Data Recovery in Virginia, Maryland, DC - tips to save yourself the money and the hassle

We do a vast amount of data recovery work in the Washington D.C. area, and felt it would be a good idea to share some tips to help you keep yourself from ending up needing a full data recovery. If it's too late and you need help with Data Recovery in Washington D.C., Virginia or Maryland contact us today.

Backup your data regularly - in more than one location if possible.
External hard drives are pretty affordable these days and there are lots of free backup applications that will outperform expensive, enterprise level software.

Maintain up-to-date virus scanning software.
We highly recommend AVG free edition - it tends to do a better job than the expensive software you're already familiar with. Viruses can sometimes wreak havoc on a system, deleting data.

Keep an offsite copy of your data - you may experience theft, fire, flood, or other natural disasters.
While these experiences alone are much to bare it does not make it any better when you realize you've lost email, photos and videos of loved ones or thousands of dollars worth of data. Many businesses will close shortly after a data loss due to a natural disaster if they do not have a backup from which they can restore their data.

Remove the human element - many people intend to perform their own backups...
...only to forget. We get busy. We get distracted. We procrastinate. Don't fail to maintain a backup because you can't find the time or energy to go through the process of running a manual backup. Get an automated backup setup (and we can help you with this if you're in Virginia, Marlyand or Washington, D.C.)

The four tips above, when followed, should keep you from losing your data. If you've got multiple computers, network backups and residential-level data-servers may be appropriate. Chances are you can get setup with one for less than you'd think.

If you need help with any of these things, please visit our main website and request a service call.

onCALL 25/8, Inc. Prefers Computing Without Headaches

We get numerous requests to downgrade PC's from Windows Vista to Windows XP in Maryland, DC and Northern Virginia. I call it more of an upgrade... but I guess that all depends on your opinion. We've captured a video of the process and sped it up by 1000% (so it won't be so boring to watch!). In the video below the Dell inspiron desktop PC was easy to repair. Dell provided all of the drivers for this machine to run properly on Windows XP.




Please don't be fooled - the process is often quite involved. Some times the manufacturer does not provide drivers for XP. But with a bit of research we're able to figure out the proper chipset or original part number and get the system to work. Of the several hundred Vista to XP downgrades we've attempted there has been only two which did not have all drivers available and in both instances we were able to determine this prior to uninstalling / formatting the Vista install.

Now that we've put this video up I'm sure the onCALL 25/8 Mac Repair techs for Virginia, Maryland and DC are going to put up a video of installing windows XP on a MacBook or something.

Fake CNN Spam infects Dell Desktop Dimension 2400

If you've noticed a swarm of CNN messages in your inbox lately that's because it's the latest attempt of phishers to infect your computer with viruses and spyware. We've only had one affected customer, thus far. The attack leads you to a page that falsely indicates you have an outdated version of Adobe Flash Player, prompting you to upgrade. If you proceed with the upgrade your computer will become infected and your antivirus software may report it has found Cbeplay.a, a trojan which will phone home and install additional bits of malware on your system.

If you need assistance removing this virus please contact us immediately - our expert technicians can perform a virus removal procedure on computers located in Maryland, Northern Virginia, and Washington D.C.

Microsoft on schedule to release internet explorer 8 in near future

It seems microsoft will begin a second beta test for their latest version of internet explorer later this year. Their blog reports it will be available this month and will offer new features for IT professionals and web developers. Their's a rumor that the new browser may begin rendering web pages incorrectly - if you perform the upgrade and see some issues you'll know why and (barring any glitches) an uninstall should fix it.

Vista antivirus wreaking havoc

We've had lots of trouble calls in the Washington, DC, Virginia and Maryland area with Vista Antivirus loaded on the machine. This is rogueware attempting to bully the unsuspecting user into purchasing fake antivirus software which will not really be of much help to the user. There are many variants, some of which may be using rootkit/stealth techniques to prevent removal from standard antivirus software (McCafee, Norton, Trend Micro, Etc.).

onCALL 25/8 can repair your computer if it has been infected by this virus. A combination of manual removal and automated scans may save the system without having to go through a full backup and reinstall procedure.

Laptops affected by failing NVIDIA chips

It's been brought to our attention by one of our sources that there are many laptops (as many as 18 million) affected with faulty video chipsets manufactured by NVIDIA. It is reported that a BIOS update to these machines will "fix" the issue, but that does not appear to be the case - updating the BIOS simply turns the fan on more frequently and is likely to shorten your battery life and cause the fan to fail sooner. The proposed fix by the big manufacturers (Dell, HP, Apple, Lenovo, and others) is simply a band aid - likely an attempt to push your machine just outside of its warranty period. We've got these models on a watch list and will be performing extensive tests to verify whether the chips are or are not failing.

Dell laptops reported to be affected by the NVIDIA video failiure:

• Inspiron 1420
• Latitude D630
• Latitude D630C
• Dell Precision M2300
• Vostro Notebook 1310
• Vostro Notebook 1400
• Vostro Notebook 1510
• Vostro Notebook 1710
• XPS M1330
• XPS M1530

HP Laptops reported to be affected by the NVIDA video failure:

• HP Pavillion dv2000 Series
• HP Pavillion dv2100 Series
• HP Pavillion dv2200 Series
• HP Pavillion dv2300 Series
• HP Pavillion dv2400 Series
• HP Pavillion dv6000 Series
• HP Pavillion dv6100 Series
• HP Pavillion dv6200 Series
• HP Pavillion dv6300 Series
• HP Pavillion dv6400 Series
• HP Pavillion dv9000 Series
• HP Pavillion dv9200 Series
• HP Pavillion dv9300 Series
• HP Pavillion dv9400 Series
• Compaq Presario v6400 Series
• Compaq Presario v6300 Series
• Compaq Presario v6200 Series
• Compaq Presario v6100 Series
• Compaq Presario v6000 Series
• Compaq Presario v3400 Series
• Compaq Presario v3300 Series
• Compaq Presario v3200 Series
• Compaq Presario v3100 Series
• Compaq Presario v3000 Series

The other big manufacturers have not yet released what models have been affected but onCALL 25/8 technicians have been instructed to check all laptops for the purportedly affected chipsets and extensively monitor them so we can alert our customers whether or not they are likely to be affected by this issue.