Worst thing you've done to a computer

AndrewJ · 31-08-2005, 10:23

Whats the worst? how many of you on your first pc's deleted .dll's from Windows 95 thinking it would make it run better?

Come on has to be a few classics here.

Mines on a old Windoze 95 laptop at school saving work on Word 95 every few minutes it crashed, just froze. On rebooting the save file was corrupt and I had been working on it for hours. So I hit the screen hard, my hand went right through it.

Was fun explaining to my teacher about her new screen design

marky · 31-08-2005, 10:26

i deleted loads of stuff of a win95 pc and it would only boot into dos i told the wife that typing "win" was the password to make it boo tinto windows

Scarlett · 31-08-2005, 10:32

del *.* in the c:/ directory of a win3.11 machine

Managed to restore for the computer next to it but a worried few minutes

Stuart · 31-08-2005, 10:42

A few things myself and my friends have done to various PCs..

One, I unplugged an IDE data cable without realising the PC was one.. Luckily the hard drive was fine (it was a researchers, and he had years of research on it, none of which was backed up), but the motherboard IDE interface was trashed. Luckily I was able to plug in an IDE interface and get it working without him noticing.

My boss plugged in a SCSI data cable slightly out of alignment with the pins and set fire to it (I kid you not - a flame shot up the middle wire).

I also blew up one of the Uni's then state of the art 15 inch Hitachi monitors when I tried to set the refresh rate too high (this was before the days when monitors shut down when you sent them the wrong refresh rate).

Going back further, I hacked into the administrator account on our school network, and was able to play all the games our teacher didn't think we knew about.. The funniest part of that whole few weeks was when a friend and I were testing the schoole network we had just helped extend. I was in a room on the third floor, and my friend was in the computer room and we were using a chat program. My friend started to pretend to be the head of computing, and carried on doing a convincing impression (in text anyway). Trouble is, he didn't realise, the head of computing was standng behind me reading everything he was saying. He got a few detentions out of that.

Oh, and a couple of times, I have been known to format my PC without checking I have an up to date and readable backup.

**Chris** · 31-08-2005, 10:46

Deleted config.sys from a DOS machine because I thought it might stop the machine from insisting it was configured for USA use.

31-08-2005, 10:53

Accidently formatted C: drive on win95 instead of A: drive

Machine was ohhhhhhhhhhh about 6 hours old. lol

marky · 31-08-2005, 10:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by timewarrior2001

Accidently formatted C: drive on win95 instead of A: drive

Machine was ohhhhhhhhhhh about 6 hours old. lol

i hope 95 wasnt on floppy for reinstall (please insert disk10 and press any key)

basa · 31-08-2005, 11:07

A while ago I used a program to delete duplicate .dll files .. not much worked after that !!

More recently used Add/Remove programs to remove several programs I didn't recognise thinking my youngsters had installed some sus applications

Took a while to reformat and restore my PC.

Jules · 31-08-2005, 11:17

I only had a 2gig hard drive on my first comp and so I was always sort of space, any way found some stuff that I thought was of no use and deleted it...... complete install of windows 95 was needed

philip.j.fry · 31-08-2005, 11:19

Tried to create a new CVS module but setting the import directory as CVSROOT setting off a recursive sequence until after several hundred files/directories had been created I remembered I could hit ctrl-c to quit.

Halcyon · 31-08-2005, 11:23

1. Crashed the school network just as we were waiting for parents to come in for a demonstration. There was nothing to do, I guess we got carried away. We had to race to get the machines up again and still they werent all back on in time.

2. Sucked up the keys off the keyboard with the vacuum cleaner.

littld · 31-08-2005, 11:31

Funny stories!

I once tried del *.* in dos thinking the A:\ drive was active. It was actually C:\ and I lost all the accounts for the department. I had to go through file by file with an undelete tool, guessing what the first letter of the file was. Stayed in the office repairing it like that all night. No-one ever knew.

Bought a new computer case (ATX, I think) and tried to fit it into an old style 486 case. The power cables didn't fit so I pulled the wires out and guessed where they should go and stuffed it all back in. (Don't try this at home).

All the lights in the house went out and I had to replace some fuses. The motherboard smelled a bit funny after that (burnt plastic) and surprise, surprise, it didn't work again.

**Maggy** · 31-08-2005, 11:59

Incog thinks that maybe she is such a duff on the PC after all.Passwording ZAP and forgetting the password doesn't seem so silly now.

All the other things that went wrong were M$'s fault anyway..

31-08-2005, 12:29

It was bad enough when the dust & fluff in my power supply caused it to blow, taking the motherboard with it - but then I proceeded to ruin the new motherboard by managing to force the memory sticks in the wrong way round...

gazzae · 31-08-2005, 12:40

I was replacing a PC, so I brought the new PC down, set it on the desk and proceeded to disconnect the old one. Once disconnected I picked it up and turned around only to knock the new PC off the table and onto the floor. Luckily when i reseated the components it was as good as new (if you ignore the dent that is.)