I sure hope someone finds a cure soon for that Geek Syndrome.
I went over to Comp USA with my friend P, who needed to get some guidance (and, she figured, some kind of software) to clean out the old computer that her old (as in “former”) S.O. left with her when he moved out, since he didn’t want it any more. Figures, right? She figures she can donate it somewhere after it’s cleaned out.
Well, someone told her she needed to “ghost” the machine, and I, being technologically retarded, had no idea what that meant. What I would do is go in and delete all the files that I want to get rid of. But what do I know.? Maybe I think they’re all deleted but they’re all still in there somewhere for someone else to find and blackmail me with.
Anyway, she goes up to the young man behind the desk and says that she wants to “ghost” her computer. What does she need to do, she asks. Can she buy software that will do this for her.
So, this tall, lanky low-browed geeky kid looks at her, his eyes glaze a little, and eventually he starts to tell her that she needs to make a boot disk. “How do I do that,” P asks, further explaining that she knows nothing about computers and she has an old one that someone might be able to use but she needs to get all the stuff that’s on it, off it.
Another five minutes of this kid spewing gibberish to two totally uncomprehending middle-aged females, and he finally suggests that we go over to the repair guy and ask him.
Heh. Right. He wasn’t much better, as he repeated some of the stuff about making a boot disk and and re-booting and didn’t she get a boot disk with the computer and something about going into Control Panel…….. But somewhere in all of that guy’s incomprehensive monologue, I did manage to figure out that if one “ghosts” a machine, the whole hard drive gets wiped out, including the operating system — a virtual lobotomy resulting in a very real tabula rosa and a pile of bolts that are not of much use as a gift to some poor kid who can’t afford to buy a new computer.
Someone needs to teach these tech service guys to ask the right questions and respond with understandable answers.
Questions like: Why do you think you need to ghost the machine? Is it that you want to remove all of the files and folders that have information in them that you don’t want anyone else to get hold of? Do you want someone else to be able to use the programs that are in the machine, like word processing and maybe graphics?
Possible answers like: You don’t want to wipe out the hard drive, and you don’t want to delete programs. But you do want to get rid of all the files with information in them. We can do that all for you here and it will cost you XXXX. Or if you want to do it yourself, here’s what you need to do: (and then give her the step by step instructions, which she can write down).
But it’s hopeless. “Listen,” I say to P, who I can see is all at sea. “I’ll come over and show you how to delete files and we’ll look in the Control Panel’s Add-Delete Programs to see if there are any programs you want to delete as well.” I figure I can delete all the temp files and cookies and anything else that doesn’t look like a program and that ought to do it for her. And, if there are some little bytes still stuck in that back of that fake brain somewhere, who cares right?
And it’s time for lunch, anyway. Someplace where there are no inarticulate, borderline autistic geeks, for sure.