A very encouraging story to share with the list. Thanks! On Fri, Jun 29, 2012 at 3:29 PM, Robert Lewis <bob.l.le...@gmail.com> wrote:
> How Linux can be used to diagnose a computer with Windows on it. > > A friend from 1000 miles away called me to ask if I had any idea > why his keyboard was acting up and being intermittent making his > computer useless. He was running Microsoft Vista. > > Two days latter things went from bad to worse and the computer was > inoperable and he could not boot into Vista. I asked him if he had > an Ubuntu LiveCD handy but he didn't. I was going to burn one and > ship it to him but them asked him who provides his DSL. His ISP > was Century Tel. which apparently has a big foot print in the state > of Washington. He then told me that they have a computer repair > department and handle people that walk in. However, he told me that > people that have used them have complained that they charge a great > deal and they were not satisfied with the results. I decided to call > them and conference my friend into the call. > > I told them that I was working with one of their customers and that > I lived in California and needed his customer to have a bootable > LiveCD. I also asked if he had heard of Linux and the guy said yes. > I asked if he would be willing to download Ubuntu 12.04 and cut a CD > for my friend. He said sure and guess how much they wanted to do it? > $1.09 and that included the media and tax. The CD was ready in 2-hrs. > Now I call that good service. > > When the guy home with the CD I had him run the RAM tests from the CD > and his RAM hardware came up clean. I then had him come up into the > LiveCD mode and his computer worked flawlessly and he could > get caught up on his email. I then had him download Teamviewer. > A program I favor for desktop sharing as it works across all three > platforms and is fast. I then remotely accesses his machine and from > the "Dash" selected the "Disk Utility". I than looked at the Smart data > from > the disk and ran a check. The hard drive was not looking good and > I believe his earlier keyboard intermittent condition was being caused by > recalc's on the hard drive which had a higher priority than the keyboard. > > So, Linux comes to the rescue again helping to diagnose a problem > 1000 miles away and proving to be an invaluable tool. > > Now what to do? You got it, replace the hard drive and sell the user > on never using Microsoft again ;-) However, this guy has little money > and frustrates easily at problems like this. I acquired a 2-1/2" > SATA drive from someone on this list who was kind enough to donate > it to the cause. He knows who he is and I thank you for your > generosity in helping out. > > I took this drive and wiped it and ran a bunch of diagnostics to insure > that it was solid and had no errors. I than installed Ubuntu 12.04 > and proceeded to customize it for this user. Then I shipped it to him > on an island located about an hour away from Anacortes, WA where one > goes by boat to reach the Island. A friend of his put the drive in > the machine and he is fully operational. > > Another win for Linux, as, in my experience taking a Microsoft > hard drive and moving it to a very different machine is failure > prone. Jeff might have thoughts on this but it has caused me a > lot of grief when I have tried it. Bottom line is this does > work well on Linux and all is well that ends well. > > -- > Ubuntu-us-ca mailing list > Ubuntu-us-ca@lists.ubuntu.com > Modify settings or unsubscribe at: > https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-us-ca > >
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