It Won't Boot!!!

Ah! The joys of rendering bro bono help desk services...if I only had a nickle...Ach! I vud be a rish man!

I received a phone call, not all that long ago, involving what was presented to me as a GRUB-based issue, because the machine wouldn't boot. Period.

I had to listen to how "unreliable Linux is" this, and what a "kluge it is" that, and how "this never would have happened with windoze"...yadda-yadda-yadda.

"Shut up and quit trying my patience. You called me for help, not the other way around, so I'm not interested in your ill-informed opinions."

"You're not being very nice!"

"I know that, but you don't need a nice idiot, you need an intelligent solution. That's why you called me."

"Well..."

"Well nothing...you want an answer for free...and...yeah...you'll get it...if you'll stop acting like a putz...so, tell me--EXACTLY--what is happening."

I spent almost an hour, pacing the house and back yard, trying to reach out with closed eyes and see what was happening more than four thousand miles away. (This cuts into some serious cell phone minutes, I'll have you know.) It's the best one can do, when the arms are too short, and the hands on the keyboard are just a bit crippled for what I want them to do.

Closing one's eyes helps, but it can't do anything to allow me to hear what I need to hear at such times. Well, it helps until the cat dashes underfoot. At any rate, I have gotten pretty good at this over the years...except for the decided lack of grace.

"You have a bad hard drive." was the final diagnosis; which is to say that now the arguments will ensue, "Replace it."

"It can't be bad. It was working yesterday."

I'm looking at the porch stairs, in front of the house, and thinking how sturdy they look...how cathartic it would be to smash my head against the cool concrete for a while. "Please consider what you just said to me and ask yourself how that fact might possibly guarantee that the hard drive has not failed today."

"Well...it's not even a year old, and so, well, it can't be bad."

"I thought so. Tell me...did anybody, perchance, drop the laptop computer that happens to be wrapped around the hard drive?"

"Ohmigod-no! We're not that stupid! We'd never drop a laptop!"

"Close the laptop, please, and turn it over. Describe what you see to me."

It took a while, but I got the information I wanted..."Alright, so that's the hard drive carrier, and the two retaining screws are missing...right?"

"Uh-huh."

"Slide the drive out."

"Won't that hurt it?"

"Will the drive boot--right now?"

"No."

"Well, you have your answer, don't you?"

At this point, somebody walked into the room on the other end of the conversation; and, seeing the drive removed from the laptop, chimed-in that the caller should ask me if the drive falling out of the laptop--from a height of about 5 feet, onto a concrete side walk--could void their warranty, seeing that they had to replace it for an UNRELATED FAILURE?!?!?!?

Looking at the hour that evaporated from the face of my watch...with a tone of liquid nitrogen in my voice..."_WHAT_did_you_just_SAY_?_"

"Well, it was probably closer to six feet, and there's a little dent in the hard drive that wasn't there before..."

"You're SERIOUS?"

"Of course! I'm looking at the dent right now! It's a good thing the little plastic piece didn't get broken..."

"::: SIGH :::...and it didn't occur to you to mention this *inconsequential* fact AN HOUR AGO?"

"Do you seriously think that dropping it could have hurt it at all? I mean it happened yesterday, and we didn't think..."

I look lovingly at the cool, concrete porch steps..."It's a HARD DRIVE, fer crissakes!"

"So it *might* have??"

"Just replace the drive." What's my pulse-rate up to, I wonder?

"So, what about our warranty?"

"Forget the warranty. You don't have one now. Just buy a new hard drive, because that's the right thing to do...well, that, and not dropping hard drives--ever!"

"But..."

"No! Get money...pay money...no warranty...buy drive...baaaad user!"

The laptop manufacturer replaced the drive under warranty...::: rolling eyes :::

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