Dealing with Computer Problems in French

Getting Technical in French

It can be frustrating when your computer won't do want you tell it to do! dealing with computer problems in your own language is bad enough so imagine trying to deal with it in French!

A client of our posed this problem...

Last week mon ordinateur était en panne (my computer was broken) and I had to go to le magasin d’informatique (the computer store). I was worried that mon vocabulaire d’informatique (my computer vocabulary) wasn’t good enough and that I wouldn’t be able to explain the problem. On top of that, with la canicule, it was so hot I just didn’t want to do anything!

Here is some basic vocabulaire, which should be enough to help you to be able to say what you need.

Par exemple (for example), how to say:

There seems to be a problem with the boot sector, and I’m afraid the hard drive has failed.

Il me semble qu’il y a un problème avec le secteur boot et j’ai peur que le disque dur ait échoué.

He understood! Although I quickly learned boot sector is le secteur d’intialisation and not le secteur boot. However his prognosis made my feelings of success short lived.

Ça va prendre cinq jours au moins et si c’est le disque dur, ça va couter 500 € (cinq cents euros) pour le remplacer et l’installer, plus le coût de main d’œuvre.

It will take five days and if it’s the hard drive, it will cost €500 to replace it and install it, plus labor costs.

I wasn’t prepared to pay €500, so I asked:

Est-ce que je peux le faire moi-même ?

En fait, si vous voulez, utilisez une live DVD Linux et voir si les données sont toujours là. Alors vous allez savoir si le disque dur est en panne ou non.

C’est une bonne idée !

Can I do it myself?

In fact, if you want to, use a Linux live DVD and see if the data is still there. Then you will know if the hard-drive is broken or not.

That’s a good idea!

I bought un DVD and une fois à la maison (once I was home), his idea worked! I could sauvegarder (backup, save) all my files and nothing was lost!