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Laptop fun continues
Jan. 27th, 2010 04:48 pmI don't immediately recall if I've said much about my problems with my laptop. About a week before Xmas, my laptop started freezing. There has been no pattern to when or why it is freezing other than the computer is on. It happens in both Linux and Winders. BUT every single diagnostic run on the laptop has shown the hardware is performing fine.
I sent it off a week ago and got it back on Monday...still not fixed. Yesterday, the guy was adamant that the next thing I HAD to do was to re-image the HD. Since we installed Linux to make the laptop dual-boot after buying it, it seems that the ways someone would otherwise access the embedded image partitioned in a corner of the HD were no longer possible...I would need a Windows disc. Unfortunately, I can't find a disc for the laptop; not at the office, not at the FIL's office, or at my house. I discover that I have WinXPPro for my PC and the disc should work for the laptop (using the product key on the sticker attached to laptop).
I called Lenovo this morning to update the info on the ticket with my situation on how I was having to reimage. After trying a few other suggestions by tech support that didn't work, I was assured that if there was a problem with this, then they would help me with a disc or whatever. I hung up, took a deep breath, and popped the WinXP disc into the laptop.
It took about 45 seconds for the setup program to stop working because it couldn't detect any hard drives. I called up Lenovo and after running through a summary of the situation, he guided me through a couple of tweaks in BIOS as well as trying one other trick to try to access the partitioned image Lenovo had embedded. The process was started again with no troubles at all during the "installing Windows" process.
But as anyone that has ever installed or updated Windows knows, it is NEVER actually ready to go when the install program says it is. There are always a ton of drivers to be found and installed, configurations/wizards to complete, and then hours of trying to figure out why certain things aren't working. It was during this extended process of getting the laptop to actually work that the computer froze up.
*headdesk*
Overcome by anguish that my current stress level from reimaging the HD was seemingly for naught, I left the laptop off and went to call Lenovo for psychiatric assistance. Of course it was when I was the most upset and impatient that I reached the tech support person with the most foreign accent of all the support folks (God bless my calls going to the support center in Atlanta and getting a good mix of folks with Southern accents I can understand). At first I'm told that it would cost $45+ for them to ship me a reimage disc since my adding Linux and making it dual-boot invalidated the warranty on the OS install. I pointed out to her that I ONLY did the reimaging at Lenovo's insistence and had received reassurance that this was going to be the solution to my problem. Now, on their advice, I was out $45 to fix something they essentially had me break and my laptop still had the original problem. After being on hold for a minute, I was told that a re-image disc was on its way at no charge.
As soon as the disc arrives, I'll do that process just for the sake of getting the laptop to working order. It will be then that I'll see if the problem continues before shipping the laptop to them for extended testing.
I sent it off a week ago and got it back on Monday...still not fixed. Yesterday, the guy was adamant that the next thing I HAD to do was to re-image the HD. Since we installed Linux to make the laptop dual-boot after buying it, it seems that the ways someone would otherwise access the embedded image partitioned in a corner of the HD were no longer possible...I would need a Windows disc. Unfortunately, I can't find a disc for the laptop; not at the office, not at the FIL's office, or at my house. I discover that I have WinXPPro for my PC and the disc should work for the laptop (using the product key on the sticker attached to laptop).
I called Lenovo this morning to update the info on the ticket with my situation on how I was having to reimage. After trying a few other suggestions by tech support that didn't work, I was assured that if there was a problem with this, then they would help me with a disc or whatever. I hung up, took a deep breath, and popped the WinXP disc into the laptop.
It took about 45 seconds for the setup program to stop working because it couldn't detect any hard drives. I called up Lenovo and after running through a summary of the situation, he guided me through a couple of tweaks in BIOS as well as trying one other trick to try to access the partitioned image Lenovo had embedded. The process was started again with no troubles at all during the "installing Windows" process.
But as anyone that has ever installed or updated Windows knows, it is NEVER actually ready to go when the install program says it is. There are always a ton of drivers to be found and installed, configurations/wizards to complete, and then hours of trying to figure out why certain things aren't working. It was during this extended process of getting the laptop to actually work that the computer froze up.
*headdesk*
Overcome by anguish that my current stress level from reimaging the HD was seemingly for naught, I left the laptop off and went to call Lenovo for psychiatric assistance. Of course it was when I was the most upset and impatient that I reached the tech support person with the most foreign accent of all the support folks (God bless my calls going to the support center in Atlanta and getting a good mix of folks with Southern accents I can understand). At first I'm told that it would cost $45+ for them to ship me a reimage disc since my adding Linux and making it dual-boot invalidated the warranty on the OS install. I pointed out to her that I ONLY did the reimaging at Lenovo's insistence and had received reassurance that this was going to be the solution to my problem. Now, on their advice, I was out $45 to fix something they essentially had me break and my laptop still had the original problem. After being on hold for a minute, I was told that a re-image disc was on its way at no charge.
As soon as the disc arrives, I'll do that process just for the sake of getting the laptop to working order. It will be then that I'll see if the problem continues before shipping the laptop to them for extended testing.
