WORST BUY.

You exhausted the normal routes, just go to the EECB, they'll magically be able to give you your hard drive back and get all your money refunded as well.

This is why you use Acronis True Image and never take your computer into WORST BUY for computer servicing.

how many times does best buy have to screw people over before people stop going there?

I hope she gets her hard drive back too.

I don't know if I feel sorry for you or not since you did take it to geek squad. A simple search on consumerist or even google would tell you how incompetent geek squad really is. Anyhow, your best bet is to file a claim against them in small claims court for the return of the hard drive and for them to cover the data recovery from a professional data recovery center.

It is true, data recovery isn't cheap on a completely dead drive. I've seen costs go up around 10k dollars for data recovery.

The ultimate lesson here is, if its important to you, back it up, otherwise, you are the only person you can hold at fault here. Oh and geek squad sucks =)

Have a nice day.

why didn't her brother just do the job for her in the first place....

but bb is evil.

also all you people out there, back up your shiz today before disaster strikes

Bet you she remembers to back up regularly from now on.

What about filing a police report for stolen property?

Wow! Just wow! Based upon comments here in the past, I've steered everyone in my family and all of my friends away from Best Buy -- particularly for computer products and services. I wouldn't DREAM of purchasing anything significant from them, nor would I trust their Geek Squad to lay a finger on my computer. While every company has their customer service problems and failures from time to time, Best Buy above all other companies seems to excel at providing poor service, poor products, poor knowledge, at a poor-value price.

I hope she's at least able to get her hard drive and her $100 back. If it were me, I'd be preparing my small claims paperwork.

You would think that this would be a fundamental breach of contract on Best Buy's part.
If she doesn't end up getting her money back and her hard drive, I would sue Best Buy for damages related to the data being mishandled.

I hate it when I see these stories, and also see that the majority of the comments are along the lines of either:

"What were you thinking taking it to Best Buy?", and
"You should have been doing regular back-ups."

I know these things, you know these things, but not EVERYBODY knows these things. Not everyone is tech-savvy. How is the average person supposed to know that the hard drive in their $1000+ computer is not bullet-proof? You would think that there isn't a sizeable chance of your data being lost, but it is a real possibility.

Also, I feel terribly for people that lose all of their photos. I have 1500+ on my computer, and I would be crushed if I lost them all.

Comcast better watch out because Best Buy is making a serious run at their title of World's Worst Company. I simply won't deal with Best Buy on any level. I've personally never had a problem with the products I've purchased there but too many of my friends and family have shared and included me in horror stories about their service contracts and I've spent hours on the phone with their CS staff trying to get them to honor a warrantee on my sister's stereo. I hope the economic downturn forces them out of business. I feel no sorrow for their employees if that happens because they are the root of their problems.

Instead of standing there arguing with an arrogant 'manager', why doesn't she just call Best Buy customer service? A quick look at the website includes the information in the 'contact us' portion of the website:

Customer Service, Web Site, Store and General/Corporate Inquiries
Best Buy Corporate Customer Care
P.O. Box 9312
Minneapolis , MN 55440
1-888-BEST BUY (1-888-237-8289)

While best buy really screwed this lady over on the data backup service, she really needs to understand that they can't just whip out copies of the computers operating system on demand. That costs money, and you can't simply activate unlimited copies of XP. Each copy costs the OEM (Origional Equipment Manufacturer) money to install on a computer.

If she didn't have her disks, then the responsibility is hers to get a new copy of XP or to find her origional install disks.

@LordofBacon: yes, but there is a CD-Key label ON her laptop(physically) that shows the license type(eg XP pro or Vista Ultimate or Home PRemium) with the CDKey that would activate it... all you need is any Vista DVD(retail or OEM of that specific laptop), or any XP disc..

sigh...

best buy support is pure evil and complete dumb a$$es too. yes i put in dollar signs there because all they care about is the $$.

@ Lord of Bacon I don't understand how anyone could possibly say it was this woman's fault for sending her computer to Geek Squad. I say this even though I've had awful service from them over the years, and no longer go to Best Buy. Why? Because Best Buy didn't just botch the repair job, they chose not to do what she paid them to do, and then requested more money to go back and fix their mistake. That sounds like a legal issue to me. Stop blaming the consumer.

