Geek Squad at Best Buy ?

I would like your opinion on this service. We are not experianced with web. had son helping but sometimes need to get advanced help. Also he is busy and travels all over the world, now he is in Middle East, then Norway.

What do yall think about hiring help for $199.00? I think we need to this laptop taken back to basics or what ever its called. Would liek to keep pics of hydroponic experiment in library though. No copies or negatives. Thank you in advance for opinions. $199 a year.

First off, back up files you need to an external hard drive,, flash stick or DVD's by dragging them to the drive in the explorer window, or rightclicking the file, folder or group (created by holding the Cntrl key while selecting files/folders) to Send To the drive. This is demonstrated in this video tutorial: ▶ Copying files to an external drive - YouTube

Once you have your files backed up, you can run HP System Recovery as shown in the blue link. On later model HP's there is a Minimal Recovery that doesn't include all of the preinstalled factory bloatware which interferes with Win7 performance. This will give you nearly a Clean Reinstall, provides all of the drivers and self-activates.

Be sure to make your HP Recovery disks beforehand so you have an alternative Factory Recovery method in the rare case Recovery should fail: HP Creating Recovery Discs or Saving a Recovery Image to a USB Flash Drive (Windows 7) | HP® Support

But I'd also take the time to look over the steps to do a real Clean Reinstall Windows 7 which has helped over a million consumers get the best possible install without a single complaint. Even if you decide not to do that it will provide you with many tips so you don't' forget anything to back up and also become more familar with the tools and methods that keep Windows 7 running best.

Throughout these projects we will be here to help and answer all of your questions. You will learn more about your PC than you ever imagined, able to handle many things yourself in the future.

I think Meerkat has an OEM PC and a "factory recovery" disk. That's what she said a few days ago in another thread that was devoted to a major scam she got involved with....called an 800 number and they wanted to charge 199 to "fix" things.

She cancelled credit cards, but may not have suffered any other major damage.

Not sure why the factory recovery disk was not tried or possibly failed.

Also she's having problems getting MSE and Malwarebytes (paid version I think) going. They should not conflict with each other.

Offhand, I'd think there should be someone a notch or two above geek squad in most cities, but that requires local knowledge from knowledgeable people. Might be tough, depending on the nature of your contacts or particular area. I'd hate to see anybody just guess or rely on the Yellow Pages.

If you can back up and run HP System Recovery (Minimal) or do the Clean Reinstall to the step where you get online and can install TeamViewer, then I will connect and complete the install, install your programs, copy back in your files and optmize it perfectly for you.

Gator said:

Meerkat2 said:

I would like your opinion on this service. We are not experianced with web. had son helping but sometimes need to get advanced help. Also he is busy and travels all over the world, now he is in Middle East, then Norway.

What do yall think about hiring help for $199.00? I think we need to this laptop taken back to basics or what ever its called. Would liek to keep pics of hydroponic experiment in library though. No copies or negatives. Thank you in advance for opinions. $199 a year.

If you are comfortable with following tutorials step by step and following instructions here, we can fix just about anything they can but with more knowledge, proven methods and its free. Not to mention we have a ton of Microsoft MVP's and other prominent members of the IT community who post here.

As far as Best Buy for 199.00 a year, what are you getting for that? Typically, after the initial investment and the odd hardware failure, you should go 5ish years without putting a dime into it if you know how to fix stuff yourself.

The service they offer I couldn't vouch for one way or another but I would say they are probably like every other PC repair business. Their job is to get the problem fixed that you describe and get you out quickly.. If thats not possible, their next mission is to upsell and that usually means you get talked into a new PC or a couple parts you may or may not need and they will double the cost + labor. Don't get me wrong, there are honest PC repair companies but good luck finding them.

My two cents.

I'll be glad to try it here. Long as yall can put up with me. .

gregrocker said:

First off, back up files you need to an external hard drive,, flash stick or DVD's by dragging them to the drive in the explorer window, or rightclicking the file, folder or group (created by holding the Cntrl key while selecting files/folders) to Send To the drive. This is demonstrated in this video tutorial: ▶ Copying files to an external drive - YouTube

Once you have your files backed up, you can run HP System Recovery as shown in the blue link. On later model HP's there is a Minimal Recovery that doesn't include all of the preinstalled factory bloatware which interferes with Win7 performance. This will give you nearly a Clean Reinstall, provides all of the drivers and self-activates.

Be sure to make your HP Recovery disks beforehand so you have an alternative Factory Recovery method in the rare case Recovery should fail: HP Creating Recovery Discs or Saving a Recovery Image to a USB Flash Drive (Windows 7) | HP® Support

But I'd also take the time to look over the steps to do a real Clean Reinstall Windows 7 which has helped over a million consumers get the best possible install without a single complaint. Even if you decide not to do that it will provide you with many tips so you don't' forget anything to back up and also become more familar with the tools and methods that keep Windows 7 running best.

Throughout these projects we will be here to help and answer all of your questions. You will learn more about your PC than you ever imagined, able to handle many things yourself in the future.

I'm going to have to take all this real slow,haha. So glad I found all you nice people. I have been online since 2002 and so its my fault I didn't learn more.

whs said:

In what area of Florida are you. I am north of Tampa and will be glad to help you out if you are in my neighborhood.

Thank you so much. But I'm at least 100 miles east of you in N.Fl..

ignatzatsonic said:

I think Meerkat has an OEM PC and a "factory recovery" disk. That's what she said a few days ago in another thread that was devoted to a major scam she got involved with....called an 800 number and they wanted to charge 199 to "fix" things.

She cancelled credit cards, but may not have suffered any other major damage.

Not sure why the factory recovery disk was not tried or possibly failed.

Also she's having problems getting MSE and Malwarebytes (paid version I think) going. They should not conflict with each other.

Offhand, I'd think there should be someone a notch or two above geek squad in most cities, but that requires local knowledge from knowledgeable people. Might be tough, depending on the nature of your contacts or particular area. I'd hate to see anybody just guess or rely on the Yellow Pages.

Maybe the free trial has to run out first? You don't even want to know the latest problem. Now my emails don't seem to be gettign to 'the real malwarebytes'. He keeps sayign he gets the email but no message. I ask about how to uninstall the free trail to install the paid one. .

Layback Bear said:

To me a Clean Install is necessary.

Need Help With Basic Protection

Quote:
Originally Posted by Layback Bear
1. The trial version works just the Malwarebytes Premium.
2. Malwarebytes does not call anybody and as far as I know you can't call them.
3. You are being scammed.
4. If you allowed access to your computer you are in a world of trouble.
5. The people at Malwarebytes DO NOT ask for access to your computer. The Malwarebytes program when installed from Malwarebytes site is all the access needed.

***Did you or did you not allow access to your computer?***

Yes we did allow access to our computer. We called him at that number then he gave us another number and now he has called and hung up 3 times since my last post to you. 1 -855-644-1934

I'll try all this tomorrow. Long day tryign to keep plants from getting too cold in greenhouse. .Its midnight here now.