Dude! You're Gettin' A Dell!
That's exactly what I told myself last February. After gimping my poor 50 lb. Sony Vaio laptop along for over five years, I decided it was time to treat myself to a new laptop. When it arrived in the mail, I admired it's sleekness; it was so responsive when I touched the buttons and touchpad I could just cry. It truly was a beautiful thing. And the best part? It didn't sound like a jet engine everytime it got warm and the fan kicked on. I could sit in bed for hours, just me and my Dell.
Fast forward to a few days ago...my Dell and I had an argument and it threw a tantrum by refusing to run correctly. The little bastard was vomiting up error codes right and left and with my limited computer expertise, I knew it was time to take it into the shop. I cursed the little jerk the whole way there because he was totally bogarting my 2,000+ photos, refusing to allow me to franticly download them to a flashdrive. Why, little Dell? Why do you have to be so mean? Do you really wanna see Momma cry?
When my computer guy looked at it, he said he would do what he could to salvage my pics but my hard drive was blown. My Dell had suffered some sort of massive computer heart attack at the ripe 'ole age of five months. Now I sit here, typing in the midst of a terrible angst, knowing that I'll have to deal with Dell customer service and come to terms with the fact that I was an idiot and should have been backing everything up. Now I know, no computer is invincible - not even my baby Dell.
My PSA for today is: BACK UP YOUR COMPUTER! IF YOU WANT THE FILES, THEN BACK THEM UP!!! There, I feel much better now. Please don't be the one to ever have to sit in my lonely, pictureless shoes. It truly sucks. I now have 572 "houseless" pictures sitting on my camera's memory card. Why? Because the dang files are too big to load on my barney of a desktop. I can sit and admire them on a two-inch LCD screen and dream of the memories I may have created...
Comments
Oooh, Sandi, I feel for you. My external hard drive took a dump (actually a jump, seeing as it left my bag and ended up on the ground) and refused to work.
Not knowing where you took your computer, I Hiiiiiighly recommend Renaissance Computing. $120 (1.5 hours of labor) and they restored all of my data. Stoked.
They're also super nice guys.
Good luck!
~Monica~
Posted by: Monica | July 11, 2008 04:30 PM
Oh, man, that sucks. I've been using carbonite.com for a few months now to back up. It's easy and cheap ($50 a year.) Literally the week after I started the free trial my computer was murdered by either a toddler or a dog spilling water on it. (Neither fessed up.) When we replaced it I was easily able to retrieve ALL my files through Carbonite. I'm not saying this to rub it in but just to give you a good backup option. :)
Posted by: BethAustinTexas | July 11, 2008 04:37 PM
So I have had actully good luck with dell as long as your warranty is good. Find a time when you have about an hour call them and they will run through some things then if it doesn't start working they will send someone to pick up the computer and then they will fix it and send it back usually very quickly. Oh and if you are going to be a prof. photographer at some time you (and I) need to get a back up external harddrive, usually cost about 120ish and will automaticlly compartment and back up all files...... Best of luck.
Posted by: Martini | July 12, 2008 10:30 AM
Go local. Most communities have at least one or two highly reputable computer stores with techicians onsite. They build their own desktops but are authorized dealers for various laptops. You probably won't find Dell there, but what they do sell they can often service for you on the spot, and what has to be sent in for service they will take care of, going to bat for you so you don't have to deal with 1-800-INDIA for hours on end. If you'd bought local, your data would probably have been recovered and you'd have been back on the road with a new hard drive within 24 hours. Sure, maybe you saved $200 on the Dell, but how much is your time and your data worth?
Posted by: Scott | July 13, 2008 07:49 AM
I will be nice but please don't tempt me any more.
Posted by: Gump | July 14, 2008 07:38 AM