A vital step in Laptop Repair concerning Data Recovery, Migration or Maintenance is having a solution in place before a critical situation arises. At our Boston Computer Repair shop we have all the tools and experience to recover your important data from a failed hard drive or crashed system in most cases. However, for the inevitable times where a hard drive has catastrophically failed and Data Recovery is impossible it is vital to have a secure backup solution in place.

Your Data is Irreplaceable

There are many reliable data backup solutions on the market for Desktop and Laptop PC users, as well as more complex data maintenance systems for enterprise level customers using server racks or computer-farms.

I personally use and recommend an external hard drive of at least 1 Terabyte configured to automatically back up your entire system. It is important to make sure your Laptop Hard Drive is large enough to store all of your files without spilling over onto the external - as the essence of backup is to keep two complete and separate copies of everything in case one of the drives fails.

USB or Firewire External Hard Drive

For most users this one hardware and software solution will be everything you need to secure your data and prepare to migrate to a new system in the event of an upgrade or a crash. However, there are a number of other ways to back up your data in case you need to have it on-the-go or access it over the internet. In another post I will review flash-based storage, cloud-based storage and RAID backup solutions for businesses.

Have you ever tripped on your laptop power cable? Or dropped your laptop and now your laptop will not charge? Or possibly you now need to wiggle the AC Adapter cable where it plugs into the female port (the DC Power Jack) in the back or on the side of your laptop to get at least (or in some instances, at most) intermittent connection allowing electricity to flow to the PC?

Any way you cut it, this can be very frustrating and can cause you a major inconvenience especially if the laptop is dead and you need to access files that are on that computer which can sometimes lead to a more expensive data recovery computer laptop repair service once your battery runs out just to access your files until you can get the DC power jack repaired. The fact that your computer is not getting power  is most likely due to one of two or two of two things:

1. The actual power cable and/or the AC Adapter Cable -that plugs into your laptop is damaged and it needs to be replaced
2. Damage has been occurred to the DC power jack, which is what the male port on the end of the AC adapter cable plugs into. The DC power jack actually resides on the motherboard and allows electrical current to flow to the laptop.

AC Adapter w/ Power Cable

DC Power Jack Repair

Most computer repair shops do offer some laptop repair services, however, many of these computer repair shops do not offer the DC Power Jack Repair services in-house as it is a more complex repair requires a high level of expertise with laptops since the laptop needs to be disassembled to access the motherboard, ability to solder and not your every day run of the mill tech possesses these skills.

Our Boston computer repair shop is one of the few locations that does offer DC Power Jack Repair in eastern MA, and we do all the work in-house, not sent out to another company or location. We offer DC power jack repair services for Toshiba, Dell, HP, Sony Vaio, Lenovo. Thinkpad, Gateway, Acer, Asus, Mac and all Apple laptops in Boston MA. Also, depending on your computer make and model and our available stock we can preform a DC jack repair on the same day or for next day pickup.

The idea of outsourcing your IT department usually scares a lot of people, first and foremost those that work in your IT department. This is for a good reason. IT outsourcing does cut overhead costs substantially when done correctly, which ultimately could threaten some of your IT staff’s jobs.

As a small IT services company, or sometimes referred to as a Boston computer repair & networking company, we have many clients both large and small that choose to utilize our Boston based service technicians on a part time basis for projects and/or multi-site management. An example of when this may be fitting for a company is when there is not a daily need for an on-site computer technician to be available to troubleshoot and repair every-day problems, especially when running in an environment using Citrix or cloud computing - which allows for most repairs to be done remotely (for example out of a company’s headquarters), but needs more of a break-fix / on-site troubleshooting and repair technician type of a local resource. And without having to endure the increasingly over-bearing travel costs of flying in a representative (and the time it takes for one to travel via plane) or having a “regional” rep travel half a day or more to get to one of their sites. We also see many times that the old expression “when it rains it ours” holds very true in IT in the sense that many times in multiple locations many things go wrong at the same time or within a day of each other, and for our clients knowing that they have a resource such as ourselves with multiple techs in every coverage area, we are able to handle the workload.

Another example would be for project type work such as regional upgrades, or data center migrations, management and/or build-outs for data centers. In these instances it also proves to be more cost effective to outsource your IT staffing on a temporary basis to another company that has the computer repair technicians already on staff and ready to staff your project with very short notice for shorter or longer-term projects rather than hiring new employees, having to insure them, and then when the project finishes having to either terminate them (possibly leaving bad blood in your wake) or keeping them on staff increasing your overhead when you perhaps do not have enough work for them.

These are just two small instances that allow larger companies to focus on bigger picture items and move their company forward while relying on cost-effect computer service solutions by using IT outsourcing.

