"Hanging Up On Dell Tech Support", Business Week 10/10/05 (link)

"Dan" wrote in message
...

snip
They said the phone CSR threatened to void the
warranty and refused to send the tech (me) out if they didn't start
taking the computer apart. Nothing like a little morale boost!

snip

Perhaps they should actually read their warranty information prior to
purchasing. The requirement of the user to perform these functions is
pretty darn clear. They can choose to upgrade their support and not perform
these functions, but everyone wants a $299 computer than comes complete with
a full-time tech that stands in their closet in case they are needed.

You get what you pay for.

On Sat, 08 Oct 2005 07:14:27 -0600, Notan wrote:

For some programs, "Add/Remove Programs" isn't enough. Personally,
I'm a firm believer in a fresh format and OS/program installation
upon receiving a new system.

To each, his own.

All right. And since most people do a reinstall sooner or later, I
agree Dell should send CD's with everything on it.
--
Top 10 Conservative Idiots:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/top10/

"Paul Knudsen" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 08 Oct 2005 07:14:27 -0600, Notan wrote:

For some programs, "Add/Remove Programs" isn't enough. Personally,
I'm a firm believer in a fresh format and OS/program installation
upon receiving a new system.

To each, his own.

All right. And since most people do a reinstall sooner or later, I
agree Dell should send CD's with everything on it.
--
Top 10 Conservative Idiots:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/top10/

And they do. If you pay the extra $10.

"Sparky Spartacus" wrote in message
...
Administrator wrote:

S.Lewis wrote:

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine...02.htm?chan=tc


Stew

Be very careful. The DellBots on this group will attack you for saying
anything negative about the great Dell!

I thought Stew *was* a Dellbot?



There seems to be a consensus of uncertainty here. I *do* have 5 Dell
systems in the house at the moment, and 1 homebuilt.

So sir, I'm not *merely* a Dellbot, but rather, a "Dell pimp". Please note
the distinction.

(g)

In all seriousness, these continued articles along with a couple of failures
on new machines recently are troubling to me. BUT, in the case of both
failures, they were handled very well by phone and onsite folks. So
experiences with phone support seem to vary widely and wildly at times.

I don't think Business Week has an agenda, which is why I posted the link as
food for thought.

Stew

That's why I'm visiting this newsgroup - a remote family member just had a bad experience. A few weeks ago he loved Dell stuff - has
a business with about 30 desktops and a server at his office - never used anyone else.
Well, he had his first failure that he needed service.

He bought a 2200 Inspiron laptop for his daughter in late Sept . She was busy - on the road - and never even plugged it in until a
month later. She went to use it and it wouldn't boot. She didn't call Dell as she was busy with school and just used her work pc
for her email. For a week she called Dell during lunch and hung up after being on hold for about 30 minutes each time (that's what
she told me). She tried a few times within the next few weeks and finally got through from home late one night. The tech had her on
the phone for over an hour for a PC that would not boot. She had to hang up as she had a meeting to attend. She'll " try another
time". She was getting too aggravated with it and put it off. Then she had a meeting out of town. When she got through the next
time, the tech determined that she needed a hard drive and more memory. AND it was now day 92 of ownership and it only had a 90 day
warranty. (so was this a USED PC ? 90 day vs 1 year warranty). She has no money so got a conference call with the father who was
also on the road. Dell quoted him about $200 for a new disk drive. He told Dell support that this PC never worked properly - "she
has called before - you have the history" - he was very upset. Dell's attitude was "hey it's day 92 on a 90 day warranty - too bad":
even with the history of her calling earlier but not getting it resolved. ( Granted the daughter SHOULD have shown more initiative
getting it fixed but she really was busy/out of town/ working 12 hour days etc). SO, the tech told him that system wasn't "powerful
enough" - that it NEEDS a bigger hard drive and more memory. The Dad flipped out (so I'm told) and was screaming at the tech " I
bought a new PC from you - it won't boot - and you're telling me it's because it's 'underpowered' ?? Do you have ANY idea what
you're doing ?? " . But since the father was in Florida and the daughter in another state, he ordered the $200 disk drive to be
shipped to the daughter. ( THIS is when I first heard of this problem and I was leaving town for 2 weeks ) Dell shipped the disk
drive to her. She put it in and - still wouldn't boot. Dad had her go to CompUSA and buy a HP laptop and he's never buying another
Dell product. Not so much for the hardware failure , but for the incompetence and attitude.

