My computer in the last few weeks has been giving me endless troubles. When bringing the computer out of ‘sleep’ mode the OS could not find the hard drive, in Windows when trying to access any of the drives I was told I didn’t have the correct “permissions” to open files or drives. It got to the point that I couldn’t actually DO anything with my computer. I tried using Windows Recovery to revert to a previous state. I scanned and scrubbed the hard drive looking for errors or viruses. I was getting nowhere.
So, this weekend I decided to restore the computer to factory its factory settings. I panicked for awhile trying to find the Windows CD and Drivers CD (which I did eventually find) until I realized that Alienware computers have a hidden read-only partition on their hard drives that you can boot from and restore the computer to its factory settings. And that is what I did.
First, I wrote down all the software I had on the PC, all the subscriptions I had that weren’t mediated through a cloud service, etc. etc. That way when the computer was reset I’d know what I need to download again. Second, I backed up all my pictures and documents to external drives. Finally, I hit the big red button and wiped the drive and reset the computer back to how it was when I first bought it over a year ago. Continue reading “Computer Troubles”