Words from an experienced Boston computer repair IT services technician. Not a Geek!

If you have any questions for our Boston computer repair service and networking tech support team, we would be happy to discuss how our IT staffing and IT outsourcing solutions can work for you and your company to deliver a positive ROI by majorly cutting down on your overhead without cutting back on your IT infrastructure. Give us a call at 617-723-1986.

Also, you could head to our Boston Computer Repair & Networking, Virus Removal page on Thumbtack.com, a company that promotes local services. We have found Thumbtack.com to be a reputable site and advocate what they are doing to deliver quality content to the general public.

Tip #1: Refrain from letting your toddler eat cereal next to your laptop.

To extend the life of your laptop computer or desktop computer, follow these computer maintenance tips from A+ Mobile PC Doctors, the most trusted computer repair company in Boston.

• To cut down on temperature changes and dust affecting your computer, create a “summer home” for your laptop or desktop that is away from open windows and air vents. Especially now that it is getting warmer, a combination of hot outdoor air, frigid air conditioning, and airborne dust and particles can really mess with your hardware.
• Uninstall programs that you’re not using instead of just deleting them. This will free up space and will prevent errors from improperly trashing the programs.
• Reboot. Can you remember the last time you shut down and restarted? Rebooting will reset the RAM and make your computer run faster.
• Clear your web history to free up memory.

For Boston computer repair services, A+ Mobile PC Doctors is conveniently located at 316 Newbury Street, #21. We are one of the few Boston computer repair companies that offer onsite computer repair in Boston — we come to you.

A HP Pavillion latop currently in our Boston computer repair shop in Back Bay this morning with serious issues. We quickly discovered that the PC was showing symptoms of infectious malware ranging from Trojan Horses and adware to even more malicious worms and spyware.  The intent of most of this malware (malicious software) is to steal your identity, credit card(s), or just simply to wreak havoc on your operating system and programs (software layer), or sometimes physically attack your system components (hardware layer).

Virus Removal in Boston

What ultimately happens is that many viruses can attack you machine making it either go to a blue screen, or make it almost impossible to do anything on your computer because it is too slow or constantly freezing up.  Then the only choice is to find a local computer repair company to assist you, or junk the PC and buy new.

We have around a 95% success rate when we manually remove malware from any PC, regardless of the operating system. This means you don’t have to backup your existing data (quarantine it and clean it to ensure you are not carrying any of the infected files when you put them back on your drive later on) to “wipe” or reformat the drive, then reinstall everything from the operating system, drives, Windows updates, your security software (AVG, Norton, etc.), MS Office (if you use MS Word, Excel, PPT, Outlook, etc.), and specialty software you might use (e.g. QuickBooks, Photoshop, peripheral device software, etc.), your printer(s), VPN’s etc. and then ultimately your files that you backed-up and cleaned from the old infected drive. Whew!

Pop ups galore and unmountable boot volumes can sometimes mean a full reformat and reinstallation of Windows, especially when the unit comes with Windows Vista or Windows 7. This is not the end of the world.

At the customer’s request we can create drive duplicates so that you do not lose any files once your hard drive is reformatted. Using several powerful deep scanning utilities, we ensure that no infections are carried over when your files are restored. Once again, this is only in the case that a reformat / Windows reinstall is absolutely necessary.

Experiencing such an event can remind you of how important backing up data can be. We have several solutions to help you to backup your data to make the recovery process run smoother in the future. With External drives and programs that automatically backup your drives periodically, we can help you to not lose any of your information. also, having the appropriate anti-virus software can prevent the loss from occurring in the first place.

As a computer repair and Boston computer repair company, we do a lot of virus removal and are constantly testing different anti-virus, anti-spyware (anti-malware) and computer security software. Some of the products that we demo on a regular basis are AVG, Symantec (Norton), Panda, Kasperski, Zone-Alarm, Computer Associates and McAfee.  We are aware that none of these are infallible, however, we have found that AVG’s paid version of their Anti-Virus software and the paid version of the AVG Internet Security 8.5 are the best the market has to offer.

On the flip-side we have noticed that on about 95% or more of all malware related issues, the PC is running some version of McAfee. We cannot endorse this product, and frankly are shocked that it is so widely used in today’s market, and endorsed by such large companies as Dell, AOL, Comcast, Verizon, Cox Communication, etc.

IMPORTANT: It is also a good idea to run a good Registry Cleaning Software on your computer periodically, and especially after doing a virus removal. There are several good Registry Cleaner / PC Optimization softwares on the market, however, from our research we have found RegCure to be one of the best, and relatively inexpensive.

Click Here for Best Computer Registry Cleaning Software