Re: Outsourcing - A Horror Story With a Happy Ending

From: PT (xyz_at_xyz.com)
Date: 03/12/04 

Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2004 20:29:06 -0800

Of course the problem never would have arisen if MS had kept the earlier and
very understandable Windows versions' message - something like "Insert
Bootable media". 

-- 
PT
"Bruce Chambers" <bchambers@nospamcableone.net> wrote in message
news:1052egmocassk30@corp.supernews.com...
Greetings --
    Yes, the old floppy in the A: drive causing the standard "NTLDR
missing" error message is a very common event.  And it has been so for
many years, since the advent of WinNT.  In fact, this solution is so
common and so obvious that perhaps the telephone tech simply didn't
want to offend you by suggesting that you could have possibly
overlooked it?
Bruce Chambers
--
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having both at once. -- RAH
"PT" <xyz@xyz.com> wrote in message
news:eXbLAz9BEHA.1704@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
> This morning, I turned on my Dell computer, and received an error
> message:
> "NTLDR is missing.  Press any key to restart".  After several
> attempts at
> pressing the "enter" key and getting the same message, rebooting
> several
> times and getting the same message, I called Dell Phone Support.
>
>
>
> The technician somewhere in India told me that this was a relatively
> common
> problem, and required reinstalling the file in the I386 folder.  He
> then
> went through a long sequence of steps to try to reinstall the file
> from the
> Windows XP reinstallation CD.  He kept running into problems,
> getting the
> message "Access denied" when we tried accessing the I386 folder.
> Eventually, after about an hour on the phone, he told me that
> several files
> had been corrupted, and the only thing left to do was to re-format
> the hard
> drive, reinstall Windows, and try to rebuild the system.  I was told
> that
> the process requires about 2 - 3 hours to complete.
>
>
>
> I decided to do so using a local computer servicing company which
> had
> previously installed Ghost and made a backup image of my hard drive.
> I
> started out by explaining the NTLDR error message.  The following is
> a
> nearly verbatim transcript of our conversation"
>
>
>
> Local Tech:  "Do you have a floppy in the floppy drive?"
>
>
>
> Me: "No --- Wait a minute - yes I do!  I guess I should remove it?"
>
>
>
> Local Tech:  "Yes, then reboot"
>
>
>
> Me:  "It's booting correctly - Is that what the problem was?"
>
>
>
> Local Tech:  "Yes - That's the message you get when you try to boot
> from the
> floppy drive - It's a standard cryptic MS error message.
>
>
>
> So how to I rate the advice the Dell Indian technician provided?
>
>
>
>  1.. Not only didn't he know the simple and apparently obvious
> solution to
> what is an extremely common problem - a badly designed Windows XP
> error
> message.
>
>
>  2.. Not only did he waste an hour of my time on a fruitless
> exercise when
> a knowledgeable tech could have solved the problem in ten seconds.
>
>
>  3.. But - if I had blindly followed his advice, I would have at
> best, lost
> all the programs, data files and everything else I've added since
> purchase.
>
>
> To summarize - this incident has severely shaken my faith in the
> quality of
> Dell support service,  I should mention that when I told the local
> tech of
> the procedure that the Dell support tech had followed, and the
> recommendation he gave - the local tech told me  "those guys don't
> know very
> much - they just follow scripts, and rush you into replacing
> equipment and
> software."
>
>
> -- 
> PT
>
>

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