I’ve been having a problem with the CD+DVD rewritable drive in my Dell laptop. It only recognizes new media about 10-15% of the time, and has a habit of “marking” discs I put in it with small, stuttering scratches. (I learned quickly not to put anything in it I really cared to keep pristine.) So yesterday I got on the phone with Dell warranty service to see what they could do.
On the whole, I give Dell service an “B+.” The only reason I can’t rate them higher is because I had to repeat all my contact information and service tag numbers about three times as I went through their support lines. This simply tells me they, like every other medium or large organization I’ve seen, have severe integration problems with their customer-facing systems.
But the actual service I got was simply splendid, and even though I had to be on the phone for a while, the end result is that there will be a new drive in my hands this afternoon. Then I get to follow in Jesse Keating’s footsteps making a quick DIY repair.