OS reinstallation
Posted by yungbloodsuckka@reddit | talesfromtechsupport | View on Reddit | 55 comments
Just needed to get this off my chest. One of our customers I work with requested an OS upgrade from windows 10 to windows 11. I informed him his computer does not meet the minimum hardware requirements for windows 11 but I wanted to help so I asked what he uses his computer for. He told me he only uses it to browse the internet and occasionally read online. Cool so everything he uses his pc for is browser related, being naive at the time I suggested an install of Linux mint. It has a sleek design, it’s entirely free and you will be able to use the browser the same way. I informed him that upgrading/installing an operating system will erase any data he has on his pc to which he stated “Thats not a problem please go ahead”. I always double check when doing this to ensure customers understand what this really means but with him I triple checked. Once in person, once over the phone and once via another IT employee. So I install mint cinnamon and the customer comes to pick up the device he confirms its good then goes home. Now I was off work the next day but the day after when I came back my coworker informed me the customer came BACK to the store stating I “completely destroyed” his device. Long story short I became intimately familiar with ddrescue and after i restored all his data from 2026 back to 2009 he says “did you put these images on my computer” …yes yes sir i did. anyways he ended up getting windows 10 back and was content. luckily, end of story.
ciscam5@reddit
Yea, just ddrescue the .img. You already know the best route. There has to be space for such images. I'm purging ones that are 15 years old nowadays, if even. People don't know backup and I won't be the one to lose irreplaceable photos.
yungbloodsuckka@reddit (OP)
out of curiosity do you use a tool to purge the data? if so please let me know which one you prefer!
ciscam5@reddit
I think you misunderstood me, let me try and rephrase: I've been taking and storing ddrescue images of dying drives for family, friends and colleagues for decades. Since I can never be sure that they won't lose the data I recovered for them again, I've only deleted a few very old and probably unimportant disk images. And I gladly spend money for storage space I can't use myself, since there is the slight chance that I can recover e.g. important photos for someone.
To securely erase a drive, I repeatedly slam it with a hammer. If that is what you meant.
RedIce25@reddit
Thats why I always try to run a Clonezilla backup first
jkarovskaya@reddit
Rule #1 for end user support: Never believe a word they say, and verify everything
30 ish years ago, I was a fresh faced level 1 dude, trying to assist the corporate #1 lawyer at our organization with a very bloated Outlook mailbox
Finally migrated to several PST's, etc etc, backed up, and double checked that all was good, and emptied his Outlook trash.
Yeah, that's where he "forgot" to tell me he kept important stuff, in the effing trash
Got back some of it, he had to live with results
yungbloodsuckka@reddit (OP)
ah yes let me store important emails in the trash that will auto delete.
Myrandall@reddit
Telling a computer illiterate person to switch to Linux was your first mistake.
wdh662@reddit
I'm a huge Linux advocate. Started using it in 97 or 98.
I will never put it on someone's device. You're their tech support for as long as they have it.
yungbloodsuckka@reddit (OP)
Yea you’re right about that. I thought it would be okay since the user just used his pc for browser related things but i was clearly wrong.
ethnicman1971@reddit
It is always "Oh I just use it to browse the web and read Reddit". But then it turns out they use MS Access for this database of collectible Victorian era dolls, and they love playing games that require a specific version of dotnet. and they have to edit all their pictures in MS Paint or else they just dont look right.
yungbloodsuckka@reddit (OP)
so the moral is do NOT trust end users. Or at least with a pinch of salt.
frocsog@reddit
Never trust a single one of them, ever. Bear in mind that it is a possibilty that what comes out of their mouth has some vague relevance to their problem and that's it.
morriscox@reddit
Rule 1 of the Rules of Tech Support. All users lie.
WillieLikesMonkeys@reddit
ChromeOS Flex might not have been a terrible option here.
MikeSchwab63@reddit
Give them a USB stick with Ventoys and various live *.ISOs to try out.
deeseearr@reddit
It's times like this that I am reminded of my grandfather's advice to me after I fell while climbing a willow tree.
He said "Don't do that again."
Nihelus@reddit
When I was a kid, I would have taken that as a challenge.
User2716057@reddit
That's why we record calls and have them sign the work order.
Over 15 years a handful tried to pull the "you broke my PC/deleted my stuff" and threaten legal action.
