Re: [OT] New toys, new problems?

Standing in the dark, rainy shadows of a city alleyway, I spied the
Replicant Alric Knebel covertly transmitting a message to renegade
friends in alt.fan.blade-runner.  Tracking...

>Lukas Mariman wrote:
>
>> Greeting, carbon units!
>> 
>> I just went crazy (again) and got me a new PC.
>> 
>> After years of upgrading my existing box piece by piece every so often,

>> I wanted to take the other route and got me a brand PC.
>> 
>> I bought an Acer Aspire M3610, which has an Intel Core 2 Quad
processor, 
>> and comes with Vista Home Premium (and some assorted software included)

>> preloaded.
>> 
>> Naturally, there don't seem to be any physical copies of Vista or 
>> anything else that was installed  - instead there's some bare-bones 
>> do***entation that doesn't really help at all, and a few blank 
>> "recovery" DVDs.
>> 
>> Still figuring out how I am supposed to make a backup of Vista. :-/
>> 
>> Anyway, just sharing this touching stuff with you dudes/dudettes. If
any 
>> of you have Acer stuff as well, I'd love to read what you think of it. 
>> Any experiences, horror stories etc. :-)
>
>I've had my current computer for about five years now.  Like you, I've 
>made it work by adding this or that over the years; adding more RAM, 
>changing out the CD burner for a DVD burner; upgrading the sound card; 
>and so on.  When I bought the computer (an HP Pavilion), everything came 
>pre-installed, and it was all stored behind a partition, with not a 
>single backup disc.  So I found myself faced with the same problem as 
>you.  But UNLIKE you, I didn't realize I even HAD a problem until it was 
>a REAL problem.  The hard drive crashed.  Then I realized I no longer 
>had an operating system to restore to the new upgraded hard drive.  I 
>contacted HP and they informed me that I now had to pay $30 (or 
>thereabouts) for the backup discs.  They further informed me that, had I 
>contacted them within the first year of the purchase date, the backup 
>discs (which includes complete set up, free software and all) would have 
>been provided FREE.  Now, suddenly, the notice I had received in the 
>mail once about a class-action lawsuit against HP was making sense.  As 
>a person who'd purchased an HP, the suit covered me, too.  HP had been 
>sued for not including those backup discs.
>
>So, my friend, I recommend you contact the manufacturer right away, 
>while it's till under warranty.  That way, if at 10 o'clock at night, 
>you have a complete hard drive crash, and you need to fully restore, you 
>won't have to wait two weeks for your discs to come.  And I'm not sure, 
>but from what I gathered from the class-action suit, I think they're 
>legally obligated to provide them free, even maybe after the warranty 
>period.  That part, I'm not sure about.  So if I were you, I'd get with 
>customer sup****t right away.

You should be able to make your own, but I know I feel more
comfortable with original disks.  My number one piece of computer
advice for anyone:  I have had to work on Disaster Recovery Planning
for some big banks and it is boring as hell, but the single core
message that really sinks in is PLAN AHEAD.  Disaster RECOVERY happens
when you have planned for it.  Otherwise, it is all too likely to
simply be DISASTER.  I've been messing with computers for so long now
that I can distill people's feelings into levels.  There are plenty of
people who get pissed off at their computers.  There are plenty of
people whose computers simply mess them around.  But there is a
category of people who experience that gut-wrenching soul-destroying
feeling of their computer completely ****ing them over.  By which I
mean hard disk physical crash, HD Boot corruption, Partitions
disappearing (though still there), etc.  That is that moment when they
say, "I wish I'd planned for this before it happened and had all the
disks, etc that I needed to recover from it."

I beg of you everyone, don't put it off.  Find out now what simple
disasters can befall any home computer and create the disks you need
NOW! EVERYONE should have certain basic disks to get them going again
when their computer goes bonkers.  And, I guarantee, at some time,
whoever you are, whatever computer you have, there will come a time
when your computer sticks the knife in you.

And for GOD's sake, PLEASE back up your data.

Netrunner.