Changed Isp Problem

[ImLostAgain]

I gave my grandson my old laptop ages ago and he's been very happy with it until now. He's just changed his isp to, I think, vodaphone. He phoned me this morning to say that after the changeover it has gone back to an earlier version of windows. It started life as windows 8 then 8.1 and finally 10. and evrthing he had on it,bookmarks email etc have disappeared. I've told him to contact whoever is his new provider to see what they say. For whatever reason he is loathe to do so and wants me to go and have a look at it for him. Me for gods sake!!!
Anyway I can't get around there till tonight or maybe even tomorrow. Any ideas as to anything he can try while he's waiting for me. I mean all I'll be doing is ringing the isp myself.

[netherfield]

I'm no expert, but I can't see how changing ISP can have done what you describe. It's possible he's changed a setting or deleted something he shouldn't have. Or it could be the motherboard battery has gone flat and the BIOS has lost its settings. Chances are everything is still there. We had something similar occur, trip to a local computer shop might be a quick fix without costing a fortune.

[ImLostAgain]

Cheers netherfield, I'll keep that in mind when I get to see him.

[Old_Geezer]

I concur that simply changing the provider isn't going to change what runs on the device. I take it that there has been no backups. Maybe run error checking from a CD/DVD/thumbdrive ?

Worst comes to worst, one can reinstall later versions of Windows again.

But if computers are not your forte maybe a shop visit is the way to go.

[ImLostAgain]

Certainly not my forte Old_Geezer, but he seems to think it is!

[tuxedo37]

book marks passwords are saved by a browser ie:chrome /firefox etc
not on your laptop,

[ImLostAgain]

Yes I just had the same thought tuxedo37,so I've phoned him and asked him to either switch it off and back on again or do a reset.
what do you know, he's got it all back again:-)
His grandad's a hero again!!
Sometimes we overlook the obvious.
Thanks all for your replies.