I called when I got back from my trip and heard all the details. Over Thanksgiving I stopped by and took the drives/laptop home to
see if I could make it work. The "new disk drive" static bag says REFURBISHED and it's dated 11/08/05 ?? The HDD that Dell sold her
is an unformatted drive. I know that because I used a "notebook disk to IDE disk" adapter and hooked it up to a desktop PC. It's a
frigging BLANK drive. NTFS disk mgr shows it as " Unknown". I've been in the computer business for quite a while and when I heard
the first part of the story, I expected that the new drive would be an OEM XP drive and have the OS already on it. How else could
she "pop it in " and have it boot ? WRONG - it's a blank drive. So let's follow the troubleshooting ... the customer has a new PC -
it won't boot and calls for support. This model PC does not ship with ANY CD's - the images are on a hidden partition of a GOOD
drive. So HOW is that customer supposed to boot from this new $200 HDD ?? So, not only did they spend $800 for a bad laptop - now
it's another $200 for a disk drive that under NO circumstances would EVER boot.

I DID just go to the Dell website and saw lots of recent customer problems - disk failures , so the tech probably just figured - "Oh
it's an Inspiron - another bad disk drive" without giving any thought to what shipped (or DID NOT ship with her PC). The Dell
customer support webpage area is full of stories like this from irate - now EX-Dell customers.

And now ... the GOOD part of the story is that I was able to read the original drive as a slave in the desktop. So I ghosted the
original to a file and restored that to the new drive and crossed my fingers. THEN I put the new drive in the laptop. It booted ,but
I saw a lot of file errors upon startup.I restarted and pressed CTRL + F11 to restore from the factory partition and IT WORKED.
Booted XP fine. I then ghosted THAT drive (3 partitions) and saved to CD to have as a backup. I did then try the original disk back
in the laptop and it booted !! Lots of those errors during XP startup - but it did boot. Was it a seating problem originally ?? and
when she tried the new/blank drive, the symptom was still - won't boot ?? Maybe should could have reseated the original drive ? The
new drive is a 60gb and the original was a 40gb, so the new drive is staying in and I now have a working laptop and a spare drive.
( cuz he never wants to see it again) Do I dare tell him that it's working fine ?

One other thing ... I did go to Dell.com looking for a part number for an XP CD ? couldn't find it. I put in the service tag
thinking I'd get to an area of the website with spare parts listed but couldn't tell /didn't see a drive with a description of " XP
OEM disk" or anything similiar. Just "disk: 40gb" , 50gb etc .... How to get that info to order CD's that should have come with it
?

Bobb


================================================== ===============

"S.Lewis" wrote in message ...

"Sparky Spartacus" wrote in message
...
S.Lewis wrote:

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine...02.htm?chan=tc


Be very careful. The DellBots on this group will attack you for saying
anything negative about the great Dell!

There seems to be a consensus of uncertainty here. I *do* have 5 Dell
systems in the house at the moment, and 1 homebuilt.

So sir, I'm not *merely* a Dellbot, but rather, a "Dell pimp". Please note
the distinction.

(g)

In all seriousness, these continued articles along with a couple of failures
on new machines recently are troubling to me. BUT, in the case of both
failures, they were handled very well by phone and onsite folks. So
experiences with phone support seem to vary widely and wildly at times.

I don't think Business Week has an agenda, which is why I posted the link as
food for thought.

Stew

1) Your family member chose the length of the warranty. He tried to save
money by only buying a 90-day warranty. Really a bad idea for a notebook. He
could have chosen anything up to a 3-year warranty.
2) Right or wrong, they did not get the problem resolved in the warranty
period. They could have solved the problem by emailing Dell support and
never using the telephone. They didn't try very hard.
3) All vendors provide blank replacement drives and, after the warranty
period, refurbished drives. It is in the warranty. Did anyone in your family
read it prior to purchasing the machine?
4) The CDs come with the machine IF you choose to order them with the
machine. They cost $10. Your family member again cut corners by not spending
the money for the CD.
5) Notebook drives can be purchased for $75. Why buy it from Dell?

Your story is long-winded and I sure was cathartic, but since no one from
Dell reads this newsgroup, it won't accomplish anything. Chalk it up to
"lesson learned" -- always try out new purchases when you receive them and
get any issues fixes quickly.

