[Patchandcrew]

Hi again,

Last Wednesday my PC finally decided it was going to completely die on me so I had to send it for repair.
I`m not a happy bunny. Against my request, the tech installed ME instead of 98SE as he claims its really just like 98 3rd edition. He reckons all my 98SE stuff will work on it....
The drives have been altered from C drive which was partitioned to make C and D drive with a separate drive which was E. He has unpartitioned C, [ I just wanted it altering to give more space to C from D ], and has reinstalled my E drive stuff on to it, basically swapping things around which is a mare as it completely ruins the whole notion of minimum data loss in the future because the drives are now screwed up. I could not make him understand which drive was which so he has done his own thing anyway. I have lost all my bookmarks, and many programmes despite his assurance that they would not be lost. I cant get appl quick time to load now as it says a required dll is missing, and goodness knows what other problems I will have as I only got the damned machine back this evening.

Before you say I should have insisted on him doing exactly what I requested, I tried, he would`nt listen, and he kept delaying the return of the thing as it was so I am now stuck with a system I have so far found ugly and clumsy and with most of my programmes gone. He installed AVG antivirus btw, but no forewall - the one I used before was McAffee - it seemed to be ok before, so do you think it will be ok to install on ME ?
Also my popup stopper program refuses to load properly [ Panicware ].
Also, my cd/rw seems to be totally dead as well - any ideas ?
He would not give me an ME disc either so what are my options if I need one ?

It will take me forever to get this thing in to some semblance of what I had before, so please be patient when I keep coming back with more questions which are pointless me asking the tech who worked on the thing as he cant stand listening to questions let alone actually answering them !

Not happy

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Have you got a 98SE CD

Have you got any data you need on the drive

[Retired Tech]

Have you got a 98SE CD

Have you got any data you need on the drive

[Patchandcrew]

I do have a 98SE disc, yep, but he has put everything off the separate drive which was E onto C by swapping the drives so if i reinstall 98 i will lose the lost as i dont have a way to move everything off myself. Many programs are gone despite his assurance that he would save everything and reload my programs back on. I`m gutted, totally absolutely gutted

[Retired Tech]

You have two hard drives, or one with partitions?

[Patchandcrew]

I have two hard drives. The configuration before the tech got his hands on it was

C drive - partitioned, which made c drive and d drive [ was split at 3 gb for C drive, the rest for D drive ]
Separate HD was E drive [ 40GB ]


Now its :

C drive is the 40 GB
D is 10 GB [ funny that, I had a 20 BG and a 40 GB before ..... ]

He did not do what I asked which was to keep the smaller drive partitioned but with a more even split for C and D, and E was not supposed to have been touched at all. I am having trouble loading things now, like Nero as I have a back up CD which I copied off the machine before it died but I cant find my original disc nor the code I need to enter, cant get quicktime to install, CD/RW [ external plug-in ] is still totally dead, and I cant find loads of my stuff cos the tech swapped the drives and put things back in the wrong places, renamed folders, `lost` programs and has basically given me a machine I dont even recognise now

[Retired Tech]

What has D got on it now?

[Patchandcrew]

D drive now has some of my artwork stuff and some old games programmes plus things i have no idea what they are. I pretty much dont recognise the machine as mine now thanks to the bloke messing up my discs, swapping them around and putting stuff that was kept safely on what was E drive onto what is now C drive which is opposite to how it was and is totally against the very precise instructions I gave him.
Thankfully a friends husband who does know what he is doing and is appalled at what has been done to it is going to put it right for me in a couple of weeks when I can get the thing over to him. He is going to transfer everything onto a spare drive that he has made available for it, will uninstall the vile ME and will reinstall 98SE which is what was supposed to have been done. He will also repartition what was the original C drive [ the smaller HD ] and will put all my previous E drive stuff back where it belongs on the larger HD where it was in the first place.
He did suggest I contact an organisation about the idiot who messed everything up as I was not given an ME disc as he said I would never need one [ yeah right ]. The one I saw on his work desk next to my PC was a copied CD of it, not even a proper original disc, and I had to pay £120 for the privelige of the bloke ruining my machine which I currently hate using only to have to get someone else to put it back to how it should be but bless him the one who is going to sort it now is not going to charge me for it, because he feels I have been ripped off big style by an apparent cowboy. This ME business is horrible to use as far as I`m concerned and I am spending as little time as possible anywhere near the wretched thing
Roll on the next couple of weeks til I can get it to my friends hubby !

I intend to also get a plug-in external HD to save my most important stuff to so that its safer but I have to get another cd/rw first as mine is now totally dead [ thats got me completely baffled ! ].

[Retired Tech]

98SE is the better of the two. If you have to replace the CDRW drive, ask your friend if the system will run a DVDRW drive, they cost about the same but you can obviously save more data to a single disc, which could mean you would not need to have the external drive.

You could ask citizen's advice about recovering the £120:00 while the PC is in its current condition, as you may be able to establish the version of ME isn't valid