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No one listens to IT guy

By jfuller05 ·
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Don't you love it when the users and their management think they know more than you? It's great isn't it?

User calls me one day, telling me she can't get into her system. I ask her a few questions, find out she her PC will not boot into Windows 7 then tell her I will be at her desk to help her out in a few minutes. On the way to her office I remember her PC is about 5 years old, hardware hasn't ever been changed, so the hard drive is about 5 years old as well.

I arrive at my destination, i.e. her office. Fire up the PC, gets to the Windows 7 load screen (screen before login screen) and it locks. Restart, f5, boot into safe mode...doesn't even get to the windows pre-login screen. I run a few troubleshooting tasks while the user huffs and puffs behind me and her coworkers are telling her she needs a new PC, which is all great convo to hear while you know this is a hard drive problem only (99% sure).

Nothing is getting me into windows. I know the quickest way to fix the problem is to replace the drive, copy her working image file and data files and she will be "good to go" in about a hour (I've done this before in that amount of time for other users - this department's PC use is outlook, excel, and word, not heavy use). I tell her the plan, but she doesn't like the plan. She and her coworkers think she would be better off getting a new PC (since they're the IT techs, they would know right?) instead of just replacing the drive. They told me she'll just encounter another problem down the road.

I tell them it's my professional opinion that a new drive will fix her problem. I did exactly the same thing for another user in that department last year and she's been good since (aside from the occasional user error her hardware has been fine) I replaced the drive. Even after telling them the cause of this problem and how to fix it, they insist on purchasing a new PC. I was overruled by my our boss even. How great is that? It gets better. They told me to go ahead and install a new drive in that PC so someone else can use that PC. What?

So I purchase a new PC for the user against my will and then put in a new drive in the "old" PC, install all the good stuff, and now a user is plugging along great on that system. I wonder why I'm even on the payroll if they're not going to listen to me?

Has something like this ever happened to any of you?

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Yes, easy solution

by Slayer_ In reply to No one listens to IT guy

You take the computer, come back with it later and say you replaced all the insides with new parts, and that its now a brand new computer. With the hard drive wiped they can't tell the difference anyways.

You just need to learn how to white lie.

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evil but i like it!!

by markp24 In reply to Yes, easy solution

your soo right thought, just put a new OEM sticker on the fron from some other manufactuer and your golden...lol

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Sticker Swap

by GSG In reply to No one listens to IT guy

We used to repair the pc, clean all of the gunk off of the case, give it a different workstation name, and swap out the asset sticker. We'd hear the user bragging to their co-workers that they got a "brand new" pc and that it runs faster than theirs.

There's such a thing as too much information when fixing a user's workstation.

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Slayer and GSG

by jfuller05 In reply to No one listens to IT guy

ha, I never thought of doing either one of those solutions. I most likely do give the users way too much information about what I'm doing to their computers as I'm fixing them. I'm learning. I've learned a lot from techs here at Tech Republic (I've only been in the biz 2 and a half years).

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I'm not even IT but the trick works with personal users as well

by Slayer_ In reply to Slayer and GSG

I fooled one once by just changing the theme from XP blue to XP Silver and I told them that was the look of the new system.

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That's just evil !

by Darryl~ Moderator In reply to I'm not even IT but the t ...

But I like it

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I love it!

by jfuller05 In reply to I'm not even IT but the t ...
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wow your just full of evil tricks

by markp24 In reply to I'm not even IT but the t ...

Wow I wonder what you do to people that mess with your network...lol

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I guess I could write a quick program that watches the network connection

by Slayer_ In reply to wow your just full of evi ...

And yells at the user every time they mess with it.

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Sorry, but sometimes you've just got to lie.

by CharlieSpencer In reply to Slayer and GSG

My boss would have backed me up. But then, I try to replace most desktops around the 4-year mark.

What would really frost my shorts is the bit about how replacing the drive isn't good enough for the original user but is good enough for someone else. I'd replace the drive, take all but about 256 meg of RAM, drop the video down to 640 x 480, and set the virtual memory for about 64 meg. Then you can tell them, "Yep, you were right; it needed to be replaced!", reset everything, and use it somewhere else.

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