Tom
"- Bobb -" wrote in message
. ..
That's why I'm visiting this newsgroup - a remote family member just had a
bad experience. A few weeks ago he loved Dell stuff - has
a business with about 30 desktops and a server at his office - never used
anyone else.
Well, he had his first failure that he needed service.

He bought a 2200 Inspiron laptop for his daughter in late Sept . She was
busy - on the road - and never even plugged it in until a
month later. She went to use it and it wouldn't boot. She didn't call
Dell as she was busy with school and just used her work pc
for her email. For a week she called Dell during lunch and hung up after
being on hold for about 30 minutes each time (that's what
she told me). She tried a few times within the next few weeks and finally
got through from home late one night. The tech had her on
the phone for over an hour for a PC that would not boot. She had to hang
up as she had a meeting to attend. She'll " try another
time". She was getting too aggravated with it and put it off. Then she had
a meeting out of town. When she got through the next
time, the tech determined that she needed a hard drive and more memory.
AND it was now day 92 of ownership and it only had a 90 day
warranty. (so was this a USED PC ? 90 day vs 1 year warranty). She has no
money so got a conference call with the father who was
also on the road. Dell quoted him about $200 for a new disk drive. He told
Dell support that this PC never worked properly - "she
has called before - you have the history" - he was very upset. Dell's
attitude was "hey it's day 92 on a 90 day warranty - too bad":
even with the history of her calling earlier but not getting it resolved.
( Granted the daughter SHOULD have shown more initiative
getting it fixed but she really was busy/out of town/ working 12 hour days
etc). SO, the tech told him that system wasn't "powerful
enough" - that it NEEDS a bigger hard drive and more memory. The Dad
flipped out (so I'm told) and was screaming at the tech " I
bought a new PC from you - it won't boot - and you're telling me it's
because it's 'underpowered' ?? Do you have ANY idea what
you're doing ?? " . But since the father was in Florida and the daughter
in another state, he ordered the $200 disk drive to be
shipped to the daughter. ( THIS is when I first heard of this problem and
I was leaving town for 2 weeks ) Dell shipped the disk
drive to her. She put it in and - still wouldn't boot. Dad had her go to
CompUSA and buy a HP laptop and he's never buying another
Dell product. Not so much for the hardware failure , but for the
incompetence and attitude.

I called when I got back from my trip and heard all the details. Over
Thanksgiving I stopped by and took the drives/laptop home to
see if I could make it work. The "new disk drive" static bag says
REFURBISHED and it's dated 11/08/05 ?? The HDD that Dell sold her
is an unformatted drive. I know that because I used a "notebook disk to
IDE disk" adapter and hooked it up to a desktop PC. It's a
frigging BLANK drive. NTFS disk mgr shows it as " Unknown". I've been in
the computer business for quite a while and when I heard
the first part of the story, I expected that the new drive would be an OEM
XP drive and have the OS already on it. How else could
she "pop it in " and have it boot ? WRONG - it's a blank drive. So let's
follow the troubleshooting ... the customer has a new PC -
it won't boot and calls for support. This model PC does not ship with ANY
CD's - the images are on a hidden partition of a GOOD
drive. So HOW is that customer supposed to boot from this new $200 HDD ??
So, not only did they spend $800 for a bad laptop - now
it's another $200 for a disk drive that under NO circumstances would EVER
boot.

I DID just go to the Dell website and saw lots of recent customer
problems - disk failures , so the tech probably just figured - "Oh
it's an Inspiron - another bad disk drive" without giving any thought to
what shipped (or DID NOT ship with her PC). The Dell
customer support webpage area is full of stories like this from irate -
now EX-Dell customers.

And now ... the GOOD part of the story is that I was able to read the
original drive as a slave in the desktop. So I ghosted the
original to a file and restored that to the new drive and crossed my
fingers. THEN I put the new drive in the laptop. It booted ,but
I saw a lot of file errors upon startup.I restarted and pressed CTRL + F11
to restore from the factory partition and IT WORKED.
Booted XP fine. I then ghosted THAT drive (3 partitions) and saved to CD
to have as a backup. I did then try the original disk back
in the laptop and it booted !! Lots of those errors during XP startup -
but it did boot. Was it a seating problem originally ?? and
when she tried the new/blank drive, the symptom was still - won't boot ??
Maybe should could have reseated the original drive ? The
new drive is a 60gb and the original was a 40gb, so the new drive is
staying in and I now have a working laptop and a spare drive.
( cuz he never wants to see it again) Do I dare tell him that it's
working fine ?

