LOL Factory Support. Why Lie?

[pauliewalnuts]

Do you ever save your chat logs with your computer's factory support people? Read this one:

Paul L. : Vista SP2, latest BIOS, all stock hardware. I am trying to get a Hitachi Travelstar HDD in an IDE-to-USB enclosure recognized. Vista "sees" it but cannot initialize; the BIOS cannot recognize it. The drive is good. Can you help?
[An agent will be with you shortly.]
[You are now chatting with Stacy Nelson .]
Stacy Nelson : Welcome to HP Total Care for Notebook support. My name is Stacy. Please give me a few moments while I review your issue description.
NOte: security reasons, please DO NOT send credit card information via chat.
Stacy Nelson : Hello Paul.
Stacy Nelson : Could you please elaborate on the issue?
Paul L. : Hi, there. I'm trying to get a hard drive in a USB enclosure recognized by my HP dv6936us; the enclosure is a Cool Tech. It's an NTFS drive, Hitachi model DK23EA-30. It's rather old. The Hitachi folks claim it needs no special drivers.
Paul L. : I have the latest BIOS. Going through the Hitachi DOS diagnosis software from the manufacturer, I see the Toshiba stock drive of my HP, but I cannot see the Hitachi.
Paul L. : The diagnosis software sees by mount point.
Stacy Nelson : Alright Paul.
Stacy Nelson : I would require few details about your product before troubleshooting.
Paul L. : Sweet. Vista can "see" the drive; it reports back drive capacity, the number of sectors, how many tracks per sector. However, it cannot tell me format and it can't report back the two volumes on there.
Stacy Nelson : May I know the product number and Serial number of your Laptop? You can check this numbers on a non-Microsoft sticker when you flip the notebook over. Please provide the numbers beside s/n and p/n on the sticker.
Paul L. : Product Number FE818UA#ABA
Paul L. : Serial Number #########
Stacy Nelson : Thank you for the information.
Paul L. : I registered it twice, once around September 2008 and once again about a week ago (whole-system reinstall to fix a sluggish performance problem, which is fixed).
Stacy Nelson : Ok.
Stacy Nelson : Do have downgraded or upgraded the windows? what kind of english is this?
Paul L. : Yes. Service Pack 2. It was the first software install I did after completely reinstalling the factory OS.
Paul L. : I also have the Intel Matrix Storage Manager as suggested as an install by Hewlett-Packard, version 8.0.0.1039
Paul L. : The drive right now is unplugged.
Stacy Nelson : Are you getting any error message?
Paul L. : Nope. I used to in SP1.
Paul L. : SP2 handles it right away. It recognizes a USB Generic Storage Device and puts in the drivers. It also recognized a USB-to-IDE Device and installed drivers for that, too.
Stacy Nelson : Alright Paul.
Paul L. : O just plugged it in and Vista installed two things:
Paul L. : USB Mass Storage Device
Paul L. : Generic USB Disk USB Device
Paul L. : both are ready to use.
Paul L. : no conflicts or warning signs in Device Manager.
Paul L. : Device Manager "sees" a Generic USB Disk USB Device
Paul L. : I've already tried to find new drivers on the Web for the 'USB Root Hub,' the 'IDE controller,' the 'disk drive controller,' and the 'USB Mass Storage Device.' All the device drivers are current.
Paul L. : Intel Matrix Storage Console reports just the computer's Toshiba drive: MK2536GSX. It reports neither Port, Port 1 or Port 2, being used.
Stacy Nelson : Alright Paul.
Paul L. : When I plug the drive in RIGHT at bootup, by the way, the drive appears to do more work: in other words, the drive seems to spin up and stay that way longer.
Stacy Nelson : Let me see how best I can help you with this issue and make the day better for you. uh, okay...who talks like that?
Paul L. : Thank you.
Stacy Nelson : Could you stay online for 4-5 minutes, while I retrieve the System information from our database?
Paul L. : I also used the latest version of KNOPPIX UNIX to see if that OS could recognize the drive. It couldn't. This is what made me initially suspect that it is the BIOS, and not the OS, that is not fully checking the drive out.
Paul L. : Sure, I'll stay online.
Paul L. :
Stacy Nelson : Thank you.
Stacy Nelson : Thank you for being online.
Paul L. : For your reference, my BIOS is F.58, Release Date 20080616.
Stacy Nelson : Paul When you connecting your Hitachi HDD in your notebook Are you able to see the icon on your screen or not?
Paul L. : No. It does not show as a new drive in My Computer.
Stacy Nelson : Ok Paul.
Stacy Nelson : Did you tried with another USB Port?
Paul L. : Yes. The computer has 3. I have tried with all 3.
Stacy Nelson : Alright Paul.
Stacy Nelson : Paul other thing is working with port or not?
Paul L. : Yes, other things work fine plugged into all ports. There are no USB conflicts in Device Manager, and no Problem Devices are being reported by Vista.
Stacy Nelson : Alright Paul.
Paul L. : Since i have the drive plugged in the USB port from before, I'll report to you what Windowds System Information sees. It sees two disks. The first one is the Toshiba. MK2546GSX. 512 bytes/sector. 232.88 Gigabyte capacity. It works fine.
Paul L. : It also sees the second drive, the "mystery" drive. Generic USB Disk USB Device. 512 bytes/sector. 63 sectors/track. 27.95 Gigabytes. 3,648 cylinders. 930,240 total tracks. 255 tracks/cylinder.
Paul L. : All the above information on the second drive, the one Vista cannot initialize nor assign a drive letter to, is technically correct. The drive is 30 Gigs. It does have 255 tracks/cylinder. All that stuff is correct.
Stacy Nelson : What is the size of toshiba HDD?
Paul L. : 232.88 Gigs, or 250,056,737,280 bytes. Vista sees both factory partitions, too. The first is 219.9 Gigs. The second, the Backup partition, is 12.98 Gigs.
Stacy Nelson : Thank you for the information.
Paul L. : When I try to initialize the drive in diskmgmt.msc I get the same message everytime. That message is "The device is not ready."
Stacy Nelson : Paul as I understand your Port is working fine.but the hard disk drive is not compatible with your notebook.Regarding this you have to contact to the Manufacturer.
Paul L. : LOL. Thanks, Indian.
Paul L. : See you around!
Stacy Nelson : IS there anything else I may assistyou with?
Paul L. : Yes. What country are you in right now? Don't lie!
Stacy Nelson : I'm sorry; I'm not allowed to discuss support organization-related information with customers. Is there any other technical issue that I can assist you with today?
Paul L. : LOL. No. I hope the monsoon season treats you well! Good bye!

