Why I love computers..

My older computer completely crashed 2 weeks ago.  I took it to Best Buy/Geeek Squad for a fix up, $200 later and this is the best they can do...



At least I got my files back.  The computer still can't run internet, e-mail, print, or run several programs it use to run.  Oh well.

Anyone here cabable of fixing the thing?

Thought I'd ask.

Thanks,

Bryan

The best way is to reformat your hard drive (in case some nasty virus hiding in boot sector or system files) and reload the Operating System (Windows OS).  I can do this for you no charge if you can bring the computer to my house.

They should fix it completely and not charge you anymore.  I would talk to a manager.  Hopefully Sailfish can fix it though.  Try downloading combofix from bleeping computers and malware bytes. I have really good luck with these and just finished fixing a severe problem with malwarebytes. 

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/combofix/how-to-use-combofix

HB....don't take this personally...thats one of the funniest error messages I've ever seen. 

I agree with Andy, I'd take it back to the geeks at best buy and demand they fix it. 

Sounds like they deleted a registry when fixing it. 
Here's what I found just googling the problem. 


When you click the Help and Support icon in Start Menu, or launch Helpctr.exe manually, you may receive the following error message:
Windows cannot open Help and Support because a system service is not running.
To fix this problem, start the service named 'Help and Support'.



To resolve the problem, Start the Help and Support Center service and set it to Automatic. Follow these steps:

•Click Start, Run and type Services.msc

•Double-click Help and Support

•Set the Startup type to Automatic

•Start the Service

If the Help and Support service is missing in the Services.msc listing, this may be due to accidental deletion of a registry key. Download helpsvc.zip file and unzip the contents. Extract helpsvc.reg to the Desktop and double-click to merge the contents to the registry. This restores the Help and Support service entry.

HB....don't take this personally...thats one of the funniest error messages I've ever seen.

Isn't that classic MS? 

Bryon, the unasked question is how old is "older"? $200 is probably worth getting your data back. For not much more than that you can have a new machine. I'd say if your old computer is old enough that you're running Windows 98, or if you have Ver-1 USB ports, don't throw good time/money after bad.

Ben

Thanks for the suggestions.  I will take it back to Best Buy and see if they screwed it up.  Andy, I will look into those options after Geek Squad looks at it again.  Ben, it is about 6 or 7 years old, and was running Windows XP.  I agree, the $200 was worth saving the data, and now I just need to transfer it to my new machine.

Thanks again,

Bryan

Bryan, if you indeed recovered ALL your data, the least that Best Buy should do is to reformat the hard drive and reinstall the operating system to get everything up and running again. $200 should have gotten you more than just your recovered data. Best Buys advertises their Geek Squad service quite a bit; so they should prove their worth. Then it's up to you to reinstall your favorite programs...unless you want to pay Best Buy more for who-knows what results.

Howard

Be very careful.................I had them work on my computer, reformatted and loaded my hard drive.  They loaded my hard drive with someone else's info and files.  They assured me that my data was not on the other persons drive.  Needless to say that I was not at all confident in the statement.

What make and model is the computer?  Most computer makers nowadays will hide a "copy" of the computer on the hard drive as it was configured from the factory.  Reverting to the "as new' configuration will be easy if its available, they usually call it a system recovery.  It wipes your drive clean, and reloads everything as it came from the factory. 

Your computer being 6-7 years old, its not worth spending anymore money on it now that you're recovered your data from it.