One other thing ... I did go to Dell.com looking for a part number for an
XP CD ? couldn't find it. I put in the service tag
thinking I'd get to an area of the website with spare parts listed but
couldn't tell /didn't see a drive with a description of " XP
OEM disk" or anything similiar. Just "disk: 40gb" , 50gb etc .... How to
get that info to order CD's that should have come with it
?

Bobb


================================================== ===============

"S.Lewis" wrote in message
...

"Sparky Spartacus" wrote in message
...
S.Lewis wrote:

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine...02.htm?chan=tc


Be very careful. The DellBots on this group will attack you for saying
anything negative about the great Dell!

There seems to be a consensus of uncertainty here. I *do* have 5 Dell
systems in the house at the moment, and 1 homebuilt.

So sir, I'm not *merely* a Dellbot, but rather, a "Dell pimp". Please
note
the distinction.

(g)

In all seriousness, these continued articles along with a couple of
failures
on new machines recently are troubling to me. BUT, in the case of both
failures, they were handled very well by phone and onsite folks. So
experiences with phone support seem to vary widely and wildly at times.

I don't think Business Week has an agenda, which is why I posted the link
as
food for thought.

Stew

"Tom Scales" top-posted without trimming:
1) Your family member chose the length of the warranty. He tried to save
money by only buying a 90-day warranty. Really a bad idea for a notebook. He
could have chosen anything up to a 3-year warranty.

I'm with Tom on this one, when buying a laptop, get a warranty
equivalent to how long you are going to keep it, as it will have
problems and you will need service, and out-of-warranty service is
prohibitively expensive. Of course, there's no practical way the
buyer could have known that...

I also feel for the original owner on this one. Dell sold him a
product that didn't work out of the box and then had some Indian
Script Monkey (SM) "service" him without reference to a single clue.

I suspect if the OP tells him it works he really won't care, the
troubleshooting and repair steps nessesary to repair the system were
clearly beyond the intersection of the daughter and the Indian Script
Monkey.

The problem with Dell's warranty support (and even support for their
on-site technicians) is the massive waste of time being on-hold and
transferred from one support location to another halfway around the
world. It's even worse than providing no warranty whatsoever.

The good news is that if an on-site warranty tech support person is
put on hold for more than 20 minutes, they are allowed to hang up,
close the call, leave the site, and the on-site service company can
complain to and/or fine Dell (depending on the contract) for wasting
the tech's time. Unfortunately the customer has no such recourse.

As far as refurbushed products, I believe Dell is required to send
parts out with a "refurbished" label even when new. They take it out
of the OEM box (samsung, maxtor, etc.), place it into a Dell box, with
dell wrapping, and it needs to be labeled "refurbished".

Warranty? That's the customers responsibility. You can't have your
cake and eat it, too...pay for the warranty or live with the
consequences.

I don't believe Dell made a good decision when they started leaving
out re-installation CDs on new computers. Their philosophy seems to
have come from the pointed-hair boss in Dilbert; put the installation
CDs onto the hard drive and burn your own CDs....so what happens if
the hard drive is DOA or goes bad? :/ They send out blank replacement
hard drives to the customer, but what's the customer supposed to do
once they receive the blank hard drive?

Dell can (and does) send imaged hard drives...its just that most of
the time they're too lazy to do so. I'd say about 1 in every 10 hard
drive replacements is imaged, and that's usually only for high-end
machines (or very irate customers). It also depends on the
compentency and/or willingness of the phone tech.

Dan

On Sat, 26 Nov 2005 00:48:27 -0500, "- Bobb -"
wrote:

