What is the biggest newb mistake you have made since you got interested in computers?

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slpaulson

Diamond Member
Jun 5, 2000
4,414
14
81
Getting a Syquest Sparq drive.

I think I had to RMA the thing three times before I gave up.
It was nice when it worked though.

I also cracked the socket to my first ever motherboard that used a socket (I was used to slot motherboards) when I lifted the lever w/o applying some outward pressure to get the lever past the little ledge that keeps it in place. The board still works fine to this day though.

I also had a friend who was so damn convinced he had an AGP slot on his motherboard because he saw it in a folder on his computer. He had some integraded video and no AGP slot on his motherboard, but he kept looking.
 
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PHL1365

Member
Jul 10, 2002
124
0
0
While doing some housekeeping on an old DOS-based multi-user system, I got sidetracked and typed
del *.* in the directory containing all the database files. I was able to undelete some of them, but most of the data was completely hosed.
 
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Dennis Travis

Golden Member
Oct 9, 1999
1,076
1
81
Originally posted by: PHL1365
While doing some housekeeping on an old DOS-based multi-user system, I got sidetracked and typed
del *.* in the directory containing all the database files. I was able to undelete some of them, but most of the data was completely hosed.
Click to expand...

Phl1365, I did not do that but my roomates 3-4 year old daughter did! Or almost. We left here home with a friend supposedly watching her, she went into my room where I kept the Server that ran my then Dial Up bbs, I was the areas FidoNet Hub and many other things. She clicked on the icon for XTGold Filemanager, kept hitting keys and hit the right combo that marked all files on the main HDD and then hid Alt D and it was asking Yes or no to delete it all! I walked in from the store just in time! My god was I freeked out! Back then full backups were hard as no one I knew had CD Burners and you could back up just so much on a Colorado Tape Backup that I had. I laugh about it now but was pretty upset at the time!


 
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Dennis Travis

Golden Member
Oct 9, 1999
1,076
1
81
Originally posted by: funggorgor
my biggest mistake is buying microsoft softwares
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funggorgor, I feel that way every once in a while. I don't have anywhere near the problems with windows 2k nor Xp that a lot of people do because I am carefull, don't use IE and keep my machine protected and up to date but I fix systems all the time that are totally destroyed due especially to spyware. Most of it is people who will not listen no matter how much I warn them what not to do.
 
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randym431

Golden Member
Jun 4, 2003
1,270
1
0
Offering to upgrade someones old outdated pc.
And...
Being a nice guy and offering to help family/friends with pc problems. You soon become their slave, and are forever blamed for their pc problems they ever encounter then on. Now I tell them " I'm retired from that".
 
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montag451

Diamond Member
Dec 17, 2004
4,587
0
0
randym, I completely agree....

apart from the family thing, I was GIVEN 5 old PIII Compaqs, which I gave to friends....
Guess that was a silly mistake.. - Every time they get a virus, or delete a file they needed - guess who gets the phonecall at midnite
 
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Literati

Golden Member
Jan 13, 2005
1,864
0
0
aww man I have no idea where to start.

Well here's one... Actually this happened pretty recently... I sometimes keep the side of my case off when working "under the hood" leaving everything exposed by my feet.

Some guy popped out of nowhere while I was playing America's Army and scared me half to death, when I jumped I managed to kick my Audigy/Motherboard/Radeon all at once for the worst crash I have ever experienced.

After my display blew out and my CPU sounded like it was screaming I immediately powered down, waited a minute and rebooted. It rebooted fine and now everything still runs great (I love MSI, I've never had any problems with them and I've abused them terribly) but I think I blew out my microphone input because I have not been able to get my mic to record right since then.

It sounds like I'm stickin my head out of the window of a submarine while it's moving and trying to yell when I record.
 
jadinolf

jadinolf

Lifer
Oct 12, 1999
20,952
3
81
Been doing it for almost 10 years and no newb mistakes yet. I imagine the first one will be a lu lu.
 
Patrick Wolf

Patrick Wolf

Platinum Member
Jan 5, 2005
2,443
0
0
Before I knew anything about computers: Buying a Dell, than later, an Alienware (could have saved tons of money if I built :frown: )

After I knew something about computers: Leavina an extra standoff in the case that killed my motherboard.
 
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resStealth

Banned
Jan 9, 2005
240
0
0
took my computer apart and didnt reseat the lone 64 meg ram stick, wouldnt boot. i went through hell replugging cables, trying to go into safe mode, clearing bios and cmos. then my friend took a look and fixed it. i felt so stupid
 
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Cook1

Diamond Member
Jul 11, 2004
6,315
0
86
My biggest n00b thing was trying to figure out how to rewind a DVD...

Back in the day of course.
 
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Amaroque

Platinum Member
Jan 2, 2005
2,178
0
0
Originally posted by: Amaroque
I was playing with a program called "FDISK" on a shiny new 286. Couldn't figure out why the computer wouldn't even boot after that.

It wasn't my computer, so I ran away. The next day the guy was running around screaming about his hard drive being blank! :)
Click to expand...

This still makes me laugh! :D
 
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