Berlin/Washington – Picture this: you’re working at your computer, and all of a sudden, a program shuts down for no reason.
Then, a friendly message appears, asking you to reboot the machine: “Unsaved data will be lost.” Does that mean that everything you worked on for the past hour – and forgot to save – will be lost?
That may depend upon whom you ask for assistance. A growing number of users around the world are finding that calls to local “PC doctors” can help. Even computers deemed to be beyond repair can sometimes be resuscitated by professionals – saving all data that was stored on the computer.
“Millions of computers are being used in households and offices,” says Alexander Kornegger, chairman of the board with the Home Jumper Service, a local PC assistance service in Ulm, Germany. “But only very few PC users would describe themselves as true computer specialists.”
Services like Jumper have cropped up in cities around the world in recent years, largely to fill a demand among computer users for a user-friendly, hands-on service that goes beyond that provided by most PC retailers. The number of first-time computer buyers continues to skyrocket, and services like Jumper can be a lifesaver to novice computer users faced with potentially work-stopping PC problems.
“I work from home as a marketing professional, and I am not a PC expert, so I rely on this kind of help a lot,” Washington resident Margo Arnold told dpa.
Most PC users, say those who work in this personalized PC service field, don’t want to become computer experts. “They don’t want to know more,” says Kornegger. “They just want their systems to work. When there is a problem, fast and professional help is required.”
Finding local PC help is generally easy. A growing number of individuals and small companies offer an emergency computer service. Many are listed in local telephone directories and in Yellow Pages under headings such as “computer repair” or “data processing – repairs and service.”
In addition, technology-savvy individuals sometimes moonlight as PC helpers and post advertisements at community gathering places where bulletin boards are found – such as libraries and supermarkets.
Many of these services, such as Home Jumper, with about 100 employees, stake their reputation on providing quick and personalized service. Help arrives “within two hours”, Kornegger promises.
Typically, though, diagnosing computer problems starts on the telephone. “I ask as many questions as possible, to pinpoint the problem,” says Daniel Zellmer, with PC Emergency in Berlin, Germany. Asking questions up front ensures that problems are not caused by easily-remedied situations, such as a disk in the floppy drive stopping the boot process, or a mouse that isn’t plugged in properly.
According to Zellmer, shareware programs downloaded from the Internet often cause problems with computers that operated normally before the installation. Other common sources of problems are cheap software that came with a magazine from the supermarket or game installations that don’t work properly.
Says Zellmer: “An entire law firm can grind to a halt because the central PC is dead.”
Of course, no health insurance provider will cover the cost of a PC doctor. Costs for such services typically include a base fee for the visit, in addition to an hourly charge. Before you enlist the help of a local PC service provider, be sure to inquire about costs.
With the number of services available in most metropolitan areas today, costs can be reasonable – the service can easily prove invaluable if a PC glitch brings your productivity to a halt. Be sure, though, to ask about whether a full hour is charged if the repair takes less time.
Certain types of repairs tend to be more expensive than others. Salvaging lost data can be one. In easy cases, backup copies automatically created by a user’s word processor, or older copies from the recycle bin can be restored.
But that only works if the hard drive was not accessed after a system crash. This is usually only the case if the user called the experts instead of trying to solve the problem first. Otherwise, the hard drive may need to be taken to the shop.
“To salvage lost data from a hard drive, the drive is mounted in a special computer and accessed with special software that copies the data to another hard drive,” Zellmer explains. In the worst cases, if the hard drive has a physical flaw, such as a broken motor, the repair can be quite expensive – sometimes running into thousands of dollars – because the drive needs to be opened and worked on in a dust-free environment.
Another frequent complaint heard by PC doctors is a virus attack.
“When the I LOVE YOU virus appeared, our specialists were literally working day and night. Private users as well as large companies had problems,” says Kronegger.