He bought a 2200 Inspiron laptop for his daughter in late Sept . She was busy - on the road - and never even plugged it in until a
month later. She went to use it and it wouldn't boot. She didn't call Dell as she was busy with school and just used her work pc
for her email. For a week she called Dell during lunch and hung up after being on hold for about 30 minutes each time (that's what
she told me). She tried a few times within the next few weeks and finally got through from home late one night. The tech had her on
the phone for over an hour for a PC that would not boot. She had to hang up as she had a meeting to attend. She'll " try another
time". She was getting too aggravated with it and put it off. Then she had a meeting out of town. When she got through the next
time, the tech determined that she needed a hard drive and more memory. AND it was now day 92 of ownership and it only had a 90 day
warranty. (so was this a USED PC ? 90 day vs 1 year warranty). She has no money so got a conference call with the father who was
also on the road. Dell quoted him about $200 for a new disk drive. He told Dell support that this PC never worked properly - "she
has called before - you have the history" - he was very upset. Dell's attitude was "hey it's day 92 on a 90 day warranty - too bad":
even with the history of her calling earlier but not getting it resolved. ( Granted the daughter SHOULD have shown more initiative
getting it fixed but she really was busy/out of town/ working 12 hour days etc). SO, the tech told him that system wasn't "powerful
enough" - that it NEEDS a bigger hard drive and more memory. The Dad flipped out (so I'm told) and was screaming at the tech " I
bought a new PC from you - it won't boot - and you're telling me it's because it's 'underpowered' ?? Do you have ANY idea what
you're doing ?? " . But since the father was in Florida and the daughter in another state, he ordered the $200 disk drive to be
shipped to the daughter. ( THIS is when I first heard of this problem and I was leaving town for 2 weeks ) Dell shipped the disk
drive to her. She put it in and - still wouldn't boot. Dad had her go to CompUSA and buy a HP laptop and he's never buying another
Dell product. Not so much for the hardware failure , but for the incompetence and attitude.

I called when I got back from my trip and heard all the details. Over Thanksgiving I stopped by and took the drives/laptop home to
see if I could make it work. The "new disk drive" static bag says REFURBISHED and it's dated 11/08/05 ?? The HDD that Dell sold her
is an unformatted drive. I know that because I used a "notebook disk to IDE disk" adapter and hooked it up to a desktop PC. It's a
frigging BLANK drive. NTFS disk mgr shows it as " Unknown". I've been in the computer business for quite a while and when I heard
the first part of the story, I expected that the new drive would be an OEM XP drive and have the OS already on it. How else could
she "pop it in " and have it boot ? WRONG - it's a blank drive. So let's follow the troubleshooting ... the customer has a new PC -
it won't boot and calls for support. This model PC does not ship with ANY CD's - the images are on a hidden partition of a GOOD
drive. So HOW is that customer supposed to boot from this new $200 HDD ?? So, not only did they spend $800 for a bad laptop - now
it's another $200 for a disk drive that under NO circumstances would EVER boot.

I DID just go to the Dell website and saw lots of recent customer problems - disk failures , so the tech probably just figured - "Oh
it's an Inspiron - another bad disk drive" without giving any thought to what shipped (or DID NOT ship with her PC). The Dell
customer support webpage area is full of stories like this from irate - now EX-Dell customers.

And now ... the GOOD part of the story is that I was able to read the original drive as a slave in the desktop. So I ghosted the
original to a file and restored that to the new drive and crossed my fingers. THEN I put the new drive in the laptop. It booted ,but
I saw a lot of file errors upon startup.I restarted and pressed CTRL + F11 to restore from the factory partition and IT WORKED.
Booted XP fine. I then ghosted THAT drive (3 partitions) and saved to CD to have as a backup. I did then try the original disk back
in the laptop and it booted !! Lots of those errors during XP startup - but it did boot. Was it a seating problem originally ?? and
when she tried the new/blank drive, the symptom was still - won't boot ?? Maybe should could have reseated the original drive ? The
new drive is a 60gb and the original was a 40gb, so the new drive is staying in and I now have a working laptop and a spare drive.
( cuz he never wants to see it again) Do I dare tell him that it's working fine ?

One other thing ... I did go to Dell.com looking for a part number for an XP CD ? couldn't find it. I put in the service tag
thinking I'd get to an area of the website with spare parts listed but couldn't tell /didn't see a drive with a description of " XP
OEM disk" or anything similiar. Just "disk: 40gb" , 50gb etc .... How to get that info to order CD's that should have come with it

I also agree with Tom on this. Busy or not, the person knew it was a
90 day warranty, and should have handled the problem immediately.

Whenever I've had HD's replaced under warranty (although I believe it
was always from the manufacturer themselves), it was with a refurb HD.

Once, computer was out of warranty with manufactorer (micron), called
Maxtor, and got a replacement from them, as was still under warr. Of
course, that was before most HD makers went to 1 yr warranty.

However, as to Dell's customer support, well, I'm sure its been all
said already. Let me share what a friend went through; he called tech
support, first person was so heavily accented, friend hung up. Tried
again later, got a different person, hard to understand. When my
friend kept asking to repeat what he was saying, the tech support got
mad at my friend for "not understanding english" and the tech support
person hung up!!!