Only one went though with it, my boss sat there with 2 lawyers with experience in that kind of cases, the customer had his old lawyer that knew nothing about IT. His complaint was that we were responsible for the data loss on his 15 year old computer. That we warned him about at least thrice in the previous years that its hard drive was on its last legs. That he refused to pay for a new drive or even a simple external backup drive. Everything he signed either mentioned the potential for data loss or the fact that we cannot be held responsible for data loss.
The whole thing lasted less than 10 minutes, and probably cost him more than a whole new computer, let alone a new drive that would have prevented all that 5 years ago.
Nihelus@reddit
People are dumb. I used to be a Deputy and I had gotten dozens of complaints over the years. Every single one declined to come into the SO and watch the camera footage. They knew they were lying.
Only one tried to proceed anyway and asked for a copy of every single report I had ever made and all of my personal info they’re allowed to request. When she found out how much it would cost she declined to proceed. I was kind of hoping she would anyway. That lady was a nightmare and I would have loved to watch a judge rip into her for wasting their time on nonsensical complaints.
yungbloodsuckka@reddit (OP)
Honestly never considered the potential legal route this could have went down…thank you for sharing your story.
Mr_ToDo@reddit
Ya. We got service sheets we get signed that explain that shit could happen while we're trying to do whatever it is they requested(drives fail when you're addressing a failing drive. Stuff like that, not us saying if we actually cause damage due to negligence we're free and clear)
And if you're going down that route. Add something in for what you do with unclaimed items, and the timeline. No reason to keep other peoples hardware until they decide to collect in 3 years
Oh, and when the work allows I do try to make a copy. It gets deleted shortly after, but it can really make a difference when, like with you, they don't understand what it means to get rid of all their files and applications
Epistaxis@reddit
Yeah if you have this all documented, then it's just two billable work orders:
anh86@reddit
I’d have to say that’s on you. I would never in a million years recommend someone who knows very little about computers but has always used Windows switch to Linux (or any other operating system). They don’t want to learn or know anything, they just want it to look and work exactly like it always has.
sysadmin-84499@reddit
I airways backup a customer's data before imaging.
keijodputt@reddit
If you did it, they did it. If you didn't, then neither did they.
ALWAYS do backups for them. Users lie.
sysadmin-84499@reddit
In my org a multitude of users backup to one drive automagically, the ones that do their own backups don't want IT touching their files. But said files automagically backup to one drive anyway.
keijodputt@reddit
A true backup is immutable, versioned, and entirely disconnected from the user's daily ability to accidentally destroy it. OneDrive is just a very fast way to make sure user mistakes are highly available:
- The Ransomware Express: if a user gets hit by ransomware, OneDrive doesn't protect the files. It looks at the freshly encrypted, useless garbage files and cheerfully says, "Oh, an update! Let me push this to the cloud immediately so we ruin the remote copies too!". It is a highly efficient, automated engine for propagating disasters.
- It's a PEBKAC mirror: the user accidentally deletes a vital nested folder, the sync client faithfully mirrors that deletion. Sure, there’s a cloud recycle bin, but users are famously oblivious. When they realize 94 days later that their critical project folder is missing, that 93-day recycle bin will be as empty as their excuses. A real backup doesn't obediently shoot itself in the foot the moment the user makes a mistake.
- File corruption sync: when a massive Excel workbook silently corrupts locally, the sync tool ensures the cloud copy is instantly overwritten with the same corrupted garbage. A real backup is an immutable snapshot in time; a sync tool is just a live feed of your latest failure.
- A single Point of Failure: an account gets compromised and locked by Microsoft/Google for a perceived ToS violation, or an admin accidentally nukes the license, your "backup" evaporates into the ether with zero recourse.
- You're failing basic math: a true backup strategy follows the 3-2-1 rule, that is, 3 copies of data, on 2 different media, with 1 offsite. OneDrive gives you 2 copies connected by an instant-death umbilical cord, entirely reliant on a single set of credentials.
VexingConcern@reddit
Really tired of these AI slop posts jfc... here, have a downvote
himitsumono@reddit
>> A real backup is an immutable snapshot in time; a sync tool is just a live feed of your latest failure.
I'm going to print copies of that and give it to everyone I care about.
Epistaxis@reddit
Users always lie, and users especially always lie when they say "Yes I have a backup" or "Yes I understand this will delete all my data from the device"
NocturneSapphire@reddit
I've never understood it personally, but casuals will just straight up lie about whether there's important data on their machine. Idk if they're just not understanding what "erase all data" actually means, or if they're just impatient and would say yes to anything, idk.
