A Successful Partnership

Keeping with the latest trend at our house of everything wearing out and breaking down, the PC that I use most of the time has been getting progressively worse. It reached the point this week, that I couldn’t print or scan, Explorer would “stop working” several times a day, and the same window would open until there were so many, I would get a caution about high CPU (?) usage . Programs had completely disappeared. The only thing I could do was navigate the web, but with problems, and use the email program.

I had been thinking about taking it to a professional, but that entailed a lot of problems. I would have had to back up a ton of files, uninstall some programs, and I thought that clearing my favorites list would have been a good idea. Clearing and saving the email would have been a huge job. And I was worried about the cost so near to Christmas.  The thought was daunting to say the least.

I began to toy with the idea of using the recovery disks to return the computer to it’s original state. That was scary to me, too. We don’t know that much about that sort of thing. We found the manual. When I looked the process of recovery, I was ready to give up and take the darned computer to the recycling center. We put our heads together and decided that Mr. Fixit would read the the manual, and I would would do the “clicking.” I was tense and nervous. When we decide on a project there are usually a few harsh words, frustrated silences, and a little swearing in Spanish and English. I was not looking forward to it at all.

After backing up a lot of files that I didn’t want to lose, we decided we would try the recovery this morning. Surprisingly, it went quite well. It didn’t take as long I thought it would. The upshot was that I lost all the programs that I had installed during the almost four years we’ve had this computer, plus the email program, programs like Adobe Reader, and our virus protection. I had to reinstall the printer which took forever, but I can now scan and print without too much of a problem.  I also reinstalled Windows Live Writer to make blogging is a little easier. I still have to reinstall several programs, including those necessary for my e-readers and a DVD editing program.

I just discovered that the CD burner is now working properly. That’s really strange. I could burn DVD’s, and play both CD’s and DVD’s but I couldn’t burn CD’s. My son, my computer guy, said when I told him of that problem it could be that the CB burner was broken, and recovery probably wouldn’t work. It’s a nice surprise to have it working again.

After a successful fix with a minimum of yelling and swearing, it was my pleasure as the Computer Wizard to confer the title of Junior Wizard on Mr. Fixit. We are so proud of ourselves, and I am so happy to have my favorite computer working again.