How To Prepare your Computer for Off Site Repair

If your computer is experiencing technical problems, there is an alternative to physically bringing it to an IT consultant for troubleshooting. This alternative is called off-site repair, also known as remote access repair. Because of the relatively high cost – in terms of time and money - of a technician having to travel to a specific place to do troubleshooting, off-site repairs are becoming more and more popular. If you are planning to use this option, here are the ways that you could adequately prepare your computer for it:

* Get the services of a reputable off-site computer repair company. When choosing a company, you should get one that could deliver very speedy services (this is specially important if your business relies heavily on computers and internet connection). Also, it’s best that you choose a well-established company that many other businesses in your area use, since the security of your computer is at stake (see next tips).
* Protect important files. Remote access technicians will connect to your computer (using a computer ID and password), and you might be reminded of horror stories about identity theft and hackers. Yes, these could be highly possible, especially if you don’t enlist the services of reputable IT computer repair companies. But no matter what, it’s still best that you protect and create passwords for your most important and sensitive files to limit the access of the off-site computer technician.
* Back-up your computer files. Before you allow access to the computer tech, and if this is still possible, save your most important files and documents to an external hard drive or your flash disk. This way, in case any troubleshooting problems occur, your files will not disappear or would become irreparable.
* Delete internet cookies. These “cookies” are the traces of your internet activity, and these may contain sensitive information such as your logon passwords for different website. An unscrupulous computer technician may actually use this information to obtain access to your email accounts, for example. That’s why it’s best that you delete these internet cookies, and this is a very simple task to do. Simply open an Internet window, then click on “Tools” at the upper panel of the screen, and click on “options.” You can choose whether you would delete individual cookies or remove all of them altogether.
* Empty your recycle bin. If you have deleted any files, remember that they are still there and very easily accessible. Take the time to right-click on your recycle bin icon at your computer desktop and choose “empty recycle bin.” Do know that it is still possible to retrieve your files even if you’ve emptied your recycle bin, but at least it’s going to be a lot, lot harder to do it.


Sometimes it really pays to be extra careful. Even if you enlist the services of a reputable computer repair and troubleshooting company, it’s still essential that you take these precautions to ensure that you won’t be a victim or identity theft, and also to make sure that your private information (including photos, etc) will not find their way in the internet for everybody to see. Good luck, and hope this helped!