At 09:09 AM 2/15/2006, Christopher Fisk typed:
Yes, we try to clean the machines as much as possible, but the
insane assumption that cleaning the machine is always better than
starting fresh with the OS, is just that, insane.
Unfortunately there are too many shops out there that start with the
restore disk for the simplest little problem. FWIW I understand there
are nasties out there than can go undetected but nothing can change
the fact that I've only had to do a complete re-install on 2 machines
in the last 10yrs. Sure there may have been some machines that I
spent too much time on but I would rather error on the side of
caution. When you do a backup do you do a complete backup & if not
what about all the various configuration files then there is the time
to get everything restored? Sure there are times when doing a
reinstall is the best thing for the shop but IMO there is less than
5% of the time it's the best thing for the client. This is one of
those topics where many of us will have to agree to disagree, eg: I
like Fords & you like Chevys.
"Can the customer go out and buy a better machine than this one for
the same price it is going to cost for me to do the repair?"
That is why I never charge more than $200 for my time on a single
machine because the client can buy Chuck's favorite eMachine.
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Wayne D. Johnson
Ashland, OH, USA 44805
<http://www.wavijo.com>
