New member wanting to learn!

I love working on PCs when somebody needs me to fix some technical problems. I usually just search the web for solutions and if all else fails I will either format the drive or restore the PCs to a previous time. I have read a lot of thread on your forums there are a lot of great helpers on this forums which is pretty cool. This time around I am wanting to go deeper instead of just giving up and formatting a whole PCs just because couldn't any solutions.

Edited by ChrisInfosecStudent, 18 November 2015 - 08:37 PM.

you're like my twin.  when i was younger, my family thought i was a little trigger happy with the "restore windows back to factory settings" thing, but they had a knack for getting into some bad bugs. welcome to the forums 

I am also going to school for infosec which I find very fun and interesting. I believe this site will benefit me and hopefully I contribute in the future 

Thank you good sir! hehe there's only three people in my family that know computer the rest don't even know about the restore to factory settings option so they think I am go to for their problems. 

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Restores are very handy, only one step before the last, format/reinstall.  My first step with any machine that baulks at diagnosis is to isolate from any router of network access and boot to safe mode.  Run AV and malware scans.  If the system won't let you do any of scans, it might be aa rootkit and require a HARD reset of the hardware.  While looking for the jumper or switch for factory default to stop any BIOS based virus from loading from the flash chip and load from the firmware which can't be changed.  Once the virus is apparently cleared, boot normally and scan again before allowing network/internet access.  Any BSOD , freezes etc can be corrected with a system repair. A new system install will overwrite anything on the drive where a repair will only rewrite from the disk the programs and processes that have gotten corrupted.