Offer suggestions to Snowy

As some of you know, I'm not very computer literate. (Much to my dad's dismay, as my mom, sister and I always make him fix our crappy computers.)

So, it all began when my cd drive wouldn't read cds. I'd put something in and it'd tell me that it couldn't find the cd. Fair enough. I asked my dad for help, and he magically fixed the problem (read: I dunno what he did). A couple days later, I had the same damn problem. I told my dad, who said that the drive may be bad (etc), so he bought me a new drive and installed it.

And guess what! Now the new disc drive won't read discs either, although it will burn them. (Yay!)

My computer, being kinda crappy, does lots of things that caused my dad to swear and generally be unpleasant. To remeady this, he installed anti-viral software (don't ask me why) which is now causing my computer to freeze and crash (where as it only froze once in awhile before.) Now my dad wants to erase everything and reformat the harddrive, much to MY dismay, as that would mean that I lose everything.

So, can you guys help me fix my computer/disc drive/dad?

 

Well, I'd say go ahead and format if it gives you problems like that. Try saving everything to disks?

Oh, and your dad? Well, I'd say buy him expensive gifts and bribe him to not wipe your harddrive.

 

Back up all your important files, make sure you have the installers for the programs you previously had installed and then let your dad format and re-install. Unfortunately you can't keep your old settings, which you'll have to get set up all over again.

Maybe I could solve the problem if I was able to take a look at your computer myself, but yeah, not going to happen anytime soon.

 

I have to agree, backup and formatting seems best way to go.

The obvious solution to the anti-virus problem is to remove it and install a different one (AVG from Grisoft is a good free one). That could be accomplished without nuking your HDD, but it would still leave you with the CD problem. Sorry I can't make any suggestions on that one. I don't know enough offhand.

one thing that DOES occur to me and I know it may seem patronising. You've defintely tested the CD drive against a range of CDs, right? If you've only tested it against a handful, try some others. Could be something about the discs. Try factory ones especially, rather than ones you've burned.

 

Snowy, I got a suggestion as to how to fix your computer: get new one





I do feel bad for you though :/

 

Believe me RP, I've tried that angle before.

Fatman! Glad to see you're back. Thanks for the advice, and yes, I've tried all sorts of cds. Music ones, burned music ones and computer games. It's all quite odd really. I think I'm just gonna go ahead with the wiping everything.

 

Goddamn that was a great ad. I can still hear that guy's voice in my head.

 

Cd drive is giving you shit? You might want to pay a visit to BIOS (your dad will) since often, new drives are defined incorrectly at the BIOS. This happened to me once, with a floppy drive.