Is £57 for 5 minutes advice fair value from Dell

Zuzzie

I have every sympathy! Its easy to be wise after the event and its easy if you are a wizzo techie person but the fact that they charge £57 is a rip off and I for one will not be rushing to buy from Dell after hearing this.

Paddymcc_2

The reason the operator was telling you to press F12 was to get the computer system to boot up via the CD/DVD drive thus booting with the restore media rather than booting via the corrupt hard drive install.

Poppycat

Ouch thats a lot. If they didn tell you I dont think you got any comeback. Did they say how much exactly how much it costs, x amount per minute?

I find another pc and googling a big help. I realise you aint got another pc, shame on this occasion you didnt.

DatabaseError

loaner...someone's deleted all your posts

chipbeck

Just as well the OP didn't mention where the script reader was based. That really gets them going on here.
I find the Customer services excellent at dell. Mind you I'm quite a popular type of guy when I ring they all want to talk to me, They all ask me the same questions before they pass me on to their mates but we usuall have a couple of minutes chat first. Sometimes I get a bit fed up because they just say the same thing over and over again to me, and the rustling of the paper gets to you after a while.
As I say we while away a few minutes then they pass me over to the bloke who's not at his desk and I listen to his out of office before I hang up.:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

Happychappy

Three times since yesterday I have either turned the computer off or restarted it and gone back to the black screen with the Boot Error saying windows was unable to load as there may have been a hardware or software change etc.

Fortunately with my £57 spent on finding out I can repair and restart the computer, I have managed to get it going again so clearly the problem has not been fixed.

I have rang Dell to be told the technician who gave the F12 advice was busy and he would ring between 6pm and 7pm tomorrow, service gets better and better.

When I click repair and restart, it gives details of the repair as

The following start up option will be added

Windows Code Name Longhorn Presinstallation environment (recovered)

Path Windows

Windows device Partition D 10240mb

Any ideas what this means, I have a few programmes, outlook etc as well as documents I need, does it always mean a clean wipe and start again, or is there a way of repairing whatever is wrong without have to back up and reinstall everything and start form scratch

Any advice gratefully received

DatabaseError

I know it's not that helpful...but...try a day without installing anything on the PC, just do the F12 reset and then use the pc to surf the net, and use the apps which come preinstalled, do NOT install or download anything yourself. If the lappy still reverts to the black screen then there is definitely something wrong with it, if it doesn't...then maybe it's software that you install that is causing the problem?!

Happychappy

DatabaseError wrote: »

I know it's not that helpful...but...try a day without installing anything on the PC, just do the F12 reset and then use the pc to surf the net, and use the apps which come preinstalled, do NOT install or download anything yourself. If the lappy still reverts to the black screen then there is definitely something wrong with it, if it doesn't...then maybe it's software that you install that is causing the problem?!

Hi

I havent installed anything, just purely worked on an excel spreadsheet and saved it and research on the net. The only download was a windows security update and restart which again but up the black screen with boot error.

If I start the machine and dont even do anything and then click restart or shutdown, when it starts up it automatically now goes to the black screen, although starts again once I go through the f12 reinstall, repair and restart sequence.

DatabaseError

get it sent back, demand a refund of the £57 as it is a hardware fault

Happychappy

I have an external usb hard drive with Acronis true image V9. I have backup my computer to this.

If as I suspect the chap from Mumbia says the only way is to wipe and reinstall Vista, is it easy to reinstall all my programmes from the external hard drive without reinstalling the operating system with its apparent faults.

Does it just give a listof what I want to reinstall to cherry pick the saved programmes or does it install everything ? I have had Acronis for a year or more but fortunately never used to to reinstall