My 'Electronics Guardian Angel' SUCKS!!!

For your viewing pleasure ....


A VISUAL:

Since I never know until I look at my blog whether or not you can actually see the level of detail I am counting on you seeing - I will explain:

EVERYTHING is broken ....


My 'Electronics Guardian Angel' SUCKS!!!


See ...


Well ...


A few weeks ago, I thought that I was EVER SO CLEVER for figuring out where my Angel should live ... with a bonus that she would be my wonderful 'Electronics Guarding Angel' gently watching over things and keeping everything on my desk running smoothly:

I could look up to my right and see her standing guard ...

a sentinal against all things evil and harmful to computers ...

Visions of her lovely, sweet, smiling face looking down upon me as I toiled away,

day,


after day,


after day ...

What?


OK, so ...


she doesn't have a face ...


~~~~~


As it turns out, I believe I was grossly overestimating her competency ...


Assuming she had experience ...


A dedication to the job ...


A deep, abiding love for all things Electronic ...


Now, I am not even sure if she ever EVEN attended Guardian Angel School at all ...


As I look closer at her, I notice something:

What is that she is holding? A circuit board? A laptop? A repair kit?


No ....


it's a bird ...

A bird is not instilling confidence in me that she is up to the task, in fact - visions of my 'Angel of Disaster' seems to ...


morph every now and then ...



Sometimes she is holding a hanging mouse - with its cable fashioned into a noose:

Sometimes she is holding something heavy ...

looking for something she can smash to bits ...

But MOST OF THE TIME she is holding something delicate, lovely, dainty ...

even NICE! If it weren't in HER hands ...

What is it, you ask?


Here is an 'Extreme Closeup':

Yeah.


Pretty much says it all doesn't it?



Back in another life a century ago, when I actually worked with computers AND GOT PAID FOR IT ... when there were problems, we opened a 'Problem Ticket' ...


So ... here goes:

PROBLEM TICKET #1 - Seagate Drive Flaky

I purchased, quite some time ago, a Seagate 3 Terabyte External Drive to back my data up to. I ran the install, hooked it up and things were great! For about 10 minutes, then the system dropped the drive - no warning, no reason - it just disappeared.

Ever since then he has been horribly shy - hiding for DAYS AT A TIME and is generally very untrustworthy.

I called the company and talked to them about it and they sent me a link for a download. It was a set of diagnostics to run against it and see what was reported. There was a short version and a SUPER long version. They suggested I run both.

Twenty minutes after running the short version, it told me that he was wonderful, A-Okay! Everything was fine!

Ran the Long Version and a DAY later I got the same message.

Bummer.

So, I didn't return it, but was wary of it and never quite trusted it - which pretty much makes it a waste of a drive ...

Months go by and my data grows until one day I purchase a 6 Terabyte drive to use daily. While it was in the mail, apparently the 3 Terabyte drive got jealous and threw a fit, then stomped off to parts unknown ... couldn't find it anywhere ...

Called the company.

The Warranty Division.

They told me 'No Problem' we will send you a new one and a label to send the defective one back. GREAT! It will be ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL to have two whole drives that are TRUSTWORTHY!!

Waited for the new one to arrive ...


Meanwhile:

PROBLEM TICKET #2: Phones

One day, a few weeks ago I noticed a faint hum on the line. It was annoying, but intermittent and I rarely use the phone, so - no worries!

Until it got louder, and louder. It got to the point where I turned on the 'Do not disturb' button so it would not ring and asked everyone to call my cell phone.

If they called the home phone, let it ring until the answering machine came on, then hung up - the hum was so loud that the answering machine interpreted it as voices and recorded it for the maximum allowable time a message can be on our machine ... fun, fun, fun.

If a person called, let it ring until the answering machine came on (again .. and it is a GIVEN that the answering machine is going to come on because I somehow decided that I don't answer the phone anymore ... nasty, aren't I?), then left a message - when I played it back the hum was so loud I could not understand what was being said.

Thus - an order into Amazon for a completely new phone system for the house. A base and 4 other phones. It arrived and I took everything out of the box - bags, and bags, of black plastic thingies ...

Lined it all up neatly on the now empty little IKEA table that we had been using in the entry, and promptly forgot about them. I was going to get to them, but I was busy ... with something, and couldn't get my head around going around and installing all of them. One would have been doable, five was just beyond my abilities ...

Last night Gary asked me if I was just going to leave them there all looking pretty and what not (I would show you a picture HAD I A PICTURE TO SHOW YOU ... details to come later ...). I told him, pretty much, yes.

