JW's enforced CB vacation..... (in Off-topic)

Ok, not entirely; I'll be on from about cache flush until Midday server time Monday to Friday. But the rest of the time....nope.

The reason? My wife's nice little Mac Powerbook's drive decided to corrupt and die this week.

The drive dies just after the warranty runs out...so when you phone up tech support they won't answer any questions until you give them your credit card details and let them charge you ﾣ35 - about 70 USD or so. And that is just the basic charge.

So I say no, I'm fairly certain what the problem was I just wanted to confirm my evaluation of the poor dead machine. So they say 'OK, where do you live?' There's an Apple store near me where you can take it into the 'Apple Genius' and he/she can have a look. But you can't just turn up - you have to make an appointment.

So I phone the Apple Store to see if I can make an appointment. Remember the machine is dead; I'm at home with no computer, just the phone. Apple Store answers.

'No, I'm sorry you can't make an appointment over the phone for the Apple Genius. You have to do it on-line.'

'But my computer is dead. Is there no way you can put me through on the phone?'

'Sorry sir, that's not possible. Our Geniuses are very busy. You don't have another computer then? Just the one? Ah.'

'I'd love to have another computer, maybe three or four, but there's just the one. So, I have to get online then? There really is no other way?'

'No sir. No other way - the Geniuses won't accept phone calls. Only emails. Do you have an internet cafe near you?'

*Sigh*


I know computers are much much cheaper than they used to be and until last year we did have two of them. But surely this is a really daft situation? If your computer is dead and you work from home miles from anywhere you have no choice but to pay for the tech support on the phone; and then you face the joy of having to put your poor machine in the hands of some courier to get it fixed....


And having made my way to the internet cafe I did a little research. It would appear my wife's little baby has caused other people a lot of problems. After the warranty runs out of course. Seems like the drive on a Powerbook just loves to die after about 3 and a half years....



Luckily we're mostly backed up; there's a few photos here and there that are gone but only a few. And there is the chance that we'll be able to recover the drive contents. But having been converted to Macs by my wife I'm seriously considering switching back. At least with PCs I can do the fixing myself if need be....

Anyway, for a little while my only online access will be at work; and that I can't guarantee....

:/

Stupid Geniuses.

Stupid geniuses who are spending most of their time dealing with iPods.

There is an option to become a 'pro-care' member. only ﾣ79 or so for the year. Then you might actually get seen by a genius within two weeks.....


Seriously, do Apple need any more money??!?!?!?

Oh I love the whole, "If you have a problem with our internet connection, go to our wibsite. Then e-mail us." type of service...

Brilliant!

I have to agree with GL, lol.

I haven't owned an Apple computer since the 80's, so bear with me on this...is there really no other computer business that can take a look at the laptop?

Not as many in the UK. I've found one that does; and who comes recommended that isn't an Apple Store! Drop in tomorrow morning, take it home by early afternoon if data retrieval is possible. Otherwise take it home within an hour...

Ah well; the problem is a little more involved ...may mean shelling out for a new computer; probably about time to do that anyhow...

But it means this will be carrying on for a couple of weeks. Not great for tourney play! And I had such a good run of it for the first five days!..

Ah well indeed....


*sigh*

Can't you just stick another drive in a mac ?My pc was all bits .The comp place put it together for me no charge . Western Digital Caviar 500GB SATAII 7200RPM 16MB Buffer (OEM)

$114.95 buy ﾻ
SHIPPING: $6.99
Of course that wouldn't fit a lap top as its full size. But i figured macs used most of the same hard wear ? Of course I don't know much about this stuff.

You can, but it's not just the drive that's the problem, there's some other things up with it...


There's also the trying to convince my wife to cut her losses (it's her machine after all...) and get a new one....her grandfather bought her this machine before he died.......

I think I found your problem..

When a hard drive dies, there isn't much a Genius can do about it. Simply replace the drive and that's it.

One thing to keep in mind about Hard Drives and laptops: They may be portable and they may be light, but that little hard drive in there is not happy about being moved around... at ALL.

That means that if you move around a lot with your little laptop, be prepared with an extra backup hard drive. That is one of the primary reasons I never got a iPod, and I just stuck with burned CDs until there were Flash-based music players. Those little hard drives can only take so much moving around before they die.

Drive replaced; picking it up tonight, so I'll be back on full time by tomorrow.

No data recovery possible though. Which is a shame as we hadn't gotten around to backing up for the last eight months......:/


Big note pinned to the wall from now on: BACK UP DATA!!!!


With regards to moving the drive around; the Powerbook has barely been moved for months, it sits on the desk like a regular machine, always plugged into the mains and internet because we have no wireless access. It would appear that the drive just....expired.....

Lol, back online at home!!! :)

Oh, I'm so relieved! Welcome back!

Did they give you the old drive back? Try opening it up maybe its only something sticking from wear .

Glad you're all sorted JW :)

The subject title caught my eye because I too am now on vacation as of 5:00pm this evening. My vacation is not forced however and most likely will result in more time for CB rather than less.

It's a great day to go on vacation. Well, assuming you're not a triskaidekaphobia sufferer ;)

Wish I could go on holiday. Found out this week our landlady wants to sell the flat, so we have to move. By the 1st of September...Which was when we were planning on going on holiday....that's going to have to wait.......

grrr......

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