Dealing with constant hard drive corruption (experience most likely required).

[Lemur]

Are you in a position to agitate for a replacement laptop? 'Cause it sure as heck sounds like the motherboard, and the only way you're gonna get a new laptop mobo is to exchange the entire machine ...

[CrossLOPER]

Are you in a position to agitate for a replacement laptop? 'Cause it sure as heck sounds like the motherboard, and the only way you're gonna get a new laptop mobo is to exchange the entire machine ...

I thought as much. However, I have absolutely no clue how to urge GS or push them in the right direction to realize this. GRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!

An exchange requires 4 REQUIRED repairs. 2 have been done, so I'm not too far. However, the laptop is not cooperating. I don't know what causes the crashing fits, otherwise I could show GS the formula and they could deal with it. At least they would stop telling me that they can't find a problem.

[Lemur]

Try telling them you're sure it's the motherboard. Couldn't hurt, right?

-edit-

I know of two things that can create impossible-to-recreate crashes: bad RAM and a bad mobo. So download Memtest and run it, and eliminate the RAM. That will leave the motherboard.

If they give you hell about not being able to re-create the crash, tell them that motherboards and RAM create random crashes. That's just the nature of the beast. If they want to see it for themselves, they're going to have to use the laptop for an extended period.

[Whacker]

Lemur's suggestions aren't bad, BUT I would offer something else as an alternative. You've got a few options.

- Do the memtest routine. IF you can find another known good stick of ram, try that first off and see if it works. If it doesn't, then you know it's not the RAM. Your problem still sounds like a bad mobo.

- Play hardball with the repair crew. My suggestion at this point, don't get mired down in arguing details. Don't listen to lame excuses. Demand satisfaction. "Well we couldn't get it to do such and such, we think so and so, we can't reproduce etc, so it's fixed." Don't care, doesn't matter. Bottom line is that your laptop needs to be fixed. Be reasonable but absolutely firm, and don't let them get you off course on excuses, etc. If it crashes on you on a regular basis during normal use, and the GS guys claim otherwise, they are bullshitting you and/or lying. It might help if you had some tool or means for documenting crashes, if I have some time I'll look into it for you. Otherwise, someone on the forums may know of something. You want it to document each lockup or crash (if possible), or detect when the system has crashed on the next boot up. I thought Sysinternals made something like this that logs BSODs, but I might be wrong. Someone else jump in here. This is just doing them somewhat of a favor anyway, it's their job to fix it (and it's also a prelude to what I suggest at the very bottom below). As for the policy on 4 repairs before a replace, remember a policy is just a policy. It's not law, not written in stone. Business is business and when need dictates, policy can be ignored or overruled. Don't forget that and don't let them feed you some lines about "corporate requires this or that", management always, always has the ability to make cost related decisions in a business, that's WHY they are managers. Sometimes if you prove to be a persistent customer and a thorn in their side who's not going to roll over and accept the BS, businesses will often bypass policy requirements like what you mentioned to resolve the issue. It'd probably be more costly for them anyway to continue down that road, than to just shortcut and resolve the matter up front.

- If all else fails, make a (polite) scene. Demand that management address the problem. Stick to your guns, don't piddle and argue, demand resolution, nothing more and nothing less. If you can't get that, take it up the food chain, write a (polite and well worded) nastygram to the regional director, the vp, the ceo, whomever. If you still don't get anything and it's under warranty, you might seriously want to consider small claims court. If you can demonstrate to the court that your laptop is "non-functional", aka be able to show hard documentation or evidence of repeated crashing during normal use, and that you tried to resolve this with the company, you've got a full house. This is costly and extreme, and it does carry some risk, but you have a right to what you paid for.

[CrossLOPER]

Well, the laptop is out of my hands again. I got them to document one form of a frequent error in the form of a picture (taken at the suggestion of a GS member) of a BIOS boot order tab displaying the random HDD name. I spent about half an hour in the store trying to replicate one of two frequent crashes, but this lead to nothing. In any case, according to GS (who were a lot more helpful this time, I sense a pattern) the BIOS picture should be enough to prove that the pre-boot failure shows that at least one main problem is definitely hardware related, and more importantly that a problem exists!

Deeper delving into the "My Computer" shows that the laptop documented a series of failure clusters that apparently occurred at the time of crashes. Among the more common failures includes the Windows clock being unable to set itself when attempting to connect to the internet...

One of the GS members sent off the picture and a note stating that the problems can only be replicated through usage.

If I get it back again without a satisfactory report (in this case a new frikin laptop, or a voucher...), I'm going raise hell, to take it home, document every failure, come back, raise even more hell, and then go on to more serious measures if things don't work out.

I really want to stop spending time on this!!!

[CrossLOPER]

Alright, last time I posted, I abandoned almost all hope of resolving this peacefully. About a week ago, a call to Geek Squad resulted in what appeared to be a very short and unproductive conversation with a seemingly apathetic GS employee. However, today was different.

Yesterday, my parents got a cryptic call from Best Buy where the caller stated that a system restore was in order. Today, I fully expected a long (futile) conversation with the manager about policies and ethics. Instead, I got this:
An HP pavilion dv6500. To be honest, this is not the best laptop in the world, but it was the best I could get for the swap policy. Oh well. I'm happy.

One more thing: How the heck do you REMOVE the remote from the express card slot? I mean other than picking it out with a thin sharp object. I truly cannot find the eject button.

[Lemur]

Congrats on getting a replacement, Crossloper! Well played, sir.