On 31 Aug 2005 18:40:25 -0400, Captin
<DoNotEmail@HardwareForumz.com> wrote:


>To use an old adage "The Penny dropped with me years ago"
> I was in dire straits with a hard drive and when the Geek arrives
>and confirms nothing that I already did not realise.

First of all, trying to stereotype as "geeks" is just
showing your ignorance. They're people... some might be
geeks, but I find it a bit backwards, that geeks are more
likely to gravitate towards solitary activities like
computers, than the other way around, that computer techs
can be assumed to be geeks.

> I asked questions about the drive.......
> Things like.
> Can you repair the printed circuit of the controller board?

Perhaps you should just describe the problem and then stop
there. You seem to misunderstand your need to know or have
control. It is not their job to report to you specifically
is it? Are you their boss? If so, fair enough. If not,
you are being unrealistic to expect them to cater to your
questioning.

As for the printed circuit board, they'd have to examine it
first, even IF they were able to source parts and repair it.
If you are their boss and have discussed time allocation
towards component level repair, then you may have a valid
point. If not, you might want to stop asking what they
"can" do and ask them what should be done instead.

> Can I buy a new circuit board on it’s own?

They'd have to check on that. Did you want them to check on
it, or spend hundreds of hours every year checking on
subcomponent availability for every part your company has?


> Can I swap the boards if I have two drives the same ?

Depends on the drive. If they knew the details, they could
explain them to you, but that would require technical
language that you've already expressed having a disliking
for.

> Do you have a special tool to do without the Controller board?

Rightabout now you seem like one of those annoying kids that
just questions everything to the point of being an
interruption to routine tasks. WHY would you need to know
these things?

You should not be trying to repair hard drives in a
corporate environment. If you were supposed to be making
backups, and didn't, perhaps you should be fired. If the IT
tech was supposed to be doing it, and didn't, they should be
fired. You are proposing a scenario that no tech should
have experience with... repairing a drive is what data
recovery centers are for.

>
> He installed a new drive into the system and moreless ignored the
>questions I asked and simply pushed he me to data recovery with the
>drive.

Was he obligated to answer? Communication is a two way
street... does he ask detailed questions about the work you
do everyday? He could be tired of answering the same
questions over and over again too.

If communication is important, why don't you just ASK him?
Ask why you are being ignored. If multiple people are
ignoring you, it might not be them... it might be you... but
ask anyway... maybe they're overworked and just half asleep.


> Not going with that a few days later he called back to pickup the
>drive because he now had some yes and no answers for me.
> Too late, I opted to do it myself, whats the point if he talks like
>a million dollars but has no experience?

LOL, I wouldn't talk to you either if all you did was pester
and whine. Let the professionals do their job. If they're
not doing their job, find someone who can. If you NEED
someone who can repair hard drives, I suggest you hire
somone with that specific skill, not just expecting some
general IT person to do it. Computers are among the most
complex pieces of equipment you will likely ever come across
and thinking your company can afford a team of IT guys who
do board level repairs is probably done in error. That's
why there are specialists, like in any field.

Getting back to the central issue here, if you have a dead
drive and need the drive repaired, the problem is not
whether the IT guy can repair it, the problem is WHY you
need to repair a hard drive.

Set up standard routines for data backup. If you're in a
position to do so, also compile a list of skills your next
hire will have. You get the person you hired, there's no
point lamenting about that later. If you aren't willing to
pay enough, you usually won't get top-notch
employees/service/whatever.


>I fixed that drive and plenty since.
>I used the same principal for internal problems
>I find many techs/Geeks hand out vague advice about which software to
>use to recover data because they have not physically done it

Some may be hesitant to risk others' data, and they should
be. If someone didn't make backups, didn't know the basics
for data recovery yet, and has no idea what software to use,
it is really a good idea to just name a software title that
they can "point-n-click"? Can we even assume such a user is
motivated if they didn't already come up with some
candidates through a Google search? I don't know about you,
but if I find the same question repeatedly posted a dozen
times in a row, I won't write an essay the 5th through 10th
times. That's what search engines are for.

Can it be assumed any particular tech knows about "all"
recovery software? Can we assume any particular person has
a 100% obligation to solve a problem rather than making a
few comments that might be helpful in the larger picture?
You don't seem to be following the normal procedure for
"communication" as you imply is important- normally you
can't forcibly extract information from people in a free
society.

How much experience would you expect handed out for free
from data recovery experts that charge thousands? There are
lots of little issues but you seem to want comprehensive
knowledge about something- and that's why you pay the big
bucks for someone who spends most of their time on that
subtopic... and of course they're going to use terminology
you find uncommunicative, and be less interested in
explaining it all to you than just getting on with their
work.

Sometimes you will find answers to specific questions are
better found directly. For example, if you want to know
which is the best data recovery software, how about Google
searching for "best data recovery software". If you don't
find any fairly recent threads, post a topic titled
something like "Best data recovery software?"... but of
course you would need specify parameters else you might get
suggestions that aren't quite what you "might've" been
looking for, as some software like Encase is rather
expensive and others like Lost & Found was once free but is
more limited in what it can recover.

I made a suggestion previously that I thought was a good
first choice for someone who didn't know what to use-
Ontrack EasyRecovery... but even then, without having the
drive here and trying it, I can't guarantee it'd get the
data... sometimes it's about trial-and-error... but also
knowing what NOT to do, and there's another reason why some
may hesitate to provide information because it's easy to
suggest what to do, but harder to envision all the possible
mistakes someone might make or any other (non-mistake)
things that could go wrong. Generalizing, the idea of "do
no harm" might apply... better the drive just sits there
till a proper solution is figured out rather than jumping
the gun.