Boulder PC

Listen… The guy is quirky. But he’s perfectly nice, and knows more about PCs than I ever will. Yes, the place was filthy when I went there. It was very awkward at times, and I almost didn’t meet up with him because he was late returning, which he wasn’t communicative about.
All those things are really not a big deal. He took apart my Dell laptop in front of me, diagnosed the HD as having minor water damage, told me my only real hope was to replace a very specific piece with the exact same piece. He said when/​if he could find this piece, he would let me know. No charge whatsoever at that time, for about 45 minutes of his expertise. Has not contacted me in months — meanwhile, I did some of my own research and took the laptop to another business, who told me the same stuff without looking into my computer. Turns out the part I need is just very hard to come by. So, I really don’t have much to complain about. Wish he was better at communicating.

Pardon the long review but I want to be as accurate regarding my experience as possible.
I contacted Boulder pc when I ran into a boot loop of its my acer PC. I would get to the start screen get a boot error and then the pc would attempt a repair, fail and then reboot over and over.
For this reason I brought my PC to Boulder PC. I had important files on this comp that constituted several months of work in excel. I should have backed these files up and did not.
Initially the owner had suggested that this would be a simple repair not costing an excess of $ 75. In about 48hrs the owner called me to inform me that I would need a new hard drive and a clean install of windows. I understand that he could not have predicted this and agreed to the service with the owner claiming that he was confident that the data could be restored from the old HD. Up to this point he had been very prompt in updating me on his progress and was very professional. I even sent an email to him letting him know I intended to write him a very positive review.
I payed the owner the agreed 65 $ for service (I purchased the HD elsewhere) and he said he would be in a touch.
After a few days I asked how things were progressing and he informed that he had not yet made any progress but that he was confident he would be able to tweak his programs towards success.
At this point I made no contact for over a week and then reached out via text twice without response over two days.
After another few days I left a voice mail asking him to please update me regard progress (others were involved in the work these files were for and I wanted to provide them with a status update).
After 10 days of not hearing from the owner I sent the following email
«Hi there,
So I have, since 01÷26÷15, heard nothing regarding the status of data recovery on my drive. I have now sent 2 texts asking for an update and called and left a message and have heard nothing back. If more time is required that is fine, I understand that these things are complicated and outside my breadth of understanding and as such I don’t pretend to be able to evaluate how long they ought to take. All that said I am fairly upset with not having heard back from you despite multiple attempts to be updated. It is not the timing that is upsetting but rather that as a paying customer that my requests for info would go unanswered despite multiple attempts over such an interval. Prior to this I had been very pleased by the quality of customer service provided and prompt responses. Could you please respond and let me know what the plan is and where we stand? I get that you are likely quite busy and I can understand that but no correspondence with a customer over this interval despite multiple attempts on my part is, to me, unacceptable.
Additionally the files I am in most need of are in the documents folder and the download folders (one on desktop and the other the stock download folder). If there are the only files that can be recovered I can live with that. There are others involved in this project and i need to be accountable to them regarding the progress of data recovery. «
To which I received this email in return
«Believe it or not it something I continue to work on when I have time to dedicate to it. Quite frankly it’s a lost cause so my extra effort is more about testing new software for its capability. In truth, with this drive you’re going to need to send it to a lab that has a clean room and is designed for data retrieval. The costs of such is exorbitant running into the thousands of dollars. You can do that or you can be patient and hopeful that one day I will run across a new piece of software and it’ll work and I’ll get something back for you. Your call… while you decide which direction to go in, lab or patience, please know that if I actually do one day come across the software that gives us joy joy, I WILL let you know. Not much else I can do except tell you your not being charged for my efforts thus far. You can be as upset as you want, you’ve got better things to with your time as do I. Again, when I have news for you, you will be the first to know»
What is upsetting to me is not failed data recovery or even that it took to long to but rather the lack of communication and the unprofessional tone of his response via email. I was also displeased that in previous correspondence he seemed to suggest that there was a reasonable chance of getting my data back and that it was som thing that he was actively working on. Had I known that the outlook changed I would have understood and had started immediately ion making up for my lost work.
I didn’t back up the HD and that is my fault. He can’t predict what files can be extracted and knew this going in. This just seems to me to be a poor way to treat a customer.

Maybe my situation was a fluke, but he had my computer for months, and I always had to initiate contact when I started to wonder if he had left the state. He always had a reason, and he was always «just about to call me.» I actually never even got my computer back from him, but since I did get my hard drive back I got tired of pursuing him and decided to drop it. Definitely not going back.

Our 4 year old computer was doing some strange things for a while before it got completely fried with a sudden power disconnect. John was able to get life out of it for a couple of minutes before it was declared dead. I needed to pull precious images off the harddrive, and get a new desktop. I was able to get a new discounted Dell desktop through John and get the hard drive transferred over to the new machine for $ 420 within a week. I have had motherboards and hard drives die before and I thought this was a good price and quickly done without losing any precious data. John is hard and fast worker, very honest, and eager to help. I would definitely bring my next computer problem to him!

John is a great guy. Honest, very savy, straight forward and fast! Had a major freak moment when I woke up to my Dell Laptop completely blank. He fixed it within hours.

After an hour of phone tech support through HP, they diagnosed my problem as a bad hard drive needing replacement. Before I committed to buying a new one (along with an extended warranty) I took my laptop to John at Boulder PC. He checked it out, told me I might not actually need a new hard drive and by the end of the day had repaired the problem. I was only without my computer for fewer than 24hrs and the cost was very reasonable. And I didn’t need a new hard drive!

If you are looking for honest, friendly, transparent, professional, skilled computer service DO NOT choose Boulder PC! After experiencing myriad issues with various computers and related devices in our office, we called John to come out and take a look, based on the company’s professed knowledge of both PC and Mac (we run both), experience, and low rates. But instead of a friendly service professional, willing to listen and patiently work through the problems we were paying to have solved in an efficient manner, we got a hot-​tempered, snarky, and frankly, rude, individual, bursting with immediate opinions and criticisms. Instead of communicating what he was doing and walking through problems and solutions with us, John abruptly jumped from machine to machine, ultimately solving nothing and further confusing the issues we had already been experiencing, even when we presented the solution that we would have liked, with the request that someone simply execute it. There was a complete lack of any professionalism whatsoever, becoming verbally nasty when we did not care for his «superior» configuration of our network, and displacing numerous files and emails without any indication as to why or to where. Boulder PC effectively wasted half of our work day, making sure to charge us for every second. Not only did they help us accomplish ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, but our computer troubles are now WORSE. Rest assured that they will not be receiving further business from us, and we encourage anyone and everyone else to steer clear as well.