Now what?

[mrsbrown]

Last week my laptop died.  BSOD, recursive restarts, and the several cd based programs both mr-bassman and I used consistantly failed.

I thought it was dead and had nearly accepted that I was going to lose all my data, because its been a while between backups.

I was very pleased to dig out my extended warranty info and find that I was covered.  They weren't going to get my data back, but at least I'd have a working computer.  I wasn't very happy about their atitude to my hard disk though.

They told me that, if the hard disk was dead, they would replace it but they wouldn't return the old one to me.

So today I pulled out the hard disk, put it into an external case, shook it until it started spinning and copied my data onto one of mr-bassman's laptops.  Then I put it back into my laptop and here we are.  I have a working laptop.

I've copied files, downloaded stuff, played videos from the hard drive and it all seems to be working.  Mr-bassman suggested a diagnostic program to me - crystal disk info.  It reports that I should treat the disk with caution, I have one "pending sector count", but everything else is within normal tolerance.

I sort of wish the computer were still dead.  Then they could take it away and I would probably get a new hard drive. One that I can rely on.  Not like this one.

Tonight I'm making a recovery image onto the household server.  Tomorrow I'll ring and see if they think I should cancel the extended warranty pickup.  At the very least, they could replace the 'f' key that fell off about 6 months ago.

Then maybe I'll buy a bigger hard disk, one I can rely on.  Better ask the warranty people about that too.

Comments

[etfb]

My motto: never look a gift warranty in the mouth. The Chaos Gods have smiled upon you, and you've saved your data. However, your hard disk now stands naked, its true nature revealed: verily it is an piece of shite, and none may abide the odour therefrom. They'll discover that it's bodgy when they test it (because suspicion = proof when the cost of parts is a tiny percentage of the cost of repeated warranty repairs) so they'll replace it. Because time and Moore's Law march on, they'll replace it with a bigger drive. Ask them to call and let you know before they put the new drive in, to give you the option to yea/nay it, so you can ask them to put in a bigger one if you feel like it, at your cost. They may play silly buggers and make you pay the difference for a drive they were going to put in anyway, but probably not, because the people who are doing the repairs aren't the people who are paying for the parts.

Also: "F" keys: very important. Can't live without. Especially when talking about bodgy hard disks.