He picked up one and took it upstairs, so I followed suit and started to swap out the one on my desk. Soon they were all installed! I felt such a sense of accomplishment and I had only fumbled through getting 'mine' set up, but apparently that is enough for me these days ...

Hours later Gary was headed to bed and I was finishing something on the computer. He came out to tell me he was going to bed and added:

"You probably want to call the phone company tomorrow. I tested the phone after we installed them and the hum is still there."


GRRRRRRRRRR ....

That brings us to TODAY!!!

PROBLEM TICKET #3: The Unthinkable, The Impossible Occurs

As I mentioned above, I purchased a 6 Terabyte External Hard Drive to transfer all my photos and graphics to since they had filled up the C: drive. I purchased it from Western Digital. I LOVE their external hard drives! I have had about 8 - 9 all together and they are small, fast and reliable - what more can a person want?

After a shaky install - which I detailed in an earlier post - it came online and worked like a charm! Watched it for a day - and it was great so I dumped all my graphics over. Perfect copy, things going great!

The next day I copied over my photos. One little hiccup, but other than that - smooth sailing! We were set up!

Watched them for a few days, while using them. I had pointed both my 'Photo' and 'Graphics' libraries to access the data on the F: drive and it worked identical to when I was pointed to the C: drive. After 3 days, I called it 'perfect' and deleted the data on the C: drive. I had made backups of both on September 13th so I was in pretty good shape.

Yesterday I got a strange message that said that I needed to run a CHKDSK on one of my devices and I didn't catch which one, but assumed it was my new Seagate one that I had just received and plugged in. Shrugged it off and carried on, realizing that I had yet to really install my new 3 Terabyte drive.

I had to reboot because of some updates my Security Software had made and when it rebooted, it automatically started the CHKDSK ... on the F: drive! Oh! Ick! That is my DRIVE ... DRIVE. THE IMPORTANT, END ALL DRIVE. Watched the run and everything checked out okay! I sighed heavily with relief and carried on. Went to bed after writing "Call Grande' (our phone company) on a post-it and sticking it on my monitor, shutting down my computer, shutting off the lights and heading to the bedroom.

Today arrives and I wander out to the computer - hit the power button, it starts up and I go into the kitchen to get a large drink - I am addicted to Crystal Lights 'Raspberry Lemonade' and drink it all day long. It has replaced soda for me since soda now upsets my stomach for some reason ... but I don't know what that reason is ...

Came back and there was a lovely little message on my screen:

What?

I was thinking that it was the new 3 Terabyte drive and I wondered why it would need to be formatted - I saw stuff on it yesterday and it was looking fine ...


AND THEN I REALIZED IT WAS MY SUPER DUPER IMPORTANT DRIVE ...


OH, Sh* ....


Called the companies Technical Support division after trying all permutations I could think of with the drive to see if somehow, just one more time, I could get my computer to recognize it - and I would dump all the photos and graphics that I had either generated or changed since my last backup. But no luck - all I could get was that it needed to format the drive (and for my mom - that means I would lose all the data on that drive - so all my photos and graphics).

The guy at technical support asked me if it was plugged directly into a wall socket.

Lori: "No"

Guy: "It needs to be directly plugged into a wall socket, could you change that and lets see if that helps."

Lori: "What? Are you serious? Do you have any IDEA how many plugs my 'Computer System' consists of? And, what? I have TWO wall sockets and you want me to use ONE OF THOSE to plug in YOUR device?"

Guy: "Exactly. The warranty specifies that we do not guarantee the product unless IT IS PLUGGED DIRECTLY INTO A WALL SOCKET."

Lori: "You have to be kidding me. I have SEVEN of your products - what is your suggestion to that? Nevermind. It will take me a while to shuffle things, but if you won't talk to me until I do that, I will move things around and get it plugged into a wall socket and if it still won't work, I will call you all back ..."


Ugh ...


And thus began the


GREAT COMPUTER CLEANUP OF 2011 ...

Started here:

Unplugged everything and set it aside:

Even the monitors and speakers:

The floor was now clean - well, after I threw away about 10 pounds of fluffy grey - dusty crap, 1 dehydrated frog, on dried rose bud, ONE HALF a gecko?, four paper clips and 5 curled up spiders ... and rescued a Willow Tree figurine that lives next to my Angel ... I'm a bit unclear if this was a suicide attempt, or attempted murder ...

Used my handy dandy cordless Dyson vacuum that works for FIVE minutes only - but for that five minutes boy is it good! (Called years ago when I got it and sure enough ... yep - it only runs for 5 minutes - that is all the powerful battery is good for then you need to charge it for 3 hours - but it is great for quick, small cleanups!)

