Frustration. Grr. Frustration.
Okay. So my girlfriend was trying to fix a co-worker's Windows XP laptop, since it wouldn't boot up. It would BSOD with a "boot file is corrupted" or something similar; so I figured it was just a simple matter of Windows XP recovery, chkdsk and fixboot. Right? Right.
Problem is, I'm 3 hours away, so I have to help her via telephone. Her co-worker needs this laptop ASAP, so my GF says, "OK, you can just talk me through how to fix it."
Now, mind you I've done this before, so I'm trying to walk her through the recovery process, thinking this would be just a quick 15-minute fix. My girlfriend is pretty technologically inclined, but she's never used DOS, the recovery console, etc before. So I'm a little worried.
So, with a justifiable feeling of trepidation and dread, we begin. Chronology:
10:00 pm: Well, first of all it took a couple reboots and BSOD's for me to figure out over the phone what exactly is going on.
She starts reading the entire BSOD screen text out loud to me. Fun.
10:05 pm: I tell her it's probably just a corrupted boot file and she needs a Windows XP disk. She goes off to find hers, can't find it anywhere. She's rummaging through cabinets, her desk, banging away, all the while trying to talk to me.
10:15 pm: Finally finds a disk. Reboots. BSOD.
Tell her she has to go into the BIOS to change startup settings. She asks me, "What's a BIOS?" Holy hell. Beginning to feel a headache.
Reboot. I tell her to look for a Function Key on startup to get into BIOS. She forgets to look.
Reboot. Finds it, F2. doesn't hit it in time.
Reboot. Finally gets into the BIOS. Can't find startup settings. Starts reading me every menu option. Headache getting worse. Finally get to boot order, sets CD-ROM #1. Exits, but doesn't save changes. Headache starting to pound.
Reboot. Back into BIOS. Changes settings, remembers to save, reboot. Forgot to "hit key to boot from CD". Computer freezes.
Reboot.
Look at the clock, and that whole damn simple step took OVER 30 minutes. Shit.
~10:45 pm: finally boots from the CD. Windows loads setup files for 5 minutes. Running out of things to talk about. She starts recovery console. I tell her to type in CHKDSK /P, spelling it out. She's like "what? C like the letter or s-e-e like with your eyes?" Headache really pounding all of a sudden. Chkdsk takes about 5-10 minutes, finds errors. Tell her to type in FIXBOOT. Figures it out after a couple tries.
11:00 pm: Laptop reboots, normally, into Windows XP. Hooray. Did this really just take an f'ing HOUR?!?!
Anyway, I now completely understand how much working telephone tech support can suck sometimes. I mean, my GF wasn't dumb at all, she'd just never done this stuff before, and having to explain computer stuff over the phone that I kind of took for granted was INCREDIBLY frustrating; I can't even imagine trying to talk to a 75-year old grandma who doesn't know anything about computers and trying to run her through something simple like this.
Okay. So my girlfriend was trying to fix a co-worker's Windows XP laptop, since it wouldn't boot up. It would BSOD with a "boot file is corrupted" or something similar; so I figured it was just a simple matter of Windows XP recovery, chkdsk and fixboot. Right? Right.
Problem is, I'm 3 hours away, so I have to help her via telephone. Her co-worker needs this laptop ASAP, so my GF says, "OK, you can just talk me through how to fix it."
Now, mind you I've done this before, so I'm trying to walk her through the recovery process, thinking this would be just a quick 15-minute fix. My girlfriend is pretty technologically inclined, but she's never used DOS, the recovery console, etc before. So I'm a little worried.
So, with a justifiable feeling of trepidation and dread, we begin. Chronology:
10:00 pm: Well, first of all it took a couple reboots and BSOD's for me to figure out over the phone what exactly is going on.
She starts reading the entire BSOD screen text out loud to me. Fun.
10:05 pm: I tell her it's probably just a corrupted boot file and she needs a Windows XP disk. She goes off to find hers, can't find it anywhere. She's rummaging through cabinets, her desk, banging away, all the while trying to talk to me.
10:15 pm: Finally finds a disk. Reboots. BSOD.
Tell her she has to go into the BIOS to change startup settings. She asks me, "What's a BIOS?" Holy hell. Beginning to feel a headache.
Reboot. I tell her to look for a Function Key on startup to get into BIOS. She forgets to look.
Reboot. Finds it, F2. doesn't hit it in time.
Reboot. Finally gets into the BIOS. Can't find startup settings. Starts reading me every menu option. Headache getting worse. Finally get to boot order, sets CD-ROM #1. Exits, but doesn't save changes. Headache starting to pound.
Reboot. Back into BIOS. Changes settings, remembers to save, reboot. Forgot to "hit key to boot from CD". Computer freezes.
Reboot.
Look at the clock, and that whole damn simple step took OVER 30 minutes. Shit.
~10:45 pm: finally boots from the CD. Windows loads setup files for 5 minutes. Running out of things to talk about. She starts recovery console. I tell her to type in CHKDSK /P, spelling it out. She's like "what? C like the letter or s-e-e like with your eyes?" Headache really pounding all of a sudden. Chkdsk takes about 5-10 minutes, finds errors. Tell her to type in FIXBOOT. Figures it out after a couple tries.
11:00 pm: Laptop reboots, normally, into Windows XP. Hooray. Did this really just take an f'ing HOUR?!?!
Anyway, I now completely understand how much working telephone tech support can suck sometimes. I mean, my GF wasn't dumb at all, she'd just never done this stuff before, and having to explain computer stuff over the phone that I kind of took for granted was INCREDIBLY frustrating; I can't even imagine trying to talk to a 75-year old grandma who doesn't know anything about computers and trying to run her through something simple like this.
