Aug
10th
2017
Final Reward · 2:16pm Aug 10th, 2017
Welp, they did it. They killed my computer. At least they backed up the hard drive before doing so, though we'll see just how much they actually bothered to save when I pick up the external hard drive tonight.
Fortunately, all of my BronyCon preparations are email attachments, so this shouldn't impact my ability to go to the con. Equally fortunate are the physical notes I made for "The Perfect Pair." If the file didn't survive—the file with all of the cards I've made from episodes and movies—I should be able to reconstruct the blog from those.
I am officially never buying another thing from Best Buy if I have any other options.
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FanOfMostEverything · 886 views
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Good choice. I wouldn't trust those clowns with an apple, much less some real electronics.
Sorry to hear they destroyed your compy. That's a dark day.
Geez. How'd it get destroyed?
4629562
I got my current computer from Best Buy and have never had any trouble with my local store so I'm guessing this is very much a case of "your experience may vary".
Though to be fair when I have computer troubles I can't fix myself I tend to go to my local Office Depot instead of Best Buy but only because the former is closer and thuss more convenient.
Best of luck FOME, I hope they backed up the important stuff. *Makes a note to update his own backups when he gets home*
I had my hard drive get screwed over a few months ago. I sent it to DriveSavers and I still haven't really figured out exactly how much of my stuff got recovered because of how much stuff was on it, but I hadn't backed my computer up in about 3 years, so I'm pretty sure a good amount of it was lost, including all of my audio files. Thank God all of my writing projects have been in Google Drive, or I'd have been royally f***ed.
What I'm saying is, I feel your pain.
gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=277995&type=card
4629589
In hindsight, that would've been a more fitting blog title.
The problem with Best Buy is that the quality of service you get depends entirely on the location you go to. There are several locations in Minnesota that are just fine, and they are all clustered around HQ. Move outside of that, and you start taking bigger and bigger risks the further out you go.
Unless you're talking about the Geek Squad. There are even fewer locations with a Geek Squad I would trust.
Putting in a new hard drive shouldn't be a difficult endeavor, so if they've got all the data, you should be able to get everything back to normal, provided the rest of the hardware is/was functional. At least, as long as you can figure out all that windows key stuff. If they cloned the hard drive directly, this might be easy because you can clone it again and nothing changed (provided the problem was not software-based to begin with). If not, it might still be easy if you have a 'blessed' motherboard/bios.
Though if you don't care to play games or run proprietary software (though there are even exceptions), I actually seriously recommend considering Linux at this point. Arch + Plasma GUI makes for a Windows-like interface with all the benefits of still being proper Linux.
As for buying hardware, Best Buy is hardly the best or cheapest place to obtain it. Amazon WH Deals and Ebay are surprisingly effective if you know what you're dealing with. I get new to new-ish-that-might-as-well-be-new electronic parts and devices for 20-40% off the standard retail price.
Oh man now I feel awful for jinxing it.
Ages and ages ago Best Buy had good deals on electronics and software and highly competent technical staff. Then they began cutting corners and hiking prices, and now they sell at or above MSRP while they employ idiots in the service department because they refuse to pay competitive wages for skilled technicians. I miss the days when Best Buy wasn't overtly evil.
Good choice on not buying anything from the evil useless bad corporation!
Oh man, what a drag!
At least you can still go to the con! Have fun!
I've been hearing about dying hard drives a whole bunch lately. How does this happen? I'm asking because I've never had this happen to any of my computers, not even those with 7plus years of service.
Aww shit that isn't fun.
A hard drive that is failing can be tricky in that if you correct a symptom (e.g. corruption of the boot sector) it's still only a matter of time before the mechanicals give out. The drive's S.M.A.R.T. data should always be checked as it can often give warnings before the drive gives up the ghost (ymmv). Once a drive starts going bad, a good rule of thumb is to treat the drive as a ticking time bomb that can catastrophically fail at anytime.
4629562
Apple computer or apple fruit? :P
4629644
Parts wear down over long use, whether thats the discs storing the data, the PCB that controls the drive, the arms that read it, the motor that spins the discs, etc.
The alternative is damage caused by shaking of the case in some way during operation, usually resulting in the read heads making contact with the disc and scratching them or something.
Ive also heard that the more you turn a device on/off, the more wear is caused on these parts. Ive also heard the opposite, but Ive never run a test on it (and probably never will.)
4629831
that was very informative!
Thank you for the reply friend!
4629722
This statement intentionally left ambiguous.
I hope you didn't loose anything else important!
But isn't the harddrive a separate component that could be accessed independently of the computer's hardware itself?
Have you looked for an actual PC-repair store? Like, not one that's part of a larger store, and directly advertises itself as a PC-repair store? I'd have figured they'd have unplugged / physically unmounted the harddrive and attached it to another computer. I think there's some sort of cable for that, so the hard drive doesn't even need to be built into the other PC.
I have hazy memories of my old laptop dying, and seeing some sort of setup like this used to get my files off of it..... I think. It was a very long time ago, I don't quite remember.
RIP FOME's Computer
A Loyal Machine to the Very End
I'm sorry to hear it turned out this way
Ouch, this is bad.
I suggest you place the entire documents/photos folder and any other you use inside a cloudsyncd folder. Which service you use (Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, Backblaze) doesn't matter, as long as all files fits there.
I do so, and it's pretty nice to not matter at all which pc I am (at least regarding my files), plus knowing i have backups if things goes boom.
What happened to it? If the hard drive is the problem, then at worst all you need is a new one. It's not the hard, even on a laptop -- there should be a removable panel on the bottom just for that purpose (some laptops have one just for the HDD; others have a panel that takes up most of the bottom.) If its not the HDD, then data loss shouldn't be a concern. What's going on?
Be sure to get your stuff back and check it for new damage.
4629835
It's called a USB-to-SATA adapter (or USB-to-SATA Bridge), and any even barely-competent tech will have one. They're about $5 to $25 depending on quality, speed, and features.
So you sent it in because your hard drive died... and they got your data, but the rest of the laptop is dead?
How did they manage that?
4630101 There are some things that neither man nor pony was meant to know.