Computer Woes

It all started about 3 weeks ago. My computer, which has always been a bit quirky, shut itself down, and I was unable to re-boot it. After spending FIVE HOURS on the phone with Dell, my computer was up and running again, though still acting a bit quirkier than usual.

About a week ago it happened again. Since a lot of things had already been ruled out, Dell was able to resolve it more quickly. It was running again, but a couple of times I got messages about serious errors that Windows had recovered, and it has continued to re-boot itself at odd times, which is maddening when I am in the middle of something!

Yesterday I got an error notice that my hard drive was failing. The ironic thing is that my warranty expires TODAY. So of course, when I called Dell, they told me I really ought to extend my warranty another year -- for only $180.

I told them that I didn't have $180 to spend on that, and I felt they needed to get this problem resolved since it occurred before my current warranty expired. I spent an hour or more last night on the phone with them, and it shut itself down several times while we were working on it, which I was sort of glad of because at least the guy was able to experience some of my frustration.

At 10:00 (his getting-off time), he told me to back up all my files; he would call me today, and we were going to reinstall Windows.

I'm not looking forward to losing everything on my hard drive; there are some things that can't be backed up easily; but if I have to, I have to. I only hope that this will take care of my problem, or at least that Dell will continue to work with me until it gets resolved.

So, by the time all this is over, I will either be singing the praises of Dell, or I may have some not-very-nice things to say about them. I'm sure you'll hear about either way (assuming I have a computer to blog on).