Geek Squad asked for the "boot disc's"......NOT the OEM disc's, big difference. A boot disc won't do dick on a new HD.

Actually, it IS fairly ordinary customer service from Geek Squad. I used to work there for about a year and finally quit (at the worst economic time I possibly could have) because I was sick of being treated like crap from the company and pissed off customers because my entire company was a complete customer service disaster.

I would constantly have people pissed that not only would they have to pay for backups on our 'fancy machine' (it's just an external hard drive case taken apart...), but also having to order OS discs and usually taking home an even more busted computer.

Ok, the part about not being able to recover off a dead hard drive makes sense, the part about not having the system software makes sense, the other static about waiting in line, dealing with incompetent customer service people is expected -- BUT what is the business reason Best Buy would hold on to parts that have been replaced and not let the customer have them? If there is some insane reason to keep replaced parts -- then why do they still have the harddrive???

In the mean time, everyone needs to learn to make not just one, but two, backups of all their data. This should be done on a regular basis depending on how often the computer is used. External drives are a really convenient way to do this. But you need two of them because these can break down, too. In addition to alternating between the 2 backup drives, you need to also test to be sure everything that is backed up is readable. It's no help if your hard drive dies to find your backup is not readable. It is possible for hard drives to succeed at writing, but fail at reading that data just written.

For especially critical data, if it's small enough, USB flash memory sticks are also usable.

I have done data recovery, and it's almost never straight forward, especially for older drives where control boards are not available to swap out for dead ones. The most interesting data recovery I did was a computer that sat under muddy river water for a week in a flood. I managed to get 99% of the data with 2 weeks work on it.

If she'd been a porn store she would have had no problem with backups

And Best Buy just keeps getting better!!

@LordofBacon:

This is Best Buy being lazy. When I was working in a small computer repair center/store 4 years ago, this was a relatively common occurrence. It's always preferable to have the "reload" CDs, but if all else failed, we had a generic OEM XP CD for this very situation. As long as there was an XP product license (with a valid serial number) on the case, it wasn't a problem. It wouldn't always activate over the internet, but I never had a problem calling into Microsoft to activate it over the phone.

The biggest pain in the ass was finding drivers and installing them manually. Although, most major manufacturers (Dell, Gateway, HP, etc.) have gotten much better about posting drivers for each product online.

OP.....if you get your HD back from BB, I can retrieve the data for $10, you pay shipping back and forth between us. I am not sure why companies think they can charge tons of money for data retrieval. It's actually a pretty simple, yet can take a painstankingly long time depending on the size of the drive. I have yet to not retrieve data, unless the controller is dead. Then, well.....your pretty screwed. But I doubt that is the problem here.

This customer's rightful position would turn on the type of repair.

If this was a warranty repair (either manufacturer's or extended warranty) then she has a right to a repaired computer (which she got). She does NOT have a right to the replaced hard drive. The replaced parts belong to the insurer.

If this was a non-warranty repair she has a right to all replaced parts (since they remain hers).

The restore disk is solely HER responsibility. The store does not have access to replacement disks and it would be copyright infringement for them to use another disk they did have access to. If she doesn't have the disk, then the service center has done everything they can after they replaced the drive.

On the non-performed Data Transfer, she would appear to have a case for return of the non-performed service.

She deserved better treatment from Geek Squad but we're not hearing how she treated them either. She doesn't have much of a claim here. Good luck

Hmm... I wonder how bad the hard drive was damaged. If it is physically dead - damaged read head or the like - recovering would be expensive, and I wouldn't expect anyone except a professional hard drive recovery firm would be able to recover it. I'm also wondering if the machine was repaired under warranty or not - if it was, I can understand about not giving it back, since most warranty replacement requires a core return, ie the item being replaced.

@Technick: 13 minutes from initial posting to the first blame-the-victim comment.

A trainwreck of fail.

It could only have been worse if Bubba's Pizza guy had been around to help.

Involve a local newspaper?

The Best Buy service centers of course have phone numbers that stores have. There are a few service centers around the country and the stores around the general area would ship their products for repair to.

