Bought a Gateway laptop with 3 yr extended service warranty from BB. Just 2 months before the warranty expired, my hard drive stopped spinning and the computer wouldn't boot up. Took it to BB's "Geek Squad", the computer "experts". They called a couple of days later telling me the hard drive had to be replaced and I would lose all data as well as not get my old hard drive back. No problem, as I was prepared for this eventuality. Got a call 2 weeks later that the computer was ready to pick up and to bring the recovery CD with me. I brought the CD there and was told it would take another couple of days. I opted to do the recovery myself at home (no big deal). I asked the tech. If the computer would be ready to go once I used the recovery CD. I was told, "yes, no problem, everything will be working fine". Got it home, ran the recovery disk and brought it up to the Windows desktop. However, nothing worked. No sound except for an annoying mono-tone. No internet. No programs on it. No nothing. Apparently my old hard drive had all the drivers needed to run the computer and the new one did not. Geek Squad should have known this and informed me about it, but they didn't. I spent hours downloading drivers from Gateway on another computer, burning them to a disk and running them on the computer in question. Now it works, but I'm still missing some free software that came with the original hard drive, like CD burning software, etc.
Are these Geek Squad techs hired from the local circus where they previously worked as clowns? It almost seems like these computer "experts" know little more than I do about computers, and that's saying a lot. Hahahhahahahahha.
Long story short - back up your essential files, don't buy an extended warranty and if your hard drive fails, just buy a brand new laptop and load your backup files onto it. You're only wasting your money trying to get your laptop fixed, when you can buy a decent new one these days for around $400-500.
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