I've seen Hard Drives go bad, but this one went spectacularly bad.

P: Will not boot to windows. NTLDR missing.
D:DSN#9917386. SVCTAG:BLLLL01. SYMPTOM:Windows
2000
Startup Problems. LOG: Searched all vendor
knowledge bases for all error messages that are
received. Checked to see if a disk is already in
the floppy disk drive. Obtained the error message
at boot. Error Message: NTLDR is missing...
Flashed the BIOS. Created a Windows 2000 Boot
Disk (System gave a 0x0000007B "Non accessable
Boot Device" error loading). Performed a
customized repair installation of Windows 2000
per MS KB Q318728 **DSN3 System saw partition on
system as damaged. Removed partition and
reinstalled partition. System formatted and
copied files, but on reboot, system refused to
continue loading and hung after post with no
error. Reran Windows setup program, and this
time 4 partitions showed up (1 Unpartitioned space
82351MB, 2 Unpartitioned space 24158MB, 3 is
UNKNOWN C: 831050MB 4 is \\UNKNOWN 265613).
System will not remove 2 unpartitioned
"partitions." Ran 90/90. Diagnostics failed
with "Bad Command or Device." Sending
replacement Hard Drive. Customer requests blank
drive. Customer requests parts only service.
S:S: Sending replacement Hard Drive.

For the non techies among us, this basically means her machine wouldn't boot up to Windows. So we tried to fool it into rebooting, and it wouldn't. So we tried to reinstall it, and it said the drive was bad. So we RE-Tried to reinstall it...this time it said there were 4 bad drives...and 2 of those drives didn't exist. So we tried to run the diagnostics to determine WHAT was bad on the hard drive...and the diags said "No Hard Drive here!"

She got a new drive. :)

I've seen Hard Drives go bad, but this one went spectacularly bad.

P: Will not boot to windows. NTLDR missing.
D:DSN#9917386. SVCTAG:BLLLL01. SYMPTOM:Windows
2000
Startup Problems. LOG: Searched all vendor
knowledge bases for all error messages that are
received. Checked to see if a disk is already in
the floppy disk drive. Obtained the error message
at boot. Error Message: NTLDR is missing...
Flashed the BIOS. Created a Windows 2000 Boot
Disk (System gave a 0x0000007B "Non accessable
Boot Device" error loading). Performed a
customized repair installation of Windows 2000
per MS KB Q318728 **DSN3 System saw partition on
system as damaged. Removed partition and
reinstalled partition. System formatted and
copied files, but on reboot, system refused to
continue loading and hung after post with no
error. Reran Windows setup program, and this
time 4 partitions showed up (1 Unpartitioned space
82351MB, 2 Unpartitioned space 24158MB, 3 is
UNKNOWN C: 831050MB 4 is \\UNKNOWN 265613).
System will not remove 2 unpartitioned
"partitions." Ran 90/90. Diagnostics failed
with "Bad Command or Device." Sending
replacement Hard Drive. Customer requests blank
drive. Customer requests parts only service.
S:S: Sending replacement Hard Drive.

For the non techies among us, this basically means her machine wouldn't boot up to Windows. So we tried to fool it into rebooting, and it wouldn't. So we tried to reinstall it, and it said the drive was bad. So we RE-Tried to reinstall it...this time it said there were 4 bad drives...and 2 of those drives didn't exist. So we tried to run the diagnostics to determine WHAT was bad on the hard drive...and the diags said "No Hard Drive here!"

She got a new drive. :)

Scammers suck

Got a customer call in for support on his Major Computer Corporation Laptop. His battery was dead. His battery was still under warranty for a few more days, so I started to set up the replacement.

Now our batteries themselves have serial numbers on them and we have to check to make sure the specific battery is under warranty. I got the number, and the battery didn't match. So I asked him if the battery was ever replaced before, and he said yes. Looked up the previous service and found TWENTY different repairs on this machine, all done directly by this guy until a few months ago.