I used to recommend Dell's, but now I say: Dell, Gateway, HP, they're
all the same, doesn't matter which one you buy.

Josh


1) Your family member chose the length of the warranty. He tried to save
money by only buying a 90-day warranty. Really a bad idea for a notebook. He
could have chosen anything up to a 3-year warranty.
2) Right or wrong, they did not get the problem resolved in the warranty
period. They could have solved the problem by emailing Dell support and
never using the telephone. They didn't try very hard.
3) All vendors provide blank replacement drives and, after the warranty
period, refurbished drives. It is in the warranty. Did anyone in your family
read it prior to purchasing the machine?
4) The CDs come with the machine IF you choose to order them with the
machine. They cost $10. Your family member again cut corners by not spending
the money for the CD.
5) Notebook drives can be purchased for $75. Why buy it from Dell?

Your story is long-winded and I sure was cathartic, but since no one from
Dell reads this newsgroup, it won't accomplish anything. Chalk it up to
"lesson learned" -- always try out new purchases when you receive them and
get any issues fixes quickly.

Tom
"- Bobb -" wrote in message
...
That's why I'm visiting this newsgroup - a remote family member just had a
bad experience. A few weeks ago he loved Dell stuff - has
a business with about 30 desktops and a server at his office - never used
anyone else.
Well, he had his first failure that he needed service.

He bought a 2200 Inspiron laptop for his daughter in late Sept . She was
busy - on the road - and never even plugged it in until a
month later. She went to use it and it wouldn't boot. She didn't call
Dell as she was busy with school and just used her work pc
for her email. For a week she called Dell during lunch and hung up after
being on hold for about 30 minutes each time (that's what
she told me). She tried a few times within the next few weeks and finally
got through from home late one night. The tech had her on
the phone for over an hour for a PC that would not boot. She had to hang
up as she had a meeting to attend. She'll " try another
time". She was getting too aggravated with it and put it off. Then she had
a meeting out of town. When she got through the next
time, the tech determined that she needed a hard drive and more memory.
AND it was now day 92 of ownership and it only had a 90 day
warranty. (so was this a USED PC ? 90 day vs 1 year warranty). She has no
money so got a conference call with the father who was
also on the road. Dell quoted him about $200 for a new disk drive. He told
Dell support that this PC never worked properly - "she
has called before - you have the history" - he was very upset. Dell's
attitude was "hey it's day 92 on a 90 day warranty - too bad":
even with the history of her calling earlier but not getting it resolved.
( Granted the daughter SHOULD have shown more initiative
getting it fixed but she really was busy/out of town/ working 12 hour days
etc). SO, the tech told him that system wasn't "powerful
enough" - that it NEEDS a bigger hard drive and more memory. The Dad
flipped out (so I'm told) and was screaming at the tech " I
bought a new PC from you - it won't boot - and you're telling me it's
because it's 'underpowered' ?? Do you have ANY idea what
you're doing ?? " . But since the father was in Florida and the daughter
in another state, he ordered the $200 disk drive to be
shipped to the daughter. ( THIS is when I first heard of this problem and
I was leaving town for 2 weeks ) Dell shipped the disk
drive to her. She put it in and - still wouldn't boot. Dad had her go to
CompUSA and buy a HP laptop and he's never buying another
Dell product. Not so much for the hardware failure , but for the
incompetence and attitude.

I called when I got back from my trip and heard all the details. Over
Thanksgiving I stopped by and took the drives/laptop home to
see if I could make it work. The "new disk drive" static bag says
REFURBISHED and it's dated 11/08/05 ?? The HDD that Dell sold her
is an unformatted drive. I know that because I used a "notebook disk to
IDE disk" adapter and hooked it up to a desktop PC. It's a
frigging BLANK drive. NTFS disk mgr shows it as " Unknown". I've been in
the computer business for quite a while and when I heard
the first part of the story, I expected that the new drive would be an OEM
XP drive and have the OS already on it. How else could
she "pop it in " and have it boot ? WRONG - it's a blank drive. So let's
follow the troubleshooting ... the customer has a new PC -
it won't boot and calls for support. This model PC does not ship with ANY
CD's - the images are on a hidden partition of a GOOD
drive. So HOW is that customer supposed to boot from this new $200 HDD ??
So, not only did they spend $800 for a bad laptop - now
it's another $200 for a disk drive that under NO circumstances would EVER
boot.

I DID just go to the Dell website and saw lots of recent customer
problems - disk failures , so the tech probably just figured - "Oh
it's an Inspiron - another bad disk drive" without giving any thought to
what shipped (or DID NOT ship with her PC). The Dell
customer support webpage area is full of stories like this from irate -
now EX-Dell customers.

And now ... the GOOD part of the story is that I was able to read the
original drive as a slave in the desktop. So I ghosted the
original to a file and restored that to the new drive and crossed my
fingers. THEN I put the new drive in the laptop. It booted ,but
I saw a lot of file errors upon startup.I restarted and pressed CTRL + F11
to restore from the factory partition and IT WORKED.
Booted XP fine. I then ghosted THAT drive (3 partitions) and saved to CD
to have as a backup. I did then try the original disk back
in the laptop and it booted !! Lots of those errors during XP startup -
but it did boot. Was it a seating problem originally ?? and
when she tried the new/blank drive, the symptom was still - won't boot ??
Maybe should could have reseated the original drive ? The
new drive is a 60gb and the original was a 40gb, so the new drive is
staying in and I now have a working laptop and a spare drive.
( cuz he never wants to see it again) Do I dare tell him that it's
working fine ?

One other thing ... I did go to Dell.com looking for a part number for an
XP CD ? couldn't find it. I put in the service tag
thinking I'd get to an area of the website with spare parts listed but
couldn't tell /didn't see a drive with a description of " XP
OEM disk" or anything similiar. Just "disk: 40gb" , 50gb etc .... How to
get that info to order CD's that should have come with it
?

Bobb


================================================== ===============

"S.Lewis" wrote in message
...

"Sparky Spartacus" wrote in message
...
S.Lewis wrote:

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine...02.htm?chan=tc


Be very careful. The DellBots on this group will attack you for saying
anything negative about the great Dell!

There seems to be a consensus of uncertainty here. I *do* have 5 Dell
systems in the house at the moment, and 1 homebuilt.

So sir, I'm not *merely* a Dellbot, but rather, a "Dell pimp". Please
note
the distinction.

(g)

In all seriousness, these continued articles along with a couple of
failures
on new machines recently are troubling to me. BUT, in the case of both
failures, they were handled very well by phone and onsite folks. So
experiences with phone support seem to vary widely and wildly at times.

I don't think Business Week has an agenda, which is why I posted the link
as
food for thought.

Stew

You buy a computer with a 90 day warranty, don't turn it on for 30 days,
when it doesn't work you take over 2 months-62 days before you can find the
time to work with tech support? Dell is wrong for long hold times, you are
wrong for not THINKING! When you buy a product, and realize its broken you
check the warranty to see how much time you will have to waste before making
certain that you get it dealt with. 90 days is too short a warranty but if
you go cheap thats what you get. Its enough time for a reasonable person to
make sure the item is not DOA and get it handled if it is. In fact if
properly followed up, within the first 30 days you could have gotton the
system replaced under Dell policy.




"- Bobb -" wrote in message
. ..
That's why I'm visiting this newsgroup - a remote family member just had a
bad experience. A few weeks ago he loved Dell stuff - has
a business with about 30 desktops and a server at his office - never used
anyone else.
Well, he had his first failure that he needed service.

He bought a 2200 Inspiron laptop for his daughter in late Sept . She was
busy - on the road - and never even plugged it in until a
month later. She went to use it and it wouldn't boot. She didn't call
Dell as she was busy with school and just used her work pc
for her email. For a week she called Dell during lunch and hung up after
being on hold for about 30 minutes each time (that's what
she told me). She tried a few times within the next few weeks and finally
got through from home late one night. The tech had her on
the phone for over an hour for a PC that would not boot. She had to hang
up as she had a meeting to attend. She'll " try another
time". She was getting too aggravated with it and put it off. Then she had
a meeting out of town. When she got through the next
time, the tech determined that she needed a hard drive and more memory.
AND it was now day 92 of ownership and it only had a 90 day
warranty. (so was this a USED PC ? 90 day vs 1 year warranty). She has no
money so got a conference call with the father who was
also on the road. Dell quoted him about $200 for a new disk drive. He told
Dell support that this PC never worked properly - "she
has called before - you have the history" - he was very upset. Dell's
attitude was "hey it's day 92 on a 90 day warranty - too bad":
even with the history of her calling earlier but not getting it resolved.
( Granted the daughter SHOULD have shown more initiative
getting it fixed but she really was busy/out of town/ working 12 hour days
etc). SO, the tech told him that system wasn't "powerful
enough" - that it NEEDS a bigger hard drive and more memory. The Dad
flipped out (so I'm told) and was screaming at the tech " I
bought a new PC from you - it won't boot - and you're telling me it's
because it's 'underpowered' ?? Do you have ANY idea what
you're doing ?? " . But since the father was in Florida and the daughter
in another state, he ordered the $200 disk drive to be
shipped to the daughter. ( THIS is when I first heard of this problem and
I was leaving town for 2 weeks ) Dell shipped the disk
drive to her. She put it in and - still wouldn't boot. Dad had her go to
CompUSA and buy a HP laptop and he's never buying another
Dell product. Not so much for the hardware failure , but for the
incompetence and attitude.

