Computers like everything else eventually break. It can be something minor like a missing critical file, or something big like a processor that overheated and cooked. Where do you turn to help? The local 10 year old, the Geek's who drive around in a black and white VW Bug, a local computer shop or do you just go buy a new one of the things?
I'm lucky enough to have computers as both my profession and my passion, there are very few things I can't fix myself. I've soldered new components on motherboards, I've re-installed my OS, and everything in between. I took my computer to Best Buy one time when I was feeling sick and just didn't want to deal with it. after shelling out $180 for them to replace a hard drive ($110 for the drive, $70 for the drive install) and them not even TRYING to recover the data off the old drive I said never again. I took the old hard drive and was able to get the data off of it, which is really all I wanted them to do in the first place, but in my weakened condition got talked into a new drive and letting them install it.
So do you do your own computer fixes or take it somewhere?
