IT LIVES. Sort of.
Nov. 7th, 2005 10:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oneirophreniaMy Sony desktop has returned to something kind of like life. It now has a 100mb SATA hard-drive in it (half the size of the drive it originally came with, but oh well), and I've finally managed to get it restored. Boy, was that a fucking chore. Witness:
When I took the box in to Laurel Computers last week, I just asked them to check to be sure it actually was the hard-drive that had died and not something else...and if it was the drive, I'd purchased a new 100mb SATA drive with which to replace it. I left them the restore disks I'd made as well so they could just test the new drive by reinstalling the factory drivers and software, etc.
Well, it turned out the original drive WAS busted--clickety clickety grind grind grind goes the dying drive--but it took them all of one minute to check out all my other hardware and give it all the collective thumbs-up. They installed the new drive and went to run the restore disks...which didn't work. Apparently, the DVDs I'd used to make them were bad. Joy.
Luckily, it only cost me $20 in labor to have the new drive installed and the other hardware checked out--but when I got home I got on the horn to Sony to bitch about the restore disk problem. Surprisingly, they were extremely helpful and told me they'd send me a set of recovery disks pronto. This was on Friday. I got the disks in the mail today.
As soon as the restore program booted up...an error message showed up, telling me something catastrophic had happened and restore could not continue. At that point, my eyes rolled up into my head and I started to feel my nerves burning with that good ol' Croat rage that emerges from terminal frustration...but I gave Sony support another call to see if they could help me out here. I was fearing the whole damn machine was fucked and I'd have to send it back to them...at considerable expense and annoyance.
To make a long story short, the fella I talked to at Sony's helpdesk was probably the most helpful tech flunky I've EVER spoken to. He helped me diagnose the problem and walked me through installation, post-install diagnostics, and everything. Turns out the only way I can restore my machine if, say, a drive dies again is to disable all USB support from the BIOS before running the restore program because, for SOME reason, it balks at the presence of any sort of USB bus. Don't ask me why. The helpdesk guy said this was the only time he'd EVER heard of that error coming up....But, like I said, he walked me through disabling USB support in the BIOS in order to re-install everything, then bring it back up and check everything out for problems. He also emailed me a link to documentation specifically showing me what I'll need to do again if this problem ever crops up once more. THAT was just awesome.
So. The machine works again. I'm typing this on it right now. Hopefully, if all continues to go well, I'll have all my software back on it ready to rock again by tomorrow night and can get back to writing music and fiction and grading properly once more.
But do not get me wrong: all my fingers and toes and crossed right now, I'm knocking on any wooden structure or surface I come within a foot of, and I'm trailing lines of salt in front of every door and window Just In Case. I used to scoff at superstitions and fatalism, but let me tell you: I am VERY rapidly becoming an intensely fatalistic person. Don't be surprised if by year's end my entire house is painted with hex signs and veves to protect me from the rancid gaze of jealous loas.
When I took the box in to Laurel Computers last week, I just asked them to check to be sure it actually was the hard-drive that had died and not something else...and if it was the drive, I'd purchased a new 100mb SATA drive with which to replace it. I left them the restore disks I'd made as well so they could just test the new drive by reinstalling the factory drivers and software, etc.
Well, it turned out the original drive WAS busted--clickety clickety grind grind grind goes the dying drive--but it took them all of one minute to check out all my other hardware and give it all the collective thumbs-up. They installed the new drive and went to run the restore disks...which didn't work. Apparently, the DVDs I'd used to make them were bad. Joy.
Luckily, it only cost me $20 in labor to have the new drive installed and the other hardware checked out--but when I got home I got on the horn to Sony to bitch about the restore disk problem. Surprisingly, they were extremely helpful and told me they'd send me a set of recovery disks pronto. This was on Friday. I got the disks in the mail today.
As soon as the restore program booted up...an error message showed up, telling me something catastrophic had happened and restore could not continue. At that point, my eyes rolled up into my head and I started to feel my nerves burning with that good ol' Croat rage that emerges from terminal frustration...but I gave Sony support another call to see if they could help me out here. I was fearing the whole damn machine was fucked and I'd have to send it back to them...at considerable expense and annoyance.
To make a long story short, the fella I talked to at Sony's helpdesk was probably the most helpful tech flunky I've EVER spoken to. He helped me diagnose the problem and walked me through installation, post-install diagnostics, and everything. Turns out the only way I can restore my machine if, say, a drive dies again is to disable all USB support from the BIOS before running the restore program because, for SOME reason, it balks at the presence of any sort of USB bus. Don't ask me why. The helpdesk guy said this was the only time he'd EVER heard of that error coming up....But, like I said, he walked me through disabling USB support in the BIOS in order to re-install everything, then bring it back up and check everything out for problems. He also emailed me a link to documentation specifically showing me what I'll need to do again if this problem ever crops up once more. THAT was just awesome.
So. The machine works again. I'm typing this on it right now. Hopefully, if all continues to go well, I'll have all my software back on it ready to rock again by tomorrow night and can get back to writing music and fiction and grading properly once more.
But do not get me wrong: all my fingers and toes and crossed right now, I'm knocking on any wooden structure or surface I come within a foot of, and I'm trailing lines of salt in front of every door and window Just In Case. I used to scoff at superstitions and fatalism, but let me tell you: I am VERY rapidly becoming an intensely fatalistic person. Don't be surprised if by year's end my entire house is painted with hex signs and veves to protect me from the rancid gaze of jealous loas.
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Date: 2005-11-08 01:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-08 05:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-08 03:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-08 05:54 pm (UTC)Now, the weird thing is: A friend of mine who works for an ISP in Pittsburgh swears up and down that Sony has THE WORST support system in the universe--and he's detailed for me his horrible experiences with it many a time. Hence the reason I was filled with trepidation of calling them in the first place. But either A) he just got in contact with the wrong people, or B) they sure as HELL have improved their service--because I've never dealt with a better service line.