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A few weeks a go I sent my laptop that was still under warranty in for repair with PC world. Got it back today nearly 2 weeks later than they said, and found that the hard drive is completely blank. Now the hard drive is meant to be 200 GB and the computer bit is displaying 166 GB free of 179 GB. I have no clue what that means as I can't actually remember what it was before, but it doesn't seem quite right.
They replaced the mother board (I was expecting that), the wireless card (not sure why considering it's the ethernet port that needed fixing) and the battery (why?). Would replacing any of these explain why I have a blank hard drive?

Sorry but I am confused and annoyed that they've had my laptop for a month.

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The 179Gb is probably because your HD has been partioned by the maker. When I started working at PC World they started providing the software to restore your computer to it's factory settings on a partition on the hard disk which I was very very unhappy with as a policy.

If it's blank then I would say almost certainly the technician has restored the HDD back to original settings because they believed there was a software fault. It is taught to PC World technicians to do as standard, I suspect because it is quicker than actually trying to fix any software faults.

Was it just the laptop battery or the battery on the MoBo?

Btw I worked at PC World as a technician. Many of the other technicians I worked with were talented and capable individuals but the system they have to work with is somewhat harsh. Most of us were trying to look after people as best we can under the rules we worked under.
littleleicesterfox
quote:
Originally posted by PuppyDooDoo:
And thankyou GMA.

Sorry if I sound a little strange, but I don't really trust PC world. I would have liked to have known what they were up to, rather than just being told they had to order in parts.


Just had this reply from 'son and heir' Roll Eyes

Rightâ€Ķ



· PC world wouldn’t have supplied the HDD back as blank, unless there’s some utter incompetence. Depends if it is actually blank (i.e. no windows, nothing) or back to factory configuration.

· The hard drive IS 200GB. For marketing purposes, one conversion factor is used to define a gigabyte (i.e. thus a larger value) and in the real world it is a different value. Don’t know why, it’s just like this, storage amount is the same.

· None of them would cause a blank HDD, who cares if you had more parts than necessary replaced, you have new computer internals, so long as they are the same or better in capability J



End of the day, it’s PC World, be lucky they had it for just a monthâ€Ķ


END OF SON'S REPLY...

...I think he's sceptical - but he's 'honest as far as PC World is concerned Nod - sorry for delay, he's working (not for PC W any more - he travels the world instead) hope you're wiser (I'm not, I just summons him to my computer)!

Good Luck, hope any info was of help - I just don't 'get it' myself. Confused
I think he's saying they're 'incompetent' and h knows them well! Confused Shake Head
GMA
Thankyou GMA, and thank your son for me too. When I said blank I meant all the files and programmes on it were gone, and all my settings were back to the way they were before I got it, aka factory restored.

I don't get it either, but considering out of 4 people I know who have had to send their laptops in for repair (including me) I am the only one who hasn't had their hard drive replaced with a smaller one, or a cheaper processor put in. I am just going to count myself lucky. And get my friend to fix it for me next time.

Now I need to reinstall everything I had on it before, copy the files I had backed up onto it and figure out how to change the settings back.
PuppyDooDoo
quote:
Originally posted by PuppyDooDoo:
Thankyou foxy. The actual laptop battery was replaced. But I don't quite know why as I only sent my laptop in for the ethernet port to be fixed, and I get it back with a blank hard drive.
I don't know what a MoBo is, but the paper I got back with it just said battery.


Sorry, MoBo is just shorthand for Motherboard - it's a long word to type lol.

If the battery was over ÂĢ5 then it's likely to be the laptop battery if it was under then it's likely to be the internal battery.

Like I said, it's just that they have taken it back to it's factory settings. It suggests to me that they thought that the problem with your ethernet port was a drivers problem and tried to fix it that way before physically replacing the motherboard it was on.
littleleicesterfox
quote:
Originally posted by PuppyDooDoo:
Thankyou GMA, and thank your son for me too. When I said blank I meant all the files and programmes on it were gone, and all my settings were back to the way they were before I got it, aka factory restored.

I don't get it either, but considering out of 4 people I know who have had to send their laptops in for repair (including me) I am the only one who hasn't had their hard drive replaced with a smaller one, or a cheaper processor put in. I am just going to count myself lucky. And get my friend to fix it for me next time.

Now I need to reinstall everything I had on it before, copy the files I had backed up onto it and figure out how to change the settings back.


I put a thread out for you honey, I'm lost with all this jargon, so ignore thread I put out - if we can help further 'alert me' !Good luck, I thank god for kids (now and then!). Big Grin
GMA
quote:
Originally posted by littleleicesterfox:
quote:
Originally posted by PuppyDooDoo:
Thankyou foxy. The actual laptop battery was replaced. But I don't quite know why as I only sent my laptop in for the ethernet port to be fixed, and I get it back with a blank hard drive.
I don't know what a MoBo is, but the paper I got back with it just said battery.


