Big Box Store Reps Push Unnecessary Recovery Discs 380
Ed Albro, PC World writes "At PC World, we've got a story today on salespeople at Best Buy and Circuit City pushing consumers to pay the stores' technicians to create recovery discs for their new laptops. Recovery discs are important to have, of course, but the fact is that they're easy to make yourself. Or you can get them from the manufacturer of your PC, often for half of what Best Buy and Circuit City charge you. The salespeople often tell you that you can buy from the manufacturer — but they claim you'll pay twice as much as the stores charge."
Re:What happened? (Score:3, Informative)
And, if you dont create one and then have your PC crash they might even get a service call out of you too.
No suprise (Score:5, Informative)
He was flat-out lying, as warranties for North American Nintendo sales go through a center in California, and Nintendo pays for the shipping. But the Fry's employee (a department manager nonetheless) insisted that the shipping/replacement costs and delays were a reason to purchase their warranty instead.
Never underestimate the sleazy, underhanded attempts that a salesperson will go through to get your money, especially if they work on any kind of commission. As a corollary, the less knowledge and understanding the salesperson has about the product they are pushing, the more likely they are to be underhanded in their push.
screw 'factory' recovery disks (Score:5, Informative)
So now, if there is some weird software glitch or she installed / uninstalled too much crap, i just tell her to back up all her personal documents, pop the dvd in, reboot the computer and voila. a few screens and clicks later, she's back to how it was when she first got it.
seriously, that little app has saved me so much work and time. (not a slashvertisement! i don't work for them, i swear!)
Re:What happened to the Manufacturer's disks? (Score:3, Informative)
Not necessarily. The T61 I bought from Lenovo came with a tool to create recovery disks which, I assume, are based off the recovery partition present on the hard disk. 6 CDs later, and I had a freshly minted set of disks which are now safely stored with the rest of the documentation for the laptop.
Re:screw 'factory' recovery disks (Score:3, Informative)
You should get the full os install disks for free (Score:3, Informative)
I had to download a torrent of XP media center 2005 to run a repair install on a system that I was fixing for some one and they did not get a install disk / restore disk with there system.
Some recovery disks wipe out all of your data.
Re:screw 'factory' recovery disks (Score:3, Informative)
It's a better idea to use the systemrescuecd in combination with a usb drive, and have partimage write the image to the usb drive, rather than try to repartition the image on the first go.
Another caveat with any of these backup tools is that they may have issues with Vista, and it's changed format for the MBR [microsoft.com]. Make sure that any imaging tool backs up the MasterBootRecord as well.
As I haven't done any Vista saves restores yet, I can't talk about that. For XP and earlier I still find the old ghost 2003 app to be the best bet for restore disks.
Re:No suprise (Score:3, Informative)
To those of you still under the delusion that insurance on small-cost items is the same as insurance on high-cost items: it isn't. The reason it "makes sense" to get insurance on high-cost items (your house, your car, etc.) is that the replacement "cost" is not merely the price of the item, but the associated inconveniences (e.g. without a house it is hard to keep your job and keep making the money to buy a new house). Essentially, the "value" is non-linear: it's worth more to save it since losing it is worse than merely the dollar value.
When it comes to electronics, unless you are very poor, it's cheaper to simply buy a new one when it breaks, rather than to buy insurance for the item. In this case, the object's value is linearly related to its replacement cost.
So, basically, you should only get insurance on items that are so expensive that they are outside of the "linear range" of the cost-to-value plot. And, in addition to all I've just said, it's important to note that electronics devalue very quickly (as compared to property, which usually increases in value) that the replacement cost (for identical hardware) drops below the insurance cost in a surprisingly short amount of time.
An employee's perspective (Score:5, Informative)
There's lots of insights about what the deal really is behind extended warranties, backup discs, and such. For example:
10. When buying a PC you will be asked to have a backup DVD made for a charge of $30. This is done through an application found on all computers, sometimes hidden. You could do it yourself for free. Also, it was very common to sell this on Toshiba laptops. Little do the customers know, it's already in the box. So we would charge, and do nothing.
I is stupid people (Score:4, Informative)
> Most probably don't even know what a recovery disk is.
I honestly had no idea what a "recovery disk" was until I just googled for it. I've been using computers for over 20 years, and have made a career as a software engineer for the last 12. I've always just had the full OS on disk. I guess that makes me stupid.
Re:extended warranty (Score:3, Informative)
Not that Comp USA was a great place for management. I had 1 manager who was skimming the drawers. 1 who was convicted of evading taxes. Another that was caught raiding the RTM cage. 1 who was arrested for some sort of under-age porn thing. 2 that were their store's primary pot dealer (oddly enough, 1 of them actually ran a pretty nice store!)
Ahh the memories.