Srsly. I have no problems being customer-assisted by Indians or Pakistanis or Bangladeshi or Chinese people or Korean people or Brazilian people or WHATEVER. It's all good in the 'hood. I'm multiethnic myself. BUT, COME ON, HEWLETT-PACKARD, YOU DON'T HAVE TO LIE ABOUT IT. Stacy Nelson?!? HAA! Real name: Razhoul Singh from Kolkatta! LOL. And that's completely cool with me, so why lie? Why assign false names and identities? We KNOW you outsource everything! LOL, that's why your product is so good! We live in a silly world, people. Silly, I tell you.

 

[pauliewalnuts]

Oh, I didn;t know this forum had a Chillout Room! Dang! nEWb mistake. My bad.

 

[z3r010]

Stacy Nelson?!? HAA! Real name: Razhoul Singh from Kolkatta! LOL.

Seriously did you expect anything else

 

[Zoloft]

HP first line support tend to be complete morons. I will often go to their chat if I have an issue, and I already have a pretty good idea what is wrong, just to see if they can confirm, and it's almost always a circle jerk just like the one you reported. I don't blame the reps though, they clearly hire people without any technical experience and have them follow a script, painfully, word for word. Every once in a while, you'll get one who does know what they are doing, and you can almost hear the pain the their typing, because even they know they are feeding you a line of pure crap.

Problem is, since the vast majority of people wouldn't know the power button on their tower from the power button on their monitor, those scripts probably do end up solving most of the problems.

 

[K1K1D33]

Stacy Nelson?!? HAA! Real name: Razhoul Singh from Kolkatta! LOL.

Seriously did you expect anything else

---seriously---how about a name like 'Easy Lai' ---> the manager signature of Acer computers, nice huh?---

---( but I like the name 'Minnie Me')---oh Mr. z3r010 can me change mah name?---

peace

 

[Extensa]

Whenever I contact Bitdefender, which is quite regularly, the help desk names are either KIimberly, Darren or Andy. They then send diagnostic tools under the names of Claudia, and Tudor respectively. I couldnt find the email from "Darren". I love the fact that they change the names to make you feel "safe" with American help desk staff, although they usually arent. LOL

 

[K1K1D33]

Whenever I contact Bitdefender, which is quite regularly, the help desk names are either KIimberly, Darren or Andy. They then send diagnostic tools under the names of Claudia, and Tudor respectively. I couldnt find the email from "Darren". I love the fact that they change the names to make you feel "safe" with American help desk staff, although they usually arent. LOL

---that does make sense to me though, because when I spoke with a few 1-800- helpers, it is just more logical and easier to SAY or refer to the aide's name if it is simple in English ~ (which is the world-wide adopted business language right now)---
---would anyone rather struggle to pronounce a foreign name?---/so I believe that it is done out of courtesy for the callers needing help; it is not for their own vanity/---ima guessin---

peace

 

[kiddieboy12]

Lemme tell u sumthing, hp has the crappyest( i know not a word) comstumer support, also can u do a poll??