Murphy's Law?

[Bonibelle]

I have had the most unbelievable exerience...and I have realized that sometimes it is not worth it to compain about anything ..at least not if you own a Dell computer!

I have an extended warranty on my Dell...so I called to find out if they could fix the power button on my monitor because it stays on...you could not turn it off. They sent me a new monitor right away..nice..but it wouldn't work with my DVI cable...Long story and many many hours on the phone...they sent a technician who systematically replaced EVERYTHING in my computer....the graphics card, the CPU, the motherboard and finally when he came back and replaced the power pack..he crashed my hard drive.
I am still amazed..I have NO computer, a crashed hard drive and all because I wanted to be able to turn my monitor off...Dell says too bad they are not responsible for my data. .

I said if I took my car in for a light bulb replacement and they took out the motor and happened to destroy my transmission..who's at fault? 

Looking at Macs

[wmccall]

You would think that dell selling extended warranties would be bad for me.  I suppose it is, but it also gets me a lot of work.  I have heard many similar stories.  I had one lady spend more than 6 hours on the phone before they would agree she had a dead hard drive.  She finally gave up and paid me to replace it, and I rescued some data where they wouldn't even try.  The only warranty I will buy from Dell is accidental breakage warranty on laptops.

[Bonibelle]

Not buying warranty, or anything from Dell ever again. Bill what would be my best choice for getting my data off that crashed drive? I have a friend who offered to try, but would rather pay someone to do it. And then I will get on line back up...

[SurgTec]

We ALL swear we will 'back up often' - when our hard drive has just crashed..... Guilty myself of course!

I 'built' my own system - a PC - purchased 'genuine' Intel board, processor, RAM, 2 - 120 GB hard drives, and 2 DVD/ROM drives, plus XP OS and MS Office.  It really wasnt' difficult and now I know exactly how to 'start at the beginning' when something goes bad.  And yes - I've gotten lax about backing up again - but at least I keep my 'data' and 'images' on the dual hard drive - and all operating system components on the other one. 

Sorry to hear about your experience with Dell - I've not heard anything good about them.  Many folks swear by Macs - but I've only ever used PCs - so hard to learn a new system when I'm comfortable with the one I've got. 

[dasno]

Not buying warranty, or anything from Dell ever again. Bill what would be my best choice for getting my data off that crashed drive? I have a friend who offered to try, but would rather pay someone to do it. And then I will get on line back up...

Boni  I would recommend a local computer shop to try to rescue your data.  Some will even reload onto a new hard drive and copy over any data (pics, word docs, excel docs, music etc.) that they can recover. 

I would recommend if you don't know of any legit repair shops to ask some basic questions.  How long have you been around.  Do you have any certifications?  Do you give any kind of a warranty on the new hard drive, etc?  Don't pay up front and make sure they let you know the service charge for trying to recover the data first.  Most places around here charge like a minimum 30 dollar charge just for attempting to recover the data....

Hopefully this helps!

[wmccall]

I largely agree with dasno.  Hard drives are currently cheap.  Get a big external drive and keep file copies on your local machine and the external drive.  Data recovery from dead drives can run into 4 figures. 

[dasno]

I largely agree with dasno.  Hard drives are currently cheap.  Get a big external drive and keep file copies on your local machine and the external drive.  Data recovery from dead drives can run into 4 figures. 

Another option for keeping files would be  on a flash drive.  These are also relatively cheap.  However one downside is I typically loose these

[Bonibelle]

Haha...spent HOURS looking for some of my husband's important files that I was smart enough to put on several flash drives a long time ago...Finally we found them filed with the Boy Scout stuff..go figure!!

I actually had an external hard drive, but I disconnected it about 8 months ago because for some reason the computer kept looking for the files to boot in that drive  ?? I am not sure if anything was ever backed up to that drive at all. got frustrated messing with it.

Dell says they are replacing my computer..well they would have to since all the components have been replaced and obviously are not happy together..I am going to get a new external drive and see if Staples can get my data off and transfered to the new external drive. Thanks for all your help guys.. I think I may print all my pictures and rent a storage pod to store them in..

[Vinny]

Boni,

Unless your hard drive is totally trashed everything may be recoverable. What may have happened is the boot sectors may have been corrupted and that's why it's not working. Although I'm not a computer tech I have built and rebuilt computers and I recall that hard drives have a master/slave dip switch or jumper. The "master" drive is what the computer looks to boot up the computer and the "slave" is the secondary drive in which data can be pulled off.

I don't know if I would try Staples for the recovery though. I would opt for a computer repair place to have as geeky of a computer person try to get the stuff off the hard drive vs a kid who could care less. As a tech, I will tell you a good tech wants to win the situation.

Also, I would see if you can get backup software for your computer and use that to backup data onto the external drive. You can try Cnet as they have freeware that may be good or there is software that can be bought. Windows also has backup software built into it ... don't know how good it is.

Now on to Apple, I neither love or hate the brand (own Apple stock and it is making me money) but any tech support from anybody is only as good as the tech who is doing it!

[Bonibelle]

guess I will update this too...The louder I yelled at Dell, the more they beefed up this replacement computer. but I am still NOT happy. My friend recovered my data from my hard drive and we put it on an external drive. The process literally took days. Dell sent me a "new" computer. It has an i7 processor..64 bit with 12 g of ram. a nice graphics card and a blue ray drive. I know I sound ungrateful but all I wanted was my old computer running XP and would trade this in a nano second. They gave me Vista ultimate..which I couldn't' deal with!! None of my software works on this computer. So I upgraded to Windows 7 and still have to buy many new versions of software. ALL OF THIS BECAUSE THE POWER BUTTON WOULDN'T WORK ON MY MONITOR.