Hard drive replaced

Hard drives are fragile things that can easily break. And mine did so yesterday. A few months ago it started to make funny sounds when I moved the laptop around while it was on—you could hear the plates in the drive turn. I wasn’t sure if it was normal, but I can see now that it wasn’t.

I tried first to get it fixed through Fona where I bought it, but they were going to take 2 weeks. I called the repair shop they use, Elektronik-centret, and when I asked how long it would take, the kind receptionist made up all kinds of stories about how Apple didn’t have any regularity to their parts deliveries, until I pressed her to ask one of their technicians, and she discovered that they didn’t make any such repairs themselves, but instead passed them on to another company, Infocare. I called them, of course, and they weren’t exactly helpful, either. It would still take up to 2 weeks, even if I paid for everything myself. Jesus, it’s a frickin’ hard drive that needs to be replaced, there’s really no way to make it take more than an hour

That’s when I recalled that my friend Pollas had the same problem a while back. I managed to find the company he used, which was Office Line who happen to have their own repair shop in Allerød. I called a couple times, getting different messages, but finally ended up just going up there, hoping to wing it.

True to Pollas’s experience, I was immediately greeted by someone who recognized me from my blog (hi Preben). And thanks to some helpful people and an extra 800 kr., they agreed to do it on the spot, even though it was already past 2 pm.

I called Pollas to ask what hotdog stand he had gone to back in April, since clearly it had brought him luck, and there’s no reason to pass up an opportunity to establish a new tradition. So I went to the same one, and sure enough, when I got back, the machine was done ahead of time.

I have now reinstalled from backup, and I took the opportunity to get a bigger and faster hard drive installed, so now my machine is faster as well. Not bad. Hopefully it’ll now last me until the second generation Intel PowerBooks.

The lesson so far is that if you depend on your machine for work, it’s better to spend your money on repairs than on insurance. It may cost you more (then again, it may cost you less, that’s the nature of insurance), but at least you can get it done when you want, how you want.