Yesterday I received a call from one of the users here. She says that her HD made a clicking noise and then she got a black screen saying Disk 1 failed. Fearing the worst I have her reboot. Gets a BIOS screen and the drive is not detected. I dispatch a hardware tech to replace her PC and try to recover the data. When I arrive today there's an update that the drive is totally dead and the data cannot be recovered. I inform the user, and ask if there is any critical data that needs to be recovered. She says no and is a bit dismayed that her favorites and some templates that she uses are gone. Then out comes this gem:

It's been making some clicking noises for a while but I figured that shutting down the PC each night would make it stop.

WTF was she thinking? The drive goes from silent to making noise and she doesn't call the helpdesk? She calls for every other little thing but not this...

I'm still involved in this one, so I pass it on with the note that you should come back and see how it resolves.

As many tech geeks do, I tend to favour steam-powered tech. If it ain't broke, there's no point in fixing it, replacing it, or sending it to the landfill. Thus when my gadget, a Jornada 540 series, started suffering battery problems after only seven years, it seemed the appropriate thing to do was to order a replacement battery. Which I did. Laptops4Less had the part, instructions (which I didn't need), and even a teeny screwdriver. So I ordered one.

Problem the first: it wouldn't plug in. On inspection, it turned out that they had wired the plug backwards, so that my attempt to get the battery in the socket with the red wire to the right (where it was in the old battery) was doomed, as it meant inserting the plug upside down. Inserting the plug right side up would likely have resulted in a fire, so I checked polarity with my voltmeter, then with a dental pick and a microscope, I swapped the wires.

Problem the second: it doesn't fit. There's a structural plastic rib that hits a protrusion on the battery case, preventing the battery from sitting down in the battery compartment. This is a design issue: the replacement battery is designed to not fit the machine it has to fit into.

Now what? They are suggesting that because I corrected the polarity problem, possibly saving them from a liability suit, I have "modified" the battery pack and may not be able to return it... so I'm out forty bucks. Maybe I should buy a new pack, plug it in backwards, force it into the case, let it burn, and sue?

So the cautions are two: One, check polarity and fit before installing; and two, don't change anything, no matter how trivial, if there's a chance you'll need to return things.

After reading kat's story http://www.techcomedy.com/single/new_stories.php?content_number=71118 , I felt the need to, oh, I don't know, brag a little bit on a really nice customer of mine.

Older couple, kids live on the other end of the country. I have upgraded their computer about six times, managing to maintain his data - he has entered his stock and tax information for the past 30+ years in *shudder* Quicken - through every upgrade. Yesterday, he called and offered me season tickets from the local Arts Council, as they are patrons and get four season tickets every year.

He said, "I know you like to take your daughter to the performances, we have seen you there before. Since we can't use but two of them, we'd really like to see you get some use out of them."

Picked up a new computer for Accounting this afternoon. It had Vista preinstalled, but the price was too good for me to pass up. So I'm burning one of my OEM XP licenses on it and formatting the drive right now.

Strangely enough, XP picked up on the SATA controller without any trouble, unlike my new laptop.

Wonder how long I'm going to be able to get away with doing that before device drivers force me to start building machines instead of buying them.

Bill Gates, I swear on my life that I will quit my job and go work at McDonald's before one of your POS Vista systems touches one of my networks.