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?