Sorry, MoBo is just shorthand for Motherboard - it's a long word to type lol.

If the battery was over ÂĢ5 then it's likely to be the laptop battery if it was under then it's likely to be the internal battery.

Like I said, it's just that they have taken it back to it's factory settings. It suggests to me that they thought that the problem with your ethernet port was a drivers problem and tried to fix it that way before physically replacing the motherboard it was on.


Ah I see, I think. Don't think it was necessary though as the port was actually moving around. Least they fixed it, I was told it may be blamed on me and they would just void the warranty.
PuppyDooDoo
quote:
Originally posted by gma:
quote:
Originally posted by PuppyDooDoo:
Thankyou GMA, and thank your son for me too. When I said blank I meant all the files and programmes on it were gone, and all my settings were back to the way they were before I got it, aka factory restored.

I don't get it either, but considering out of 4 people I know who have had to send their laptops in for repair (including me) I am the only one who hasn't had their hard drive replaced with a smaller one, or a cheaper processor put in. I am just going to count myself lucky. And get my friend to fix it for me next time.

Now I need to reinstall everything I had on it before, copy the files I had backed up onto it and figure out how to change the settings back.


I put a thread out for you honey, I'm lost with all this jargon, so ignore thread I put out - if we can help further 'alert me' !Good luck, I thank god for kids (now and then!). Big Grin


Valentine Thankyou very much, I did see it. And I will remember that for future. Again please thank your son for me.
PuppyDooDoo
quote:
Originally posted by Daniel J*:
The 'missing' disk space is probably down to formatting. My hard disk is reported as 500G at the BIOS level and about 465G through Windows after Windows (NTFS) formatting.
I thought that as well but the son is right the disk manufacturers basically lie about the capacity on their hard disks.

For example, hard disk drive manufacturers assume that 1 GB equals to 1 billion (10^9) bytes, while in fact 1 GB equals to 1,073,741,824 (2^30) bytes.

Let’s take a real example, Seagate/Maxtor DiamondMax 21 hard disk drive with “250 GB”. It is announced as being a 250 GB hard disk drive, having 488,397,168 sectors. With this number of sectors we can easily find out that the capacity of this hard disk drive is of 250,059,350,016 bytes, or 232.88 GB and not 250 GB. So here is why your 250 GB hard drive is only formatted with 232 GB: it IS a 232 GB hard drive!

Full article

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/482
CaptVimes
quote:
Originally posted by Daniel J*:
quote:
Originally posted by PuppyDooDoo:
If it hadn't been under warranty, trust me I would have found someone else to fix it.

Sorry, it wasn't meant as a criticism. PC World just drive me mad.


Hug I didn't take it as one, I know they have a bad track record and they were driving me mad before they got the laptop picked up.
PuppyDooDoo
quote:
Originally posted by langster:
Personally I wouldn't buy anything from PC World, not even blank discs, let alone a lappy or PC.

www.ebuyer.co.uk

Is a good place for deals. And they sell out quick as some things are sold at ridiculous prices. The other week they had 42" Sony LCD FULL HD tellies at ÂĢ329 Eeker They sold out in two hours though Frowner


They are good, I needed a laptop to use whilst the other one was being fixed and ended up buying it from there. Only wish I had found them before I bought the other one from PC world.
PuppyDooDoo
quote:
Originally posted by langster:
Personally I wouldn't buy anything from PC World, not even blank discs, let alone a lappy or PC.

www.ebuyer.co.uk

Is a good place for deals. And they sell out quick as some things are sold at ridiculous prices. The other week they had 42" Sony LCD FULL HD tellies at ÂĢ329 Eeker They sold out in two hours though Frowner

I like Ebuyer. They went through a bad patch a few years ago but seem to have sorted themselves out.
FM
quote:
Originally posted by Daniel J*:
quote:
Originally posted by CaptVimes:
For example, hard disk drive manufacturers assume that 1 GB equals to 1 billion (10^9) bytes, while in fact 1 GB equals to 1,073,741,824 (2^30) bytes.

Essentially, the manufacturers/BIOS are using SI measurements (k).

1k = 1000, 1K = 1024.

The software is using binary (K).
Yes but its fraud really. They are computer disk manufacturers they shouldnt be using SI measurements to quantify a computer component. Its derived from binary measured in binary they are using decimal to pull the wool over peoples eyes and the larger the drives get the bigger the fraud because the bigger the difference.

Its like me selling 2 litres of coke and it really being two pints. I dont know how they get away with it.
CaptVimes

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