As a PC repair guy, I really liked this question that was posed to the readers of Ars today. It really makes you think about the software and other utilities that we so often take for granted when they are so accessible to us from our work area.

I’m jumping across the pond to the beautiful Emerald Isle, and while I’m there, one of my duties will be to inspect and repair an ailing HP laptop sporting Windows XP Home, SP2. Here’s what I know is wrong: it often boots, then crashes, then boots into safe mode. When it’s in safe mode (with networking), things work well enough that people can surf, do e-mail, etc., but performance is quirky, and things sometimes mysteriously stop working. This is the extent of the diagnosis that has been carried out so far. [Read the rest]