I'm up to my elbow in new hard drive grease. Would have been nice if Dell had included a quick "how to" list of things to do. I think I'm on the right path, but still I was taken aback for a few minutes trying to work out what had to be done. Sure, now it seems obvious that I should put in the disk marked Windows XP and not the one marked Dell Resource Disk, but for some reason my instincts are still pre Windows. I think of Windows as something you add later.
The physical/hardware job is no problem - anyone could do it on one of these modern PC's. I'm pretty sure I'll manage the software installation now that I've got it going, but I know people who would find some of the decisions a real problem (NTFS or NTFS quick? Partitioned or not?). A little help here wouldn't have gone amiss.
Here's the think about Dell. I'm still not too happy that the product they sold me was no good, but I can't really fault them for the service they provide. As I mentioned, the woman in India was good, if hard to hear at times and I've had three calls from Dell asking me if new hard drive had been delivered. Hard to fault that sort of follow-up (and one of those was after the item couldn't be delivered due to something I'd done).
And, the other day, in desperation about the loss of my data on the faulty hard drive I drove to Dell and walked in asking to speak to someone. I went in expecting a confrontation, but no. I was assured someone would be down in a minute. I half-expected an 18-year-old pimply-face half-wit, but I got a bright, pleasant (ridiculously so) man at least 10 years older than me. He took my faulty drive and tried to see if he could salvage anything, but unfortunately the data can only be salvaged with specialist equipment. The service - not available from Dell - would cost me about €1300 or more.
One last thing. Dell has called me twice asking if I've been satisfied with the service I've received. And, I've said I am because, well, I am. It's the junky product I was sold that has me exercised. I'd rather not have had the opportunity to experience Dell's excellent technical support service.