Whatever the reason, in my experience, if you tell a customer that you need to wipe their drive, 75% of the time they will happily agree on the spot, even though 99% of those times they will in fact have data on the drive that they would be upset to lose.
Solution: always take a full disk image before wiping any drive, regardless of how certain the customer seems to be that there is no important data on it.
rantingathome@reddit
All fine and dandy until corporate fires your ass for making unapproved copies. In the early 2010s privacy laws were really ramping up here in Canada and we would have been fired for that at the chain store. It was so friggin' annoying dealing with people.
syntaxerror53@reddit
Backup data onto separate drive. Re-image device drive. Restore data. Verify. Delete/format initial backed up data.
Let customer deal with their data clean-up.
rantingathome@reddit
I know how to backup data. Still would have been fired for making an unauthorized copy of customer data.
Small independent shops had a lot more leeway than we did.
Grillmeister5000@reddit
goddammit. ALWAYS make a backup no matter what a customer says. I learnt that lesson very early on myself when i once lost some data I thought i wouldn't nee danymore but then i did. Luckily i had the data on some old backup (a 2 years one at that point) getting to that was another story (hint: IDE).
By now i always have some spare HDD which i use to just zip the old systems onto as backup.
catwiesel@reddit
a) have customers sign a waiver about data loss / having been informed ...
b) make images of devices and keep them for 10 days (again, have the customer sign that you will do so). raise prices to pay for this work
pick a or b and keep these kinds of problems to a minimum
Harry_Smutter@reddit
This is why you back up files before wiping a device. Never trust a user to back all their files up. Rookie mistake :P (been there).
ascii122@reddit
I always image any drive before messing with the big stuff .. just for this reason :)
yungbloodsuckka@reddit (OP)
I guess you could say I learned my lesson. I will always keep an external ssd on hand now
ascii122@reddit
I know it's a pain in the ass and the customer is there while you run it. I like macrim reflect but there are a number of them you can just revert the whole damn thing if they don't like it. Good luck IT hero!
critchthegeek@reddit
meh, I would usually swap the drive out & let the old one sit on the shelf for at least 6 months..
yungbloodsuckka@reddit (OP)
i’ve used macrim when it was free. Didn’t use now that its subscription based but its probably worth the subscription fee in the long run…or maybe i’ll just send the customer out with chromeOS next time :)
nuked24@reddit
Macrium v8 is still free and available on MajorGeeks
DiodeInc@reddit
MajorGeeks is awesome
ascii122@reddit
I still have an old free copy I keep but yeah there might be some other better solution now
rilian4@reddit
Same or at least copy the profile folder to an external drive. I learned this the hard way many years ago.
warehousedatawrangle@reddit
When changing operating systems for other people, it always comes with a new drive. I never put Linux on someone else's computer (and that often includes family members) without removing the Windows drive and putting a fresh drive in. That way the old drive is still there.
5thhorseman_@reddit
What you didn't check was to have his confirmation in writing.
Swipecat@reddit
Yeah, it's because they want to keep all their pictures, videos, messages and documents, but you can get rid of this "all their data" thing whatever "data" might be. Obviously something nerdy and technical than nobody cares about.
If you think that "everybody knows what data means" because it's simple and obvious, try Googling for the word. I get:
yungbloodsuckka@reddit (OP)
I understand that everyone may not know what data means but even so asking for clarity on the definition or using context clues would suffice.
fyxxer32@reddit
Linux is the way.
ethnicman1971@reddit
Linux is the way.
If you are the one using the computer. For others unless they specifically come to you and tell you to install Linux (without prompting from you), it is windows all the way.
My wife would say oh yeah sure install Linux but then the next day she will come to me and tell me that she cannot install some little game that she likes to play. She will have tried to install it herself as she was used to but downloaded an .exe file and is wondering why it doesnt work.
born_lever_puller@reddit
*Terms and conditions may apply
muwave@reddit
I have never reimaged a drive. I have always pulled the existing drive and replaced it with a bigger one. Being able to put the old one on sata-usb adapter makes it easy to recover things if I need to. Eventually the old drive gets wiped and used in another project.
Crafty-Garbage626@reddit
Rufus to the rescue