Sunday, January 21, 2007

Back up your data...really?

I've gotten a ton of feedback saying basically "It's your fault man, you've got to back up your own data, never trust anyone to do it for you, I back up my data every day on 10 different drives and 2 DVDs, and you should've fixed your computer yourself, you're an idiot, etc., etc., etc."

No kidding, you have to back up your stuff. I know that. I do that. Unfortunately I can't sit around all day and watch the crappy 1x DVD burner on my powerbook whirl away, since I do have a job to do. I was in the process of backing my stuff up, but I hadn't gotten through it all. That's the deal.

My biggest problem with Apple is that they threw away my hard drive. That thing is mine. Whether it was corrupted or not, it's mine. Send it back to me along with my computer that you didn't fix. That's all. Nothing more, nothing less. That thing is mine. If you're not smart enough to check to see if the data transfer I paid for actually worked, then give me my property back so I can pay someone else to do it.

Saturday, January 20, 2007

Right now, I hate Apple

This is a long story, but I gotta type this out before I lose it....

So, my Powerbook crashed about 2 weeks ago...grey screen and "you must restart your computer" message, then nothing...it would not restart. I take it in to Apple Soho, the genius bar dude takes a look and says it's likely the logic board is screwed up. My Applecare plan ended a couple months ago, so it's 300 bucks to fix. Fine. I tell them all I really care about is my data, just preserve the data, I just want my data. They say fine, for 50 bucks they'll back it up at the store on their server, then send the computer off for repair. Great! This is most important because the La Cie external hard drive I had most everything backed up happened to crash a couple of months ago, and I'd only managed to back up a small amount of stuff on the 1x spped DVD drive since then. So, I pay the 50 bucks, data is transferred, computer is sent off to get the logic board repaired, cool.

One week later, I get a call from the Soho store. The install guy says my data on their server is corrupt and they can't recover it. They try to say that it was probably bad on my computer hard drive in the first place so it's not their fault. I say well, why didn't you check to see if the file would open before sending the hard drive and computer out the door, since I made clear that all I give a damn about is the data, and I would've picked up the computer and gone to a data recovery place. No answer.

I get the computer back, all they did was replace the old hard drive (which they threw away, gone forevs) and didn't touch the logic board. Well, guess what happened next? As soon as I turn it on, it goes back to the original problem (grey screen, error message-->kolonel panic). So I take it back to the store, yet another genius says yep, it's your logic board, not your hard drive and probably never was the hard drive, and sends it back again.

So...Apple kindly screwed up the data transfer I paid for, removed and threw away my perfectly good hard drive, and gave me back a blank, still screwed up computer.

So thank you Apple, thank you for screwing me. Thank you for losing pages and pages of documents, hundreds of photos and hours of video of friends and family, thousands of songs, countless emails, phone numbers, and addresses, tons of expensive programs, and, yes, some porn. Thank you Apple. Thank you and f you.