June 3, 2005
Arrrrrrggggggghhhh! Toshiba support sucks!

1. Toshiba only included the 1st of 2 rescue disks for my laptop in the box. I’m currently at the end of disk 1, but can’t finish the rescue because there is no disk 2. They are charging me $100 for new disks. It will take up to 4 weeks for the new disks to arrive. And, they only take Visa.
2. One of the weird things about my blog is that I seem to get really high rankings in Google. A wee while ago I posted that “f i r e f o x s ucks” and now I’m either number 1 or 2 on Google if you search for that expression.
This is both good and bad.
Bad because I ended up deleting the “f i r e f o x sucks “expression since I generated nerd hate mail.
Good because I’m hugely p**sed off with Toshiba “support “and I’m going to bring Toshiba as much bad word of mouth as I can. I just do not want others to get burnt like I did. They could not otherwise imagine how bad this company is.
3. Oh, and I’ll never buy another Toshiba product again. Never.
4. Simple story:
· My lovely little Toshiba Laptop started behaving badly with my wi-fi connection. Really bizarrely the connection suddenly became very flaky.
· I rang Toshiba support. They helpfully suggested something.
· It didn’t work (although it was a good suggestion).
· I rang them back.
· They 2nd guy told me that wi-fi connections disconnected if you didn’t use them every 3 minutes, so sadly I was screwed. I explained that the connection had been fantastic for 5 months. He said it was unfortunate.
· I thought “Oh damn it” and I decided to rebuild the laptop using the emergency disk.
· I backed everything up and popped in the disk
· It said “are you sure”
· I said yes.
· It ran to the end of the first disk. Said, put in the 2nd disk.
· What 2nd disk? I only have one.
· I said several rude things. There was no 2nd disk.
· I said several more rude things. Still no 2nd disk.
· I started looking for the 2nd disk. Not sure how I could have misplaced it. Certain that I hadn’t misplaced it.
· Rand Toshiba support – “my 2nd disk is missing”
· You’re screwed.
· I knew that.
· It will cost $100 to get a new one
· What!!!!!
· It will cost $ 100 to get a new one.
· But you didn’t send me the 2nd disk to start with.
· You should have checked when you purchased it.
· Why? In this day and age it should be there.
· It will cost $100 to get a new one.
· Okay. I’ll get my Visa then (you thieving ruffians)
· We don’t take Visa.
· What?
· You’ll have to send a cheque?
· Like, through the mail?
· Yes.
· It may take up to 4 weeks to send the disks.
· But, I only need the disks because your product broke and you didn’t include both disks to start with.
· I’ll send you the forms.
Great.
I just want my expensive little laptop to work.
Toshiba sucks

First you say "And, they only take Visa."
And then, "We don’t take Visa. - What? - You’ll have to send a cheque?"

Somehow ;-) I took the time to read your full topic and would like to point out that you are confusing between hardware (Toshiba's product) and Operating System (probably micro-s0ft windows).

The last of those is kinda know to crash every once in a while (not mentioning getting slower and buggier through time of use). The first (Toshiba) produces in my personal opinion (lucy owner of a satellite pro) pretty good and solid hardware.

Anyway, you could save yourself the 100 bucks and simply REALLY fix your laptop: Re-install your OS of choice (you where thinking I was going to advocate Linux didn't you ;-) ) and be done with it. You said you already backed everything up. So what's to loose?
Ah drivers... check the official: http://www.csd.toshiba.com/cgi-bin/tais/su/su_sc_home.jsp site... And there free luckaly ;-)

If you still have enough space on your disk/partition you could install the fresh one next to the old dirty one. Then you lost no data and probably can still use some of your old programs.

Or you could simply format your harddrive and start fully fresh. While you’re at it you might even create an additional small partition like 520 Megabyte, so you can put your swapfile on it. That will definitely help to keep your laptop running smooth for a longer period of time..

And way before the 4 weeks waiting time for your disk2 you are enjoying your 'lovely little Toshiba Laptop' again.

Good luck !!!