21
Had to pick between a full reimage or a deep malware hunt on a customer's machine
The machine was a Dell Optiplex 7050 for a small office in Springfield, and it was crawling. I quoted 4 hours for a deep clean or 90 minutes for a fresh Windows 10 install. I went with the reimage, backed up their QuickBooks data first, and had them back up and running by lunch. Anyone have a good rule of thumb for when you stop trying to clean and just wipe it?
3 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In3 Comments
irismartinez24d ago
You mentioned backing up just their QuickBooks data. That's risky. For a small office machine, you need to check for other local data like documents, spreadsheets, and email files before you wipe it. I always ask the customer to show me every folder they save things to.
9
williams.kim23d agoMost Upvoted
Last year I trusted a client who said they only used QuickBooks. Found their whole client list in a folder labeled "tax stuff" after the wipe. I felt like such an idiot. Now I make them walk me through every single folder, even the weirdly named ones. It's annoying but way less scary than that call back. What's the strangest folder name you've found important stuff in?
10
caleb_thomas8524d ago
Most clients know where their own files are, @irismartinez. Seems like overkill to treat them like they don't.
1