Advice re dodgy PC repair

[slotnicki]

Last week my PC refused to load windows properly, kept rebooting and eventually dispalyed a message re corrupt files.

I took it to a shop to be repaired and was told when I went to collect it, that it had had a virus. The machine only worked for two days before the original problem returned.

I phoned the shop to complain and was told that they hadn't opened the machine and that it could be caused by a problem from within. They said they could investigate but said that this would lead to a further charge.

I told them that the £50 I paid for the original repair was clearly a waste of money. They disagreed saying that it could have worked and it was a gamble.

To me, this doesn't add up. I am considering pursuing this, but know nothing about PCs and am wondering whether they could be right. What do the experts think?

Well, part of this sounds somewhat dodge...

A Virus does not affect 'the hardware' of a machine - the guts within it if you like (motherboard, graphics card, memory chips, processor etc.). It can however, write data to the hard drive and make the computer behave strangely. Put a new hard drive in however, and the machine is 'as new' (you have, of course, got to install an operating system - such as Windows- again).

I can't tell you whether they cleaned the machine of the virus. If you say it was OK when you got it home perhaps they did. But to keep a computer free of viruses you need to run firewall software, an antivirus package, check for spyware etc. They should have suggested / sold you packages to do this (and you can download free versions on the Net; also the latest version of Windows tends to have these sorts of applications bundled with them.)

Personally, I would save my money, buy an Apple, and forget Windows, but I am somewhat obsessive about this (I hope all on MN can now see why... this sort of thing crops up very regularly, especially with older PCs).

You could give it another bash, but perhaps clarify with them how you can work together to secure this PC so that virus / spyware does not affect it again.

hth, and good luck.

Im not sure I would buy their excuse. If you pay a fee for them to fix the PC, they should fix it, even if it takes several goes.
Can you phone Trading Standards and ask their advice? They are usually quite helpful about such things.