Computer Maintenance, Help and Support

When do it yourselfers need more then a YouTube video
With computers supposedly becoming easer to fix while technology increases, more people are turning to Computer Maintenance Instructors for their computer problems and training. When your computer is not working right and you bring it to a Computer Repair Technician, chances are you'll have the same problem again some day and need to bring it back.

A Computer Maintenance Instructor can work with you and show you how to fix the problems yourself, train you how to avoid future problems and show you how to keep your computer running at its most optimum speeds. Having someone like me on your side is forever, when ever you have a problem I am only a phone call or text message away. Most any computer problem will be easy to take care of on your own once you are working with me.

I can explain the pros and cons of spy ware and anti virus software - show you how to get rid of a virus - train you how to properly back up your data from ransom attacks, reformat a hard drive, reinstall Windows, show you how to install and troubleshoot hardware and software - keep your computer internally clean of dust and dirt - flash update motherboard bios and chipsets - show you trade secret command prompts (CMD) - teach you to build your own custom made computer. I have been building and repairing computers for over 20 years in the West Mass area and I would like to help you with computer maintenance.

Before you backup your data
This by far is one of the most important things a computer user needs to do on a regular daily basis. I strongly recommend doing this before trying to fix any problem with your computer, however if your computer is not working you may not be able to do this. When this is the case I may have to remove the hard drive from the computer and manually connect the hard drive to another computer and extract the data manually or if the drive is corrupted use special software designed to recover the damaged data, if the hard drive is encrypted this becomes a harder process.

Encrypting data is incredibly risky, things go wrong all the time, people forget the encryption key or loose it, the key may become damaged or corrupted. Data encryption should only be lift to IT professionals working in hug data centers. Ransomware works by encrypting a computers data, this just goes to show how dangerous data encryption is, if you want to protect your data back it up and hide it. By system default data encryption takes place behind the scenes to protect you, anything extra is overkill and should be avoided. Unless the computer user is well versed on the process and truly understands the risks encryption should be avoided.

Choosing a backup device
I recommend using a thumb drive or a full sized external hard drive. Thumb drives should be made of one piece of steel, these things brake all the time when made of plastic, trust me. Once there broken the data is lost for good. A external hard drive is much bigger and holds a lot more data. I recommend buying one with a standard IDE hard drive inside, should the hard drive enclosure brake recovering the data will be much easier with a standard IDE hard drive inside of the enclosure, Seagate is a highly recommended external hard drive and ScanDisk is the recommended thumb drive, Samsung makes a good solid steel thumb drive, witch I highly recommended. A large multi TB external hard drive is what will be needed for cloning or copying your entire hard drive, Thumb drives are more for daily backups of your personal work.

How to back up data
There are thousands of ways to backup data and or copy an entire hard drive. I recommend backing up your newly created computer work on a daily schedule, tire not to recopy the same work over and over, I see this all the time, it is a waist of space and your drive will fill up prematurely, once the drive is 80% full stop using it, because it will fail or brake if you don't.

The easiest way to backup data is to select it, then drag and drop it on to your external device. Two of the easiest computing steps their is and now your data is safe. Cloning or copying your entire hard drive is more of a weekly or monthly procedure. Uploading your private data to the internet or cloud if that's what you call it is a bad idea. These places get hacked all the time, data gets stolen with out anyone knowing it, don't do it, unless you have a website and you want to share your information, LOL.

All versions of Microsoft Windows come with over 3 ways to easily clone or copy your entire hard drive, please don't buy or download free software to do this. This is how to copy your hard drive "Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Backup and Restore (Windows 7)" it works for Windows 10 as long as the volume is clean, with no viruses, malware or other problems. Copy the command in parentheses into your search bar either on your task bar or right click on your start button go to search and then past or copy the command and hit enter, go to recovery and follow the detailed steps for creating a system image, Windows will make the system image for you automatically and will restore it automatically if ever needed. This may sound a little risky but I recommend testing your work, after creating an image of your drive, restore your computer, if everything goes good you know your good, however if it does not work you will have to manually restore your computer using the original system operating system, then copy over your daily backup data. Testing your work is good practice and is the only way to know if the image will truly work if ever needed in a disaster.

Fixing a computer is one of the easiest things in the world to do today. Don't be intimidated by the so called geeks, I'm a very down to earth person that likes to work with other people, don't be afraid to contact me, you're going to save a lot of money and have fun at the same time.