If you live anywhere in and around Texas, the service center for Best Buy is in Flower Mound, TX, just outside of Dallas. I believe there is also one in Louisville, KY and Phoenix, AZ (the ones I know of).

I didn't see anywhere in the story that you asked for a refund, and maybe you're waiting to get this resolved and ask for your money back as a last resort, but either way, I would at least get your money back. Do the EECB like others have suggested and see where that goes.

Hard drives are under $100. Hells Bells you can buy a HD for less than $50.

And installing a second HD (to backup data files only) is something even the most dimwitted of us is capable of doing.

If you don't have a second HD or an external HD may I suggest you buy one TODAY!

This is why every PC user should have a copy of SpinRite from GRC. It is one of the best drive recovery programs available and only costs about $90. It can frequently recover a drive that is non bootable or produces the dread BOS. If she gets her drive back she should put it in any PC and run SpinRite.

I am not affiliated with GRC or SpinRite, but am a very satisfied customer.

I don't think the customer was informed properly of what was needed or how much is involved with the repair. Geek Squad has to realize that most people who use them know nothing about computers. The average Joe isn't gonna realize they need the restore disks and how much it is going to be for data recovery, so BB needs to inform the consumer about this. She should have been informed about everything before they even took the computer, including the restore disks, especially since she explained what the problem was before hand. At this point they should have explained about the restore discs and that they shouldn't just magically be able to place a copy of Windows on the drive. This is a very, very common problem when dealing with computer repair. I understand that you can't just stick a copy of Windows on the computer illegally, but most consumers don't know this, so they need to be informed.

@MauriceCallidice: No kidding, right?

Whether she should have gone to the Geek Squad or not is besides the point. They're doing something pretty clearly unethical, hence the reason for writing in.

Though, one thing I can agree with Technick is that if you have that much information on your hard drive, you really should invest in getting an external harddrive and backing the information up.

@Technick:I always have believed that everyone should have to get a license to own a computer, just to demonstrate they know what they're doing. Maybe obtaining A+ certification before purchase as the basic bare minimum.

Yeah, Best Buy is at fault for failure to provide the backup service. But, I have zero sympathy for anyone that fails to complete such a basic computing task on their own.

Part of the problem here is that it sounds like they lied to her about the backup in the first place.

How is the Geek Squad going to use their $99 automated backup tool if the laptop isn't recognizing the hard drive in the first place? Answer: they can't. From the description of the problem, it sounds like data recovery is the only option. But of course it isn't cheap, starting at $259. It also requires the hard drive to go to Kentucky.

If she can't get the hard drive back, then she needs to send it to a place like DriveSavers (or her brother). If not, then hopefully Best Buy can cut her a deal on the data recovery since they dropped the ball here.

@enthreeoh: I know! I can understand when people continue to shop at Walmart or something because the prices are usually cheap. But Best Buy doesn't even have good prices or a good selection of products.

@ZoeSchizzel: @ZoeSchizzel:

I've tried to do the same, but my mother decided to go the whole Best Buy, Geek Squad route and now she won't leave me alone about all the crap it keeps giving her.

I fucking hate Best Buy, but I love Newegg. I try to steer everyone that way when I can.

@MauriceCallidice: And 35 minutes from the posting of the blame-the-victim comment to someone pointing out that it is the first blame-the-victim comment... *sigh* that gets equally old.

@MSUHitman: Or just a small claims suit for breaching the contract. She should easily be able to get $100 for the refund and the old hard drive.

@raincntry: I hear that they are really upset about not winning the Golden Turd last year... so they've vowed to do worse this year. Best Buy should be a shoo-in.

@Mike8813: They have white shirts and black ties. They must be good, right? (Actually, in the old days before Best Buy bought the Geek Squad, the answer was yes.)

Except that Microsoft is aggressively going after both manufacturers and retailers for those generic OEM discs. Consumerist loves to talk about all the legal crap well guess what, Microsoft specific says generic OEMs are a no no. My buddy that still works at Geek Squad informed me that about 6 months ago they forced all the stores to throw out those generic OEMs so that Best Buy wouldn't get sued.

The deopt is very unlikely to give you the drive back, