Save Yourself a Headache!

I suppose anybody’s profession has its share of bloopers and funny customer moments. But then there are those uncomfortable situations when a customer tried to service their own computer and got in over their head, after which they eventually showed up at our storefront for help. Not a week goes by when I silently ask myself “What in the heck were they thinking”? I never mention names, but lately I decided to write about some of these situations because I thought it would make for good reading, sort of like computer repair war stories.

Today I got a call for a data backup job on a laptop. I asked a few questions about the health of the computer and he would only say that his laptop was a 2006 model and he already pulled the hard drive and just needed his data backed-up. I explained that if the drive was still accessible, that I could do it for our fixed-flat rate of $69.99, but if the drive was corrupt, that it would cost more and the job would be classified as a “data recovery” instead of a data backup. He said the drive was OK. Anyway, I was expecting him to bring a hard drive like the one in the picture below.

Laptop Sata Hard Drive

He finally showed up and laid down an empty portable hard drive enclosure that was taken apart, and a mini-pci card I believe was a modem. Whatever it was, he must have peeled off the protective covering with the label and there was all this adhesive stuff left behind, it wasn’t pretty. Anyway, he couldn’t figure out how to mate the mini-pci card connector with the sata connector in the hard drive enclosure. Do you see what is wrong with this picture yet?

He told me that the little circuit card in his hand (the mini-pci card) was the hard drive! I think you can see the difference from the pictures on this page. For just a split second, I entertained the thought that it might be the insides of a solid-state hard drive, but no way, not for a 2006 computer, and there weren’t enough IC chips on it anyway. I told him that what he had there was probably the modem (which almost nobody uses anyway) and then I showed him what a laptop sata hard drive looked like and how easily it mated with the connector on his portable hard drive enclosure. Now things were starting to make sense.

Mini-PCI Modem with plastic covering

Now that the parts identification lesson was over, I just said to bring the entire laptop in and I will take care of it. I asked again what was wrong with the laptop and then he said it fell off the counter while it was turned on. I explained how that would most likely damage his hard drive. He went on to say that the computer turned-on still but would not boot to Windows, which I explained was probably due to errors on the hard drive from when it fell. So now, I explained that the hard drive may be bad, and that your data might be at risk and this job might not be just a data backup after all.

If you don’t want to ever worry about data loss again, then you owe it to yourself to keep your data backed-up. Its actually quite easy to do and costs only a fraction of what a data recovery will cost you.

Getting Back to The Story

So rather than spending anymore time by theorizing about the part mixup and the chances of getting any data back, I just said to bring me the entire laptop tomorrow and I will see what we are up against. What a scenario! Actually, varying degrees of this type of situation happen pretty often. I admit I get snippy sometimes, but am I supposed to get used to customers contradicting themselves and wasting both our  time? If he actually comes back, he will have to wade through traffic again for round 2. Anyway, I suppose he took this stuff apart to try and do it himself and got in over his head as I mentioned earlier. But I would say to “Save Yourself a Headache” and just see us first.

We do a Free PC Checkup anyway, and while that may not always equate to a full-invasive-diagnostic, it is usually enough to give you a reasonably accurate quote to do the job. All it costs is your time to stop by and there is no obligation. But if you choose to go forward with the service, you will have seen with your own eyes what is actually going on.

For a professional opinion about your computer, Call 676-1900