No more Dells for me

Originally Posted by Junior

I am just having horrible luck with computers at the moment, and had to vent. I have had 4 computer go bad in the last 3 weeks. Two Dells and Two IBMs.

Dell 1 Bad video so no display
Dell 2 hard drive crashed
IBM 1 motherboard is toast due to my son dropping it
IBM 2 video display went bad in it as well.

I am going to tear apart the two IBMs to see if I can combine the two to get one to work.

Sounds like me. I recently had to give my Apple MacBook to Apple to fix a dent caused by TSA dropping it while I was going through security (not covered under warranty). So I decided, since I was working from home, to use my home computer (a Dell 5150). I ordered some extra memory yesterday and decided, in a fit of "upgrading" to do the BIOS. Well, apparently that fried the memory sticks.

I called Dell to see if the error I was getting (3+4 were lit green and the computer was "buzzing" -- although I'm told it's a beep) was limited to the memory and not the memory slots or motherboard. The technician kept re-iterating that they would send me replacement sticks (2GB) but I said it didn't matter since I have 4GB on the way. He goes on that he can't refund the amount, which is fine. I asked again whether the motherboard could be an issue and he goes on about the refund. I get the manager explain it 3 times before he clues in. Now, I've worked Global Support for a few years for a large software company (no not M$) and even I understand what a customer is looking for when asking a question like that or know enough to probe further as to what is going on (i.e., it's useless to send new sticks if the motherboard is fried anyways, no? :P )

Sigh.

The quality of the systems and the quality of support has gone way downhill. It's not the economy that's killing Dell; it's Dell that's killing Dell.

Originally Posted by Linus

The quality of the systems and the quality of support has gone way downhill. It's not the economy that's killing Dell; it's Dell that's killing Dell.

Unfortunately that is the way a lot of things are going now.

I have the new hard drive in it now, and am loading the OS off of an old copy of it. Now I just have to find the other software to get loaded on it.

[markem]

If the disk is still usable, you should have another partition that has a copy of WinPE or WinRE on it that is bootable. Without an install or recovery CD (DVD) it may be a moot point, but some things are quite happily recoverable from Win/PE and RE.

You can also use that environment to snap an image of your main boot partition while it is not in use.

Originally Posted by markem

If the disk is still usable, you should have another partition that has a copy of WinPE or WinRE on it that is bootable. Without an install or recovery CD (DVD) it may be a moot point, but some things are quite happily recoverable from Win/PE and RE.

You can also use that environment to snap an image of your main boot partition while it is not in use.

They used Ghost on that partition. I use Tru Image, and will as soon as I get it all reloaded again.