krisomniac

So my computer died. Again.

This time it was the hard drive that crapped out. I was hoping it was going to be a virus, but had them run hardware diagnostics just in case.

two WEEKS (or three to four, because there's a schmorgusboard of holidays I don't really feel like celebrating in the middle there) to put in a new hard drive.

WHAT THE FUCK, people? It takes less than ten minutes of work to unscrew the cover and pop in a new drive. I know this. I've done it. But to have it paid for, they must send it out to some factory god-knows-where and spend two weeks dicking around with it.

Long story short, I will be online even LESS- only occasionally to check email at school, or if my firend returns the old old Dell I lent her last year.

*grumpyface*

Take my advice: never, NEVER buy an HP laptop. They may be cheap, but that's really the problem. As my old Irish friend used to say, "when you pay peanuts, you get monkeys." (not that I have a thing against monkeys. Just perpetually broken laptops.)

You know that brand new computer? The one I was hating on all alast week as I tried to get it set up the way my old one was?

Well, I brought it back to Best Buy yesterday, and the lovely geek squad boy I've been working with took one look, kind of closed it quickly, and said "let's just get you another one."

Um.

Does this happen?!?

Can you really burn through a brand new computer in less than a week? (and another brand new one in less than a year) *congratulates self in a rather awkward and ironic fashion*

Hi!

Made it back from vacation in one piece (twenty hours of air and airports and ferries and thunderstorm-driving at three in the morning was not quite as fun as the rest of the week) and now I'm on two weeks of large animal emergency and critical care. It's awesome but really long hours. I'd post pictures if I had them, or if I had a computer to post them from, which brings me to--

My computer died on Monday. This is not of the good; it's a 20month old machine that I don't even move around on a regular basis. It's never been dropped or spilled on, though it's seen more than it's fair share of pet hair. Mostly it just lives on my bedside table, yet it's been no end of trouble -- first the screen casing split now the screen/hard drive/mother board kicked it. It's out of warrantee, too, which has made it really fun to deal with Hewlett Packard. Seriously, don't buy HP or if you do, make sure it's covered for the entire time you plan to own the machine.

After talking to four service reps who had only a passing grasp of the English language, I finally learned that to talk to someone who knows anything, I had to pay $100. I told them I just wanted the hardware warantee extension, not the phone support. Turns out you can't buy one without the other. Coughed up the money and the technical support guy ended up telling me to take the machine to Best Buy (or pay a further $500 plus parts to have HP fix it). That was $100 well spent -- NOT.

I took it to Best Buy where they initially told me it was the power to the screen, as I suspected all along (when I can get the screen to turn on, the computer works just fine). The following day, after I started shopping for new laptop screens, they call to tell me the hard drive is shot. I don't know what happened between day one and two, and no one would tell me what the "PC test" which killed my hard drive was. They won't tell my whether it's a hardware or OS/software/driver issue. They just told me to get a new drive and OS, and then they'll know whether the mother board is shot, too.

I already had the drive and brought it in. They have nothing to recover my operating system. HP no longer sends recovery disks with new laptops -- they keep that information on a hard drive partition that you can't get to if you loose the drive and operating system. Furthermore, if you didn't have the presence of mind to burn your own disks when you got the machine, they CHARGE you to replace them. WHAT THE FUCK, HP?!

Needless to say I am NOT a happy camper, and on 12 hours sleep in the last four days, I migh've been cursing a blue streak and in tears on the phone with various people in India who didn't even appreciate my pathetic attempts at sarcasm.

So, yeah. I apologise for not commenting lately. Hopefully all will be back to normal over the next week. :) *fingers crossed*