of a virus (the computer is more unusable now than before) so he gave me a utility used by the DOD that will do a 7 layer low level format which should eradicate anything on the HD, I will talk to Dell and see if they are willing to send me a fresh reinstall disk.  Seems like that should do the trick best, and I'd rather go with easy if at all possible rather than getting someone to weed out whatever nasty elements are involved here via hours of work and searching.
My friend also recommended I get a  second layer of virus/spyware protection on top of mcafee to run in tandem.  Jesus, what kind of world are we living in that I need two virus protection programs to take care of a notebook I hardly use?

[Clark Kent]

On a related note, I haven't bothered with password protecting my wireless for some time now as I've never found anyone trying to get on my system that was unwelcome.  But after this development I decided to pay better attention to who is logged on to my network, and low and behold last night I found someone dinging around on ym internet connection screwing around.  I thought I would power off the base station to give him the hint to get the hell off my connection, but as soon as I powered it back on he jumped right back on again.  Repeat, and same results.  I heard him throwing a tantrum next door both times, so I said, screw this, I hooked it up with a WEP and the strongest password I have right now and will not make sure to turn off my wireless router at night and when I'm not around.  I don't need some asshat dinging around playing with my network as well as using up my cable internet bandwidth.
I heard a lot of stuff being thrown around his apartment after that.  Tough sh*t dickhead.   

[Sirgod]

LOL, I would have introduced him to my louisville slugger. but that's just me.

Stephen

[E_Look]

"Screwing around?"  What was he doing to your system?

On a related note, I haven't bothered with password protecting my wireless for some time now as I've never found anyone trying to get on my system that was unwelcome.  But after this development I decided to pay better attention to who is logged on to my network, and low and behold last night I found someone dinging around on ym internet connection screwing around.  I thought I would power off the base station to give him the hint to get the hell off my connection, but as soon as I powered it back on he jumped right back on again.  Repeat, and same results.  I heard him throwing a tantrum next door both times, so I said, screw this, I hooked it up with a WEP and the strongest password I have right now and will not make sure to turn off my wireless router at night and when I'm not around.  I don't need some asshat dinging around playing with my network as well as using up my cable internet bandwidth.
I heard a lot of stuff being thrown around his apartment after that.  Tough sh*t dickhead.   

[Sirgod]

"Screwing around?"  What was he doing to your system?

On a related note, I haven't bothered with password protecting my wireless for some time now as I've never found anyone trying to get on my system that was unwelcome.  But after this development I decided to pay better attention to who is logged on to my network, and low and behold last night I found someone dinging around on ym internet connection screwing around.  I thought I would power off the base station to give him the hint to get the hell off my connection, but as soon as I powered it back on he jumped right back on again.  Repeat, and same results.  I heard him throwing a tantrum next door both times, so I said, screw this, I hooked it up with a WEP and the strongest password I have right now and will not make sure to turn off my wireless router at night and when I'm not around.  I don't need some asshat dinging around playing with my network as well as using up my cable internet bandwidth.
I heard a lot of stuff being thrown around his apartment after that.  Tough sh*t dickhead.   

Brian just doesn't want people to know that he was downloading Pr0n and that's why his Dell Crashed.

Stephen

[Clark Kent]

"Screwing around?"  What was he doing to your system?

On a related note, I haven't bothered with password protecting my wireless for some time now as I've never found anyone trying to get on my system that was unwelcome.  But after this development I decided to pay better attention to who is logged on to my network, and low and behold last night I found someone dinging around on ym internet connection screwing around.  I thought I would power off the base station to give him the hint to get the hell off my connection, but as soon as I powered it back on he jumped right back on again.  Repeat, and same results.  I heard him throwing a tantrum next door both times, so I said, screw this, I hooked it up with a WEP and the strongest password I have right now and will not make sure to turn off my wireless router at night and when I'm not around.  I don't need some asshat dinging around playing with my network as well as using up my cable internet bandwidth.
I heard a lot of stuff being thrown around his apartment after that.  Tough sh*t dickhead.   

No clue, he was just logged in trying to get into my workgroup settings when I pulled the plug on him.  I guess it helps that macs don't have the same workgroup set up that a PC has.
Oh, and Brian has been very good to his dell- no pron is allowed on it or near it, the worst that little baby has seen is the bewbies thread.  I store all my francine dee, sora aoi  and Tila nguyen on my 8 year old B&W powermac (OS X).  No need keeping it on a computer that has viruses written for it.

[The Bar-Abbas Anomaly]

Send me your lappy... I'll fix it and send it back.  It'll only cost you round-trip shipping.

Are you for real man?  that's an awefully generous offer...

