Red_Rose

I had a very interesting yet extremely upsetting weekend.

On Thursday, our computer decided to suddenly crash on us. We(my sister and I) have a Dell so we had called Dell's Tech support to find out what was going on. The woman we were talking to said that the system could've crashed from a virus(which we knew it couldn't be from that) or that sometimes it can happen for no reason. She then said to reinstall Windows with the re installation disc but Dell never gave us one when my sister bought the computer! We said that we didn't have it and the woman we were talking to said that because we didn't have the disc, we would have to do a complete system restore because either way, we would end up losing all of our files anyway so that's what we did. The restore didn't go through completely so we thought that there might have been a chance that some of our files may have been saved.

The reinstallation disc arrived on Friday and needless to say, everything was completely wiped out. On Monday, we had called back to Tech support because they never called back so the drivers could be reinstalled so after all that was done(it was done using the GoToAssist feature), the man that my sister was talking to checked the computer to see if there may have possibly been any of our files left on the harddrive but unfortunately, they were gone.

After all of that was done, the manager talked to my sister and told her that he was very sorry for what had happened and he assured us that the woman who we had spoken to the first time would no longer be working for Dell because she had told us to do a system restore when that should only be used as an absolute last resort and because of her, everything on the computer was cleared out.

Now we are in the process of installing our programs again as well as looking for all of our sites that we would frequently visit. Needless to say, I'm thankful that this weekend is done and over with although I wish it had never happened in the first place.

rileyrk190

Im sorry to hear that. I too have had bad experiences with the dell support, who are supposed to be knowledgeable. Make sure you fill out the survey they send you in an email! It will have the persons name.

Richard

Windows Vista or Xp?

Lucy

Oh, gosh, Red Rose, I'm so sorry to hear about your computer.

COBettaCouple

That really stinks! Yea, she has no business working tech support if she can give such bad advice.

As soon as you can, I'd recommend getting an external hard drive. Use it to store data and other files like that and the main drive to just have your programs.

Shawnie

aww rose!!

My daughter was famous for that...always needing a reformat...so the last time, I just partitioned her drives so she wouldnt loose all her pics and songs ...ya know kids!!

peacemaker92

Aww man! So sorry to hear that! how could that woman do such a thing?

Darlene

Sorry to hear about that. We have had the same types of problems before. It really sucks. We also have a dell, but I haven't had any problems with the tech support...yet.

Red_Rose

That was really the only time we've ever had to call Tech support so it really sucks that it turned out so bad. The last man we spoke to who reinstalled our drivers kind of made up for it because he was great and he knew what he was talking about.

Windows XP. Is one known more for crashing then the other?

, Lucy. Although it still ticks me off when I think about it, I'm slowly starting to put it all behind me.

It's funny that you mention that because after all of this happened, we said that that's something that we need to get! Right now, we have a ton of blank DVD's and CD's to use as back up discs so we'll be making good use of those until we can get an external hard drive each.

Smart idea! I had a lot of stuff on my account but the one thing that really upsets me is that I lost all of my pictures, mainly the ones of my pets. I was going to make a back up disc that night but when my sister tried to log in, a second later(if that) she would be logged out again and that's when it all began.

Who knows? For someone who is suppose to know all about computers and how to solve problems that may arise in them, you'd think a system restore would be the last thing she would tell anyone to do.

I hope you never have any problems with them. I wouldn't want someone else going through the same thing that we did.

sirdarksol

Sorry to hear that. I lost a ton of writing recently to a hard drive crash. On the upside, I have a shiny new computer that's way better than my old one.

As far as tech support "knowing everything about computers," that's entirely not true. Your average tech support person is a schmo off the street who's given a script to deal with all of the most common tech problems. I know more about my DSL than anyone I've ever talked to at Earthlink's base-level tech support. The ones who know everything are the senior-level techs. The problem is talking to them. Part of the basic tech support guy's job is to send as few calls to senior techs as possible.

Red_Rose

I'm sorry that happened to you. At least you got a new computer out of it. Even though my sister's warranty for the computer expired in May, she was told that if something should happen to it that it no longer works, they would replace it for her since they didn't give her the re installation disc as well as the system restore that was done to it.

As for the tech people "knowing everything", I never said that they are suppose to know everything about computers. Knowing a lot about them is different from knowing everything. I honestly don't think anyone knows everything about them since anything could happen to them at any given moment. I would not be surprised if the first person we dealt with was someone off of the streets, like you said but the last man definitely knew what he was doing. Perhaps this all could've been prevented if we had waited to call them in the morning instead of that night, which was rather late. We could've saved everything if we had waited but then again, maybe not.