-Rick
Re:screw 'factory' recovery disks (Score:2, Informative)
It's less likely that a virus will stay (and be easily triggered) on the document folders, and it'll save you a lot of headaches the first time she forgets one file she wanted to keep.
Besides if the problem persists, you can back up, delete all files and do the reset again. This extra hassle is worth it compared to missing a file or two.
Re:Are they really important? (Score:2, Informative)
What happens if the drive gives up its magical go smoke ? How does one recover after that ?
I have had multiple customers come to me with HP's just out of warranty with HDD that failed. I had to order the dvd's for my customers and they were very unhappy about it. What I would do was get an oem install disc off the local piracy sites and just use the oem cd key off the side of the system and when the discs came in I would go deliver them their discs.
I hate that they don't give OS install cd's. Even though most people lose them
Re:No suprise (Score:5, Informative)
However, just because in this particular case you came out on top (replacement costs were higher than insurance costs) doesn't change the fact that, on average, you lose money when you buy small-scale insurance. If this were not true, statistically, then the insurance company would be losing money.
So, unless you know ahead of time that the thing you are buying is in some way defective, it's best not to get the insurance. This will lead, on average, to more money in your pocket at the end of the year.
But otherwise: winning once on a slot machine doesn't mean that the house doesn't win on average.
Re:RECOVERY PARTITION (Score:5, Informative)
Funny, I always just cracked open the case and taped the recovery cd(s) to the inside of the case. Always seemed to save me a lot of headaches finding the exact right installer for that paticular revision machine.
A quick call might get you the CDs (Score:3, Informative)
As soon as you get a new PC you should call the manufacturer and request recovery media. If they tell you "it's in the recovery partition" or "you can make a set with our BIOS/Windows utility" demand that you want the recovery media. The worst scenario to be in involves a wrecked partition or hard drive, or burned (not pressed) CDs/DVDs that have disintegrated over time. I was able to get recovery media with my Thinkpad free of charge after I received it; I just called, they confirmed that the laptop was in warranty, and I got it a few days later.
Re:Turnabout! (Score:5, Informative)
If the salesman refuses, raise hell with his manager. Purchaser gets the disks for free, salesman gets reprimanded (or fired).
I hate to break this to you, but that's not the way it works. I worked for Best Buy for four years, at three different locations across two different states, so I say this with some authority.
See, you seem to think we (I don't work for them anymore, but I'm going to call them "we" anyway) make a lot of money off the computer, but we don't. In fact, when you count my wages, electricity and heating, and all the other costs associated, we're breaking even if we're lucky. More likely, the store is losing a few bucks on the purchase. And me personally? I'm not on commission, and I'm not rated on how many computers I sell, so I don't really give a crap.
So, I look at the other stuff you're buying, to see if we're making any sort of profit on you at all. If you're loaded up with stuff that we actually make money on, I'd be happy to do you the favor. Otherwise, I'd be more than happy to sell that computer to someone we'll make a profit on instead.
Go ahead, threaten to take your business elsewhere. We'd much rather you buy the computer somewhere else, and cause a competitor to lose money. Raise hell with my manager if you want. He'll promise you that I'll be "dealt with" just to make you go away, and then he'll come over and say to me, "man, that guy was a total asshole." I can't even tell you how many times I saw that happen.
There are exceptions, of course. If it's a slow day (meaning the techs aren't busy with customers who actually paid them), and if you were nice to us, we might just do it anyway. We're people too, after all. So many people don't treat retail salesmen like people. If you do, they recognize that, and will do you all sorts of favors. If you're a prick, forget about it.
Point of insurance (Score:4, Informative)
On average, you lose money when you buy insurance regardless of scale. That's, in fact, the whole point of insurance: you pay slightly more than your expected costs up front to negate the risk of unexpected costs greatly in excess of either your expected costs or the insurance cost.
It doesn't make a lot of sense to insure a computer if you are fairly certain (1) you are going to replace it eventually, and (2) you will always have the reserves to replace it at need in an emergency.
OTOH, if may be essential to replace it, and you may not be able to do so out of cash, it may be worth insuring.
on average, that's true of every kind of insurance, regardless of scale. Insurance is worth it (if it is at all) based on the consequences of the potential unexpected downside it protects you against and the degree to which it mitigates that risk, not because you will on average save money with it. Risk is a real cost, even though its monetary value may be highly subjective.
Re:No suprise (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Turnabout! (Score:5, Informative)
Making an ass? No, its called Negotiating. (Score:2, Informative)
This is why Mexicans and Asians try to haggle at Wal-Mart. In their world, everything is negotiable. As it is in professional America.
-OJ
Re:Ahhh.... Young'uns.... (Score:3, Informative)
At least, they were still like that a year or two ago when we bought our latest machine at work.