I looked into the services, and found out that he had ordered for himself several motherboards, several LCD screen, LOTS of CDRWs, LOTS of batteries and so on. He's obviously scamming us. This all stopped a few months ago when somone must have caught him ordering parts for himself and cancelled his "Third Party Maintainer" status (which allows him to self-order parts).

Since then, several more repairs were done to the machine, each time the tech was dismissed before sending in service. We run the serial number of the battery he wanted to be replaced and found it's manufacturing date was March of 2000. Not only is that old, it's out of warranty, and should not have been sent by our dispatch department.

So basically, we tell him that that battery isn't covered. Period. It's not even the same battery that we shipped out. Then he started demanding the serial number of the battery we sent out. I couldn't get it to him, so he demanded a manager. Manager came to my desk, but actually didn't speak to the guy, because now he didnt' want a manager, he wanted a replacement battery. NOW. I refused, told him that's not the battery under warranty. Then he started saying, "there's someone in this school stealing computer parts, and I bet he did this. I think you should still cover this under good faith." Didn't happen. Then he started saying I was legally bound to replace his battery. I told him I would replace the battery that came with the machine. Then he got stuck in a logic loop, where he said "You sent me this battery." Where I would say "We destroy batteries when we get them back, we don't put them on the shelves to send out." "But you sent me this battery." "No we didn't." "But you sent me this battery."

Thankfully it ended when he hung up. The manager and I talked it over a bit and put on his service tag that he is scamming us, so anyone who pulls up his info will see that he's trying to get a free battery off of us.

Just before I left to go home, I checked out his log again, just to see what all he had scammed off of us...lo and behold, he called in an hour later, and another technician, who obviously ignored the tag we put on the log, sent him a battery.

You just can't win some days.

Scammers suck

Got a customer call in for support on his Major Computer Corporation Laptop. His battery was dead. His battery was still under warranty for a few more days, so I started to set up the replacement.

Now our batteries themselves have serial numbers on them and we have to check to make sure the specific battery is under warranty. I got the number, and the battery didn't match. So I asked him if the battery was ever replaced before, and he said yes. Looked up the previous service and found TWENTY different repairs on this machine, all done directly by this guy until a few months ago.

I looked into the services, and found out that he had ordered for himself several motherboards, several LCD screen, LOTS of CDRWs, LOTS of batteries and so on. He's obviously scamming us. This all stopped a few months ago when somone must have caught him ordering parts for himself and cancelled his "Third Party Maintainer" status (which allows him to self-order parts).

Since then, several more repairs were done to the machine, each time the tech was dismissed before sending in service. We run the serial number of the battery he wanted to be replaced and found it's manufacturing date was March of 2000. Not only is that old, it's out of warranty, and should not have been sent by our dispatch department.

So basically, we tell him that that battery isn't covered. Period. It's not even the same battery that we shipped out. Then he started demanding the serial number of the battery we sent out. I couldn't get it to him, so he demanded a manager. Manager came to my desk, but actually didn't speak to the guy, because now he didnt' want a manager, he wanted a replacement battery. NOW. I refused, told him that's not the battery under warranty. Then he started saying, "there's someone in this school stealing computer parts, and I bet he did this. I think you should still cover this under good faith." Didn't happen. Then he started saying I was legally bound to replace his battery. I told him I would replace the battery that came with the machine. Then he got stuck in a logic loop, where he said "You sent me this battery." Where I would say "We destroy batteries when we get them back, we don't put them on the shelves to send out." "But you sent me this battery." "No we didn't." "But you sent me this battery."

Thankfully it ended when he hung up. The manager and I talked it over a bit and put on his service tag that he is scamming us, so anyone who pulls up his info will see that he's trying to get a free battery off of us.

Just before I left to go home, I checked out his log again, just to see what all he had scammed off of us...lo and behold, he called in an hour later, and another technician, who obviously ignored the tag we put on the log, sent him a battery.

You just can't win some days.