Greetings From the Laptop, Le Sigh

[the_gneech]

My new, barely-out-of-the-box computer, GORT, had a brain hemorrhage this evening. After a bit of round-and-round with the Dell chat help, the net result is "This particular problem requires you wipe your hard drive and restore it to the factory default."

I wailed and gnashed my teeth. Only on the inside, 'cause I'm brave, but still.

So now GORT is having his brain re-installed. Fortunately, data loss will be minimal because I've got very thorough backups, having suffered catastrophic hard drive failures before. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to reinstall and re-configure (and re-update) every freakin' driver and bit-o-software.

So, there went my weekend. :P

Tomorrow's SJ will be a filler piece utilizing files I had elsewhere. I'm not sure when new strips will go up. It depends on how much time I have to spend on GORT instead of on art, I guess.

Oy vey.

-The Gneech

Comments

[ccroft.livejournal.com]

I hereby declare GORT to be disruptive to social harmony. GORT is an UN-MUTUAL!

I don't believe this....

[mammallamadevil.livejournal.com]

Dell gremlins invading your hard drive?....goofy..

don't put it too close to the Pavilion, eh? (oh wait, I think I exorcised most of those demons back in 2005)...

good luck...

MLD

Re: I don't believe this....

[laurie-robey.livejournal.com]

Windows XP is reinstalled. Next step, drivers.

[kamau-d-lyon.livejournal.com]

Shockwave had this same problem with support. They seem to be taking the easy way out and simply have you start from scratch rather then work with you to restore the system to at least a level that you can get data back.

It is also very odd that at the present moment a lot of people are having HD failures. This includes servers being taken down. Make me wonder if there's some little bug running around out there that we all have been missing. And yes, that means I've also lost a HD in the last week. Just the joy I needed with all on my plate.

[raishi-fox.livejournal.com]

If the hard drive itself is still good, I can't think of many reasons why you'd have to wipe the entire hard drive clean to repair it. Reinstalling windows from scratch is unfortunately all too common, but wiping everything? I have to agree with Kamau, they're being lazy and screwing you over.

Most "support" services are like that now, unfortunately. I just inherited a "dead" HP laptop from a friend, and fixed it up nicely. Unfortunately, it has a bios password on it that's part of the default setup, so any attempts to remove the password by "normal" last-ditch effort means just reset it right back to the same password. I tried calling HP, and instead of giving me the password for it (which they can do, they have a program to generate one from the system hash code), they told me I could send the laptop to them, and for $350, they'll replace the perfectly good motherboard with a new one that they can give me the password for.

I'll handle that myself, thanks.