I called when I got back from my trip and heard all the details. Over
Thanksgiving I stopped by and took the drives/laptop home to
see if I could make it work. The "new disk drive" static bag says
REFURBISHED and it's dated 11/08/05 ?? The HDD that Dell sold her
is an unformatted drive. I know that because I used a "notebook disk to
IDE disk" adapter and hooked it up to a desktop PC. It's a
frigging BLANK drive. NTFS disk mgr shows it as " Unknown". I've been in
the computer business for quite a while and when I heard
the first part of the story, I expected that the new drive would be an OEM
XP drive and have the OS already on it. How else could
she "pop it in " and have it boot ? WRONG - it's a blank drive. So let's
follow the troubleshooting ... the customer has a new PC -
it won't boot and calls for support. This model PC does not ship with ANY
CD's - the images are on a hidden partition of a GOOD
drive. So HOW is that customer supposed to boot from this new $200 HDD ??
So, not only did they spend $800 for a bad laptop - now
it's another $200 for a disk drive that under NO circumstances would EVER
boot.

I DID just go to the Dell website and saw lots of recent customer
problems - disk failures , so the tech probably just figured - "Oh
it's an Inspiron - another bad disk drive" without giving any thought to
what shipped (or DID NOT ship with her PC). The Dell
customer support webpage area is full of stories like this from irate -
now EX-Dell customers.

And now ... the GOOD part of the story is that I was able to read the
original drive as a slave in the desktop. So I ghosted the
original to a file and restored that to the new drive and crossed my
fingers. THEN I put the new drive in the laptop. It booted ,but
I saw a lot of file errors upon startup.I restarted and pressed CTRL + F11
to restore from the factory partition and IT WORKED.
Booted XP fine. I then ghosted THAT drive (3 partitions) and saved to CD
to have as a backup. I did then try the original disk back
in the laptop and it booted !! Lots of those errors during XP startup -
but it did boot. Was it a seating problem originally ?? and
when she tried the new/blank drive, the symptom was still - won't boot ??
Maybe should could have reseated the original drive ? The
new drive is a 60gb and the original was a 40gb, so the new drive is
staying in and I now have a working laptop and a spare drive.
( cuz he never wants to see it again) Do I dare tell him that it's
working fine ?

One other thing ... I did go to Dell.com looking for a part number for an
XP CD ? couldn't find it. I put in the service tag
thinking I'd get to an area of the website with spare parts listed but
couldn't tell /didn't see a drive with a description of " XP
OEM disk" or anything similiar. Just "disk: 40gb" , 50gb etc .... How to
get that info to order CD's that should have come with it
?

Bobb


================================================== ===============

"S.Lewis" wrote in message
...

"Sparky Spartacus" wrote in message
...
S.Lewis wrote:

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine...02.htm?chan=tc


Be very careful. The DellBots on this group will attack you for saying
anything negative about the great Dell!

There seems to be a consensus of uncertainty here. I *do* have 5 Dell
systems in the house at the moment, and 1 homebuilt.

So sir, I'm not *merely* a Dellbot, but rather, a "Dell pimp". Please
note
the distinction.

(g)

In all seriousness, these continued articles along with a couple of
failures
on new machines recently are troubling to me. BUT, in the case of both
failures, they were handled very well by phone and onsite folks. So
experiences with phone support seem to vary widely and wildly at times.

I don't think Business Week has an agenda, which is why I posted the link
as
food for thought.

Stew