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The Laptop Saga Continues…

Who would have thought that after having my computer gone for three weeks and then having it show up missing pieces that it would end up still having even more problems. Not Me. But wouldn’t you know it, it does have problems. Or should I say, Did have problems? No it probably still has problems.

It all started this morning when I went to turn on my computer. My laptop told me that it did not recognize my product key for Window Vista. It also told me that my copy was not genuine. It told me how to fix it, although that did not work. I tried to enter the product code but it still told me that I had a fake copy of Windows Vista and unless I came up with a valid product key or bought another copy, it was not going to work right. This was not a good start to the day.

I called HP. “Hello, is this your first call to HP?” “Oh no it is not!” Cecille was very nice and got me directed to the right people. I spoke with Altamash who told me what to do. (Honestly I don’t remember the steps at this point.) Somehow we did get it to take the product key code as being valid and it started going to town. And then I got disconnected from Altamash. He apparently called me back because there was a message on my answering machine but the phone never rang. Odd. At this point the laptop was busy doing some Microsoft updates so I let it do it’s thing. Then it said that I needed to download Windows Vista Service Pack 1. Okay..let’s do it. So off the computer goes and I figure when it’s done it will be working again. Yeah…..not so much. After about an hour of that mess and still no positive results, I called HP back.

Somehow I managed to get Altamash on the phone again. I don’t think he really remembered the previous call though, as we had to go through everything again. After figuring out that the computer would not get to a screen he was asking for, he said something I was not wanting to hear. Mam, Do you have your computer all backed up? I told him I had backed it up just before I had sent it to him the last time so it was fine. I haven’t managed to do too much in the past two weeks. He then says “Okay Kati,” (He used my name a LOT. I think they teach them that it is nice to use the customer’s name as much as possible.) “We are going to need to do a system restore which will put your computer back at the original factory settings.” Oh no! I’m going to have to reload EVERYTHING I have. I was afraid that my laptop was going to return from HP Laptop Hospital in this condition and was thrilled when it came back with everything still on it. So much for that. Now I was still going to have to delete it all and start over. Altamash tells me that this process will likely take about 40-50 minutes. And I will need to stay on the line the entire time to make sure that the system restore goes correctly. (Great…good thing I don’t have ANY plans today.) We start the process.

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