It's just what I do... I fix computer stuff for a living & come home to a house full of computer junk and play with that!  :-D

If you have no internet connection I'd need to have it in hand to fix things.  If you have internet (on DSL or Cable - no dial-up!) I could do it remotely some evening.

[Clark Kent]

Send me your lappy... I'll fix it and send it back.  It'll only cost you round-trip shipping.

Are you for real man?  that's an awefully generous offer...

It's just what I do... I fix computer stuff for a living & come home to a house full of computer junk and play with that!  :-D

If you have no internet connection I'd need to have it in hand to fix things.  If you have internet (on DSL or Cable - no dial-up!) I could do it remotely some evening.

No, there's no internet, web browsers, tcp/ip, everything is disabled.

[The Bar-Abbas Anomaly]

Send me your lappy... I'll fix it and send it back.  It'll only cost you round-trip shipping.

Are you for real man?  that's an awefully generous offer...

It's just what I do... I fix computer stuff for a living & come home to a house full of computer junk and play with that!  :-D

If you have no internet connection I'd need to have it in hand to fix things.  If you have internet (on DSL or Cable - no dial-up!) I could do it remotely some evening.

No, there's no internet, web browsers, tcp/ip, everything is disabled.

...Which is why you should PM me & send it to me!   

[Clark Kent]

Well, I found out how to do a factory restore without a CD.  Dell said that they would not send me a replacement install CD, it's my problem if it's lost.  These guys are so irritating the hell out of me. 
FOr now it's working, though I'm not certain if the problem is truly gone. Now here is the thing that really gets me: whatever did this had to go through the firewall in my wireless router, which is so anal it won't even allow gaming ports to be used, the mcafee firewall set to max, got past the mcafee privacy protection, virus scans and anti-spyware tools and it was hardly ever on the internet to begin with.  I think it's safe to say, after going through all that, I won't be resubscribing to mcafee again, and I won't be "getting a dell" either. 

[Fedman NCC-3758]

Well, I found out how to do a factory restore without a CD.  Dell said that they would not send me a replacement install CD, it's my problem if it's lost.  These guys are so irritating the hell out of me. 
 

They told me that when I thought I needed a complete re-install. I told them if that is their official position, then this was the last Dell I ever purchase.

I received my XP w/SP2 by FedEx in four days.

I worked out the bugs without the disc.

[DellTechnician]

hi, im trent... i work as technical support for dell. acutally, reinstalling winxp is covered by the warranty. instead of doing a complete reinstall using the winxp cd, i prefer you use dell pc restore by symantec... you can still use if you havent deleted the non-dos partition of your hdd. you can access dell pc restore by symantec by pressing CTRL+F11 as soon as you see the blue banner that says "www.dell.com" when you start up your computer... dell pc restore by symantec will reinstall everything within 15-20 minutes only. upon completion, it would be like as if this would be the first you received your computer...

hope my post not that late... im really sorry if you feel bad about dell...

thanks and more power!

NOTE: im posting this message upon my own discretion, not because im working for dell, inc.

Well, I found out how to do a factory restore without a CD.  Dell said that they would not send me a replacement install CD, it's my problem if it's lost.  These guys are so irritating the hell out of me. 
 

They told me that when I thought I needed a complete re-install. I told them if that is their official position, then this was the last Dell I ever purchase.

I received my XP w/SP2 by FedEx in four days.

I worked out the bugs without the disc.

[Clark Kent]

hi, im trent... i work as technical support for dell. acutally, reinstalling winxp is covered by the warranty. instead of doing a complete reinstall using the winxp cd, i prefer you use dell pc restore by symantec... you can still use if you havent deleted the non-dos partition of your hdd. you can access dell pc restore by symantec by pressing CTRL+F11 as soon as you see the blue banner that says "www.dell.com" when you start up your computer... dell pc restore by symantec will reinstall everything within 15-20 minutes only. upon completion, it would be like as if this would be the first you received your computer...

hope my post not that late... im really sorry if you feel bad about dell...

thanks and more power!

NOTE: im posting this message upon my own discretion, not because im working for dell, inc.

Well, I found out how to do a factory restore without a CD.  Dell said that they would not send me a replacement install CD, it's my problem if it's lost.  These guys are so irritating the hell out of me. 
 

They told me that when I thought I needed a complete re-install. I told them if that is their official position, then this was the last Dell I ever purchase.

I received my XP w/SP2 by FedEx in four days.

I worked out the bugs without the disc.

Hi Trent, thanks for your post.  Prior to your post I had already done as you suggested, though I am a bit concerned that whatever hit my computer is still tthere and could rear its ugly head again.  We'll see in time, I guess.    Mostly I wanted a 7 layer low level format for the sake of being thorough, but it's working fine for now, time will tell I guess. 

I like the Inspiron very well, I just could have done without the techs I worked with playing games with me.