Machine shuts down, can't find boot device

[GreyCloud]

When I had my business and a VL with MS we had a great rep who took
excellent care of us.
He even came to our yearly company parties!

I think those are a bit different than a one time call in with your
credit card in hand, in which I meant to refer to.
I've had excellent service with DEC in the past in the manner which you
are referring to.

Their services aren't all

Sorry, but that was not my experience.

It is if you call in with your credit card in hand. You just get a
telephone flunky that really doesn't know much, and worse may be one of
those offshore tele-support centers. Much the same as with HP.

But if you pay for a contract, then you should get pretty decent
service. I presume that you had a contract number handy when you did
call them.

 

[Enkidu]

He even came to our yearly company parties!

You mean he showed up for free food an beer? Damn, you're easy to
impress.

Ooops! (See how stupid that looks?)

 

[GreyCloud]

I never, ever did anything like that!

My brother did that only once. All they told him was to reinstall XP
after they took his money.

It's pretty much the same thing with Apple, and I did that only once
under their warranty terms which didn't cost me anything. A strange
problem: Opened MS Media Player for Mac and it starts and then shut
down. Their solution was to drag that applications cache file to the
trash can and let the app rebuild it. It worked.

You just get a

Oh I've called HP about warranty issues on my laptop and you're
right...its like calling morons-are-us!

Actually I had/have my reps cell phone number!

It sure helps. Of course back in the 80s the DEC yearly software
support contract cost us around $4000/year. Any question I have ever
asked them I always got a solution from them.