Blatantly stupid computer mistakes you have made in the past.

RoundEye · Post by **RoundEye** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 3:42 pm

I’m going to quote myself from another thread, I’ll probably remember more idiotic circumstances in the future.

RoundEye wrote: My earliest memories of poking around on a PC was an old Timex Sinclair and Radio Shack TRX. If memory serves me right, my mind has gone quite feeble. The first PC I built from scratch on my own was a Win 98 PC. Everything went fairly straight forward considering I was such a newbie at the time.

I had no guidance for anything and my only research was through my Dad’s PC online through a squeaky ass dial-up modem. With the exception of forgetting to order the OS, assembly was fairly straight forward. I got the PC together and hit the power button and it was like “ah oh, now what?”

Dumb ass newbie

Come on make me laugh, I’m sure we all have made stupid mistakes in our newbie days. Hell, pin your stories on a “coworker” if need be. I think this thread has some serious funny potential with a bunch of us nerds sitting around BS’ing.

Sava700 · Post by **Sava700** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 3:54 pm

I can't remember that long ago... at least more than 17years ago.

brembo · Post by **brembo** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 4:07 pm

Not a comp, but a VERY high-end networkable laser copier/fax/printer. We got it from an Engineering firm that was going out of business, the owner is a good friend of mine and he basically said to come over and "get this damn thing out of here"....free really. I was excited to finally have a networkable printer that wasn't a hack job and was in a hurry to get it up and spitting out copies.

Gleefully I yanked the collator out of it's seperate box and attached it with several hex screws and then plugged it's seperate power cable into the machine and I heard a faint "pop....s-s-s-sizzle" some magical smoke wafted out of the rig. I fried it, should have cut the power to the whole thing before attaching the collator.

I called my copier guy up and he came out and poked around for awhile and finally pulled some fused bits of metal out and replaced em with some non-fused bits and all was well. I was quite worried that I had totaled a spendy (but free) copier. Thing still chugs along to this day, 10+ years the old soldier has made fine copies for us.

Then there was that time I got my hands on a copy of Partition Magic and went hogwild. It took Norm hours to help me fix that shitstorm.

Blisster · Post by **Blisster** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 4:36 pm

format c:\

RoundEye · Post by **RoundEye** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 4:53 pm

Sava700 wrote:I can't remember that long ago... at least more than 17years ago.

Just to show you how out of touch I am with things, I didn’t think you were much, if any, older then your mid-twenties anyway.

Try harder, that brain will start squeaking back into operation soon.

RoundEye · Post by **RoundEye** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 4:55 pm

brembo wrote:Not a comp, but a VERY high-end networkable laser copier/fax/printer. We got it from an Engineering firm that was going out of business, the owner is a good friend of mine and he basically said to come over and "get this damn thing out of here"....free really. I was excited to finally have a networkable printer that wasn't a hack job and was in a hurry to get it up and spitting out copies.

Gleefully I yanked the collator out of it's seperate box and attached it with several hex screws and then plugged it's seperate power cable into the machine and I heard a faint "pop....s-s-s-sizzle" some magical smoke wafted out of the rig. I fried it, should have cut the power to the whole thing before attaching the collator.

I called my copier guy up and he came out and poked around for awhile and finally pulled some fused bits of metal out and replaced em with some non-fused bits and all was well. I was quite worried that I had totaled a spendy (but free) copier. Thing still chugs along to this day, 10+ years the old soldier has made fine copies for us.

Then there was that time I got my hands on a copy of Partition Magic and went hogwild. It took Norm hours to help me fix that shitstorm.

Sounds like a typical ID10T error to me.

RoundEye · Post by **RoundEye** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 4:56 pm

Blisster wrote:format c:\

That’s actually a resolution to most of Microsoft’s problems.

Sava700 · Post by **Sava700** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 5:05 pm

RoundEye wrote:Just to show you how out of touch I am with things, I didn’t think you were much, if any, older then your mid-twenties anyway.

Try harder, that brain will start squeaking back into operation soon.

meh.. i'm almost 32 but I think Blisters mistake was perhaps one of my own back around 88 or 89

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 12:37 am

Reinstalling without backing up data, still sometimes I forget to back up email or bookmarks.

