Harddrive failure...

Well, it looks like my harddrive in my laptop is on the verge of dying. This morning, I was greeted by a screen saying something about a hardware failure. (Side note: Being in the computer field myself, I was the typical consumer and didn't make a note of the phrasing nor the wording, so it is just a vague recollection.)

My laptop had made some odd noises last night, but I assumed that it was a fan slightly out of whack - it wasn't noisy enough for me to get concerned, just something to keep an eye. And then, in the morning, it's got some funky message on it. (I do remember that it wasn't a Windows environment nor was it the much despised Blue Screen of Death.)

When I forced the power off (hold the power button) and then turned it on, the funny noise came back with a vengence and the computer wouldn't boot up. It sat on the screen with the white dots for a very long time (like minutes) and eventually got into the starting windows graphic. Then it gave an error and quit.

Being relatively early in the morning, I decided to call HP immediately. I actually didn't have to wait for too long, and got connected pretty quickly. Of course, by the time we got to turning on the machine, it booted into Safe Mode. I exited Safe Mode and ended up at the XP logon screen very quickly. Go figure! They gave me a case number and asked if I had a minute to talk to a QA (I think) person.

QA person gets on the phone asks something about my computer - which I had turned off. I turn it on and lo-and-behold, I get the dredded "non-system disk" message. That's it. Well, they took it a bit more seriously at that point. :-)

However, I had to get Harry to school, so I said I'd call back in the evening.

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I finally got some time around 8pm this evening. Computer booted right up. I got a backup (my prior one was actually early January, so I wasn't desperate) and then called. Within 10 minutes of talking to the support person, they were giving me the order confirmation number for my replacement harddrive.

Wow! Good experience for a bad event. Obviously, I'd prefer that the harddrive didn't fail - but if this is the support when I'm dealt a lemon, I'll keep HP/Compaq on my side.

On a related topic, I must say that these support folks were really quite nice and very polite. There was a minor trouble with communication (they're in India, so there is an accent and there's this time lag of what seemed to be a second or two which drove me nuts) - but overall, I was pleased with the experience. I think if I were dependent on them directing me for the support effort, I may have gotten a bit frustrated - but I remember getting frustrated with Gateway tech support people who were based in the midwest (where I'm from) in the early 1990's, so that may be part and parcel of the experience.