Here is the latest update on the Precious.
Bottom line:
Precious is still pretty broken. I’m wicked frustrated. I raised my voice on the phone, nearly lost my temper. And I’m really glad I purchased a macbook pro.
Summary:
- 02-Nov-2006: Service Requested.
- 04-Nov-2006: Repair completed.
- 04-Nov-2006: Product shipped via DHL + link to track the shipment.
- 06-Nov-2006: DHL tracking page claims delivery was attempted at 9:40 am and intructs to call them.
- 07-Nov-2006: DHL had no delivery address (4tf?) so I gave it to them.
- 07-Nov-2006: DHL delivered my computer in the late afternoon.
What they did:
655-1112A DA TOSHIBA PLUTO 4200RPM 60GB HD KA201B 632-0282 FLX CKT ASSY,HDD,PB15"
What I did:
- Eagerly pressed the start button and crossed fingers and toes. Grey screen. Spinning gear. So far so good. And hmpf, the spinning gear stopped spinning 🙁
- Quickly checked again the documents that were in the box, found nothing suspicious, cringed when reading “We’re pleased we could repair your Apple product.”
- Called 800-APL-CARE
- Gave the woman on the phone all the case numbers I’ve been given since 18 October, the computer serial number, my name, the 2 repair references (dispatch numbers). She couldn’t find *any* history. This computer suddenly didn’t exist anymore. The case numbers were not in the system. That was insane. I was looking at the numerous notes I had taken over the last few weeks and I was thinking “there’s no way this happened only in my mind. I’m not “that” crazy”.
- She said that since the computer had been purchased in France I needed to call the French Apple Care hotline. I told her there was no way I was calling any other number but the one I had been calling for the past *three* weeks.
- Amy appeared in my office, I put the phone on speaker phone.
- Amy scribbled on a napkin something like “request to speak to a superior”, which I did.
- The woman put me on hold for a little bit, then asked me the office address, then typed like mad and said nothing till she put me through to a “product specialist”
- The product specialist made me repair the (brand new) disk (no repair needed), then made me boot the Precious in safe mode. We tested the airport card. Then the video card. All seemed to be worky.
- He then mentioned that the current situation seemed to be similar to last week’s. I asked him how he knew that and he said it was in the system. I said “oh, you found a history for this computer, eventually”.
- Then he made me restart. Woohoo! Precious restarted! They had installed Tiger. I created a user account. Then we restarted again. All good.
- He said he couldn’t explain what had been the issue and that he hoped it wouldn’t occur again. He said that if it occurs again, I should boot in safe mode and restart. He gave me a 3rd case number. He also gave me his e-mail address and he gave me his phone extension and explained how to contact him directly by phone.
- I put the Precious to sleep and prayed it would wake up.
- Once at home, it didn’t wake up 🙁
- And after I turned it off, I got the now familiar kernel panic window.
- I restarted in safe mode and tried to restart normally. More kernel panic window.
- I e-mailed Edward, the Powerbook product specialist.
He replied today and instructed me to start in safe mode, open the “Untitled” disk, go in the Library, find the Preferences folder and drag onto the desktop the folder named “SystemConfiguration”, and then, restart. He added to let him know if that worked so he could advise of the next steps. He finished with “If that doesn’t work, let me know anyway.”.
That didn’t work. After restarting I soon got the kernel panic screen. Edward will call me at the office tomorrow afternoon.