Chris · Post by **Chris** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 12:40 am

buying one was the worst blatently stupid mistake.
If I added up what I've spent on this garbage I'd Be driving a loaded F650
Second would be going to college for Micro computer software managment for 2 years, there went the Harley

RoundEye · Post by **RoundEye** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 9:27 am

Chris wrote:.... there went the Harley.....

Why is it that when we guys try and decide to “do the right thing” for our families sake, we get rid of something valuable from our past? It leads to a long, long bout of seller’s remorse. It may work great for some guys but the rest of us get screwed out of a simple dream to ride. To put your knees in the breeze and go. Sounds very simple minded to those who don’t understand, doesn’t it?

I figured when I got older and slower I would get a Harley, but it looks like that idea will stay just that, an idea. I may never be able to ride again at this point. Even if the magic motorcycle fairy gave me a bike, I can’t balance that heavy ass old Milwaukie iron.

I didn’t buy a bike to complete computer classes myself.

Roody · Post by **Roody** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 9:49 am

I had an external hard drive on one of my servers at home a couple years ago and when I rebuilt the server I accidentally wiped out all the info on the external hard drive which was holding all the server files for rebuilding purposes also.

Thankfully I was able to recover the files with a file recovery program. For a period of time though I was in a real panic.

RoundEye · Post by **RoundEye** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 10:03 am

Roody wrote:....Thankfully I was able to recover the files with a file recovery program. For a period of time though I was in a real panic....

That reminds me of my hardware raid 5. Four 100 gig drives, those were considered big drives back in the day. I reformatted my server OS which my OS was on a 20 gig drive by itself. For the life of me I could not get Windows 2K3 to see my raid5 afterwards. Man that was two weeks of hair pulling after work trying to get my data back through software.

I got it all back luckily, but it was hit or miss for a while.

RoundEye · Post by **RoundEye** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 10:16 am

I had a whole client’s office looking at me like I was insane when I grabbed a small printer and started shaking it like crazy while it was upside down.

Complaint: printer was making a loud noise when they tried to print.

Problem: A large amount of unpopped popcorn kernels was spilled into printer.

Resolution: Shake the printer upside down like crazy and get the kernels out.

It probably cost that office more for me to go out there than it would have just to buy a cheap new printer.

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 10:41 am

Before I was into computers for a career....early on thought I'd do some housekeeping and clean a drive up. Sorted files by date...and deleted a buncha files with old dates. Next time the computer booted up..well...she didn't boot up all the way. Yeah...stay out of those directories next time.

tarpoon75 · Post by **tarpoon75** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 10:52 am

Not paying attention and hitting ok to to let gator.exe run......ugh

CableDude · Post by **CableDude** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 6:40 pm

Getting into the field.

24giovanni · Post by **24giovanni** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 6:48 pm

CableDude wrote:Getting into the field.

If you had a chance to do it all over again, what field would you be in?

CableDude · Post by **CableDude** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 7:00 pm

24giovanni wrote:If you had a chance to do it all over again, what field would you be in?

Honestly, I really don't know. I was going to study Music, then Business, then ended up in Computers.

24giovanni · Post by **24giovanni** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 7:23 pm

CableDude wrote:Honestly, I really don't know. I was going to study Music, then Business, then ended up in Computers.

I thought you would of said Head Master at a private school of brunette girls ... who knew.

CableDude · Post by **CableDude** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 7:49 pm

24giovanni wrote:I thought you would of said Head Master at a private school of brunette girls ... who knew.

There's an idea.

RoundEye · Post by **RoundEye** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 7:50 pm

CableDude wrote:Honestly, I really don't know. I was going to study Music, then Business, then ended up in Computers.

I started out in life repairing stereos, TV’s, custom home and auto sound, then went on to wrenching on bikes, then onto computers. Of course there was some other things in-between but that was my main career choices.

I always been a person who thought with my heart and not my head. I wanted to be happy not rich. Rich is nice but I really feel happy is much better for you and everybody involved in the long run.

Before you get locked in a family, career and monthly bills, try giving your heart a try to find a job that makes you happy. If lucky you may might make some serious dollars at it too. I don’t think there is anything in the world that pisses off people more than a happy-go-lucky poor guy going through life poor but actually enjoying himself.

I’m not talking struggling destitute but you really don’t need the latest, greatest Ferrari off the shelf either. In light of recent events I’m going to do what makes ME happy. Yes I will always consider my wife and son. Screw the rest of the world, I’m going to try and live happy and content within my means and not rich and well off. I have to get used to the fact now that well-off isn’t going to happen. Get over it and move on.

Be Happy

CableDude · Post by **CableDude** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 7:59 pm

RoundEye wrote:wanted to be happy not rich.

I agree.

koldchillah · Post by **koldchillah** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 11:27 pm

When I was 16 years old and just beginning my onsite consulting career, I met my first business client. She was a total stranger, referred by a neighbor, and her Win3.11 / DOS PC was a wreck. Programs were crashing, it was running slow, etc etc..

My plan was to copy a bunch of her data to floppies, then install a fresh licensed copy of DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.11 and tweak it to perfection. I setup a HD loader application that launched several batch files that optimally loaded the applications that she needed to run in DOS as well as gave her the ability to load up Windows as needed.

Once I got most of her programs back up and running I came to realize I made a huge mistake in backing up the data. I basically did not backup one of the folders that stored the accounting data for her entire business for the past 5 years, plus some other data that a specific business app of hers needed. DOH!

She paid me $50 and broke down in tears in her husband's arms as I drove out of her driveway... but her PC was runnin' like a champ! Too bad I screwed up the part that was most important to her.

Now I make my living by protecting business owners from 16yo know-it-all computer geeks like I used to be.

Humboldt · Post by **Humboldt** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 11:52 pm

koldchillah wrote:

Once I got most of her programs back up and running I came to realize I made a huge mistake in backing up the data. I basically did not backup one of the folders that stored the accounting data for her entire business for the past 5 years, plus some other data that a specific business app of hers needed. DOH!

doh!

CableDude · Post by **CableDude** » Wed Apr 29, 2009 7:07 pm

I'm pretty good with computers.

Brent · Post by **Brent** » Wed Apr 29, 2009 7:10 pm

CableDude wrote:I'm pretty good with computers.

Me too, but I still hate them.

If I could do things all over again I would either get into the astronomy field, or become a missionary through a church.

RoundEye · Post by **RoundEye** » Wed Apr 29, 2009 7:49 pm

Brent wrote:Me too, but I still hate them.

If I could do things all over again I would either get into the astronomy field, or become a missionary through a church.

Man you are waaaaay too young for a “If I could do things all over again” story. If you don’t like what you are doing now, get off your ass and start making changes.

RoundEye · Post by **RoundEye** » Wed Apr 29, 2009 8:02 pm

koldchillah wrote:When I was 16 years old and just beginning my onsite consulting career, I met my first business client. She was a total stranger, referred by a neighbor, and her Win3.11 / DOS PC was a wreck. Programs were crashing, it was running slow, etc etc..

My plan was to copy a bunch of her data to floppies, then install a fresh licensed copy of DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.11 and tweak it to perfection. I setup a HD loader application that launched several batch files that optimally loaded the applications that she needed to run in DOS as well as gave her the ability to load up Windows as needed.

Once I got most of her programs back up and running I came to realize I made a huge mistake in backing up the data. I basically did not backup one of the folders that stored the accounting data for her entire business for the past 5 years, plus some other data that a specific business app of hers needed. DOH!

She paid me $50 and broke down in tears in her husband's arms as I drove out of her driveway... but her PC was runnin' like a champ! Too bad I screwed up the part that was most important to her.

Now I make my living by protecting business owners from 16yo know-it-all computer geeks like I used to be.

That doesn’t sound like stupidity to me, just inexperience. The neighbor probably thought you would be eager to work and cheap labor.

I’ve tried to beat into new clients about the importance of off-site backup and virus protection, especially on servers. I have no pity seeing a grown man cry over lost data. I have seen a grown man cry over it too. Stupid, silly man. Oh well.

Mad_Haggis · Post by **Mad_Haggis** » Thu Apr 30, 2009 12:07 am

10 goto 10