Looked and looked and looked for my labels since I wanted to, while everything was out, label all the cables and plugs. Finally found them and got organized:

Started plugging everything back in, and was able to take two of the power cords to the plug to the left of my desk - two is better than nothing!

I then ONLY hooked up the speakers - no printer, no external drives, even used a corded mouse - crossed my fingers ...

and turned it back on ...

We have lift off!

Then, with the plug that generally runs the three floor lamps in this room (and now, I am typing in this post ... in the dark ...) I plugged the stinkin thing into a wall socket, plugged it into the computer and crossed my fingers again ...

But no go ...

Called the company back and they told me that there was nothing they could do - the warranty did not cover the data, only the device - but told me of a company that I could download their data recovery software for free and see if it could recover my data.

Went out online and found it - downloaded it - installed it - and ran it. It started chunking along and I realized that it was detecting my files! But ... it had to DETECT ALL OF MY FILES before it moved on to the recovery phase -

Um, off the top of my head - just in the photos and graphics alone - there is over 1 million files.

I know!

What is wrong with me?

The graphics data consists of kits of many pieces of teeny tiny graphics so the bulk of the files are miniscule - just A WHOLE BUNCH OF THEM ...

Then I remembered that I did an image backup of the C: drive and it was also on the F: drive. Knowing this would take a while, I picked up my drink, my cell phone and wandered off to my bedroom to read ....


PROBLEM TICKET #1 - SeaGate Drive Flaky - RESOLUTION STATUS: PENDING

This one is fairly easy since I never trusted the drive, I never really put anything on it that I didn't already have, thus, all I need to do is take the old one, box it up in the box the new one came in and use the shipping label provided and ship it back for free ... which means going to a postal center ... which means getting in a car ... which means getting out of the house ... which means I will get to it when I get to it ...

FUN FACT: As I was installing the 'new' drive yesterday, it asked for the Serial Number and told me it was on the bottom of the drive. I lifted it up, and there was a sticker that said: "Seagate Certified Repair"


WHAT?


Called the company, option: Warranty Division

WD: Hello, Seagate Warranty Division, how may I help you?"

Lori: "Yes, I had a 3 Terabyte Go Flex drive of yours that went bad, so you guys sent me out a new one with a box provided to send the defective one back. I noticed that the new one has a sticker on the bottom that says "Seagate Certified Repair" ... Um, does that mean that it is a refurbished drive?"

WD: "Yes it does"

Lori: "You mean to tell me that I go to the store (aka Amazon) buy one of your products NEW ... it is bad, I send it back to you AND YOU CAN SEND ME A REFURBISHED DRIVE TO REPLACE THE BRAND SPANKING NEW ONE THAT I JUST BOUGHT?"

WD: "Yes ma'am, we can. It is specified right in the warranty that we can replace it with a drive of our choosing."

Lori: "Hmmm. OK. Good to know. Thanks."

...


Warranties? For something that I never take the time to read ... THEY ARE STARTING TO PISS ME OFF!!

PROBLEM TICKET #2: Phones STATUS: COMPLETE

Called my phone company this morning - told them the problem and they said that they could send someone out today, would that be OK?

Dudes!

NOTHING HAS GONE RIGHT FOR ME IN 24 HOURS!!! Of course it would be all right!

They come, they go in the backyard, they break the phone:

BUT THEN!!! They fix it!

Hum is gone, bad line in the backyard. All better now.

PROBLEM TICKET #3: The Unthinkable, The Impossible Occurs - STATUS: Still Unthinkable and Impossible ...

As I type this ...


just a sec ...


let me go look ...




The Recovery Software says:

Elapsed Time: 08:28:26
.
.
.
Total Files Found: One million, six hundred and sixty one thousand, two hundred and eighty six files ...

and just so you know ... during the time it took me to type that in it has increased the files by 1,355. I know you care ...

Speaking with the technical support guy about this problem and what steps I need to take, he mentioned that after I recover the files (if I can recover the files) format the drive like it asks and see if it works OK


WHICH I ASSUME IT WILL ... UNTIL IT DOESN'T ...


WD Tech Support Guy: "So - if there is a problem with it, call us back and we will send you a new one, with a box to return the old one in. We will include a shipping label for the old one. You will have a month to return the defective one and after that time, you will be charged for the new one we sent out to you."

Lori: "Okay, let me ask you something ... If I have to return the drive to you - do you replace it with a new drive or a refurbished drive?"

WD Tech Support Guy: "A new one of course. Why on earth would we send you a refurbished drive?"

Lori: "Exactly ..."