Not in my case. My machine was under warranty. It just didn't boot before or after they fixed it. I sent it back (still under warranty) and they refused it saying it was a software problem (because the hardware diags all passed), and didn't even look at it. They tried walking me through steps on the phone that would have erased my hard drive, which I didn't want to do, so I went and bought a USB adaptor to mount my Dell disk on my other laptop and was able to copy all my data off. But I had to take ownership of all the files to do so. I got the impression that Dell didn't want to be the ones responsible for losing my data and so tried to convince me to follow their instructions so I would be the one responsible. Oh well, that's understandable, but not very good for their PR. Funny thing was, they called me a month later when my warranty was going out and asked if I wanted to buy an extended one. I told the lady I was not happy with Dell's support, and she sounded surprised. Anyway, for those hardware gurus, what does it mean when you run all the hardware diagnostics on a laptop and have them all pass, only to have the system fail the first time it accesses the hard drive? There was apparently nothing wrong with the file system because when I did retrieve the data, it was all there and accessible. Happy hacking. --le ----- Original Message ----- From: "Sina Bahram" <sbahram@xxxxxxxxx> To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Friday, September 04, 2009 7:48 AM Subject: RE: laptop worked Whereas I've had nothing but impeccable support from them. Mainly the problem comes from people not buying warrantees, then expecting support. Take care, Sina -----Original Message----- From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of qubit Sent: Friday, September 04, 2009 7:12 AM To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: laptop worked I also have had awful support from Dell. If they can't fix something in the short term, you can stand on your head and send it back 2 or 3 times and they will not do a thing. Glad you got yours working though. Hope it stays that way. --le ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alex Hall" <mehgcap@xxxxxxxxx> To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Thursday, September 03, 2009 8:56 PM Subject: laptop worked Hi all, Thanks for all the responses to my mom's laptop problem. Finally, we called Dell, and my support rep was even understandable! He tried reflashing bios, which didn't help, then updating the chipset drivers. He aborted that, but never finished it for some reason and said that it was not the problem anyway, so nothing was fixed. Then, my friend figured there was no harm in updating things again... The chipset driver update finished that time, and now the laptop is working great. I have no idea why this problem started, but at least it works now! I also learned (again) to never buy anything from Dell and expect it to be supported! Have a great day, Alex New email address: mehgcap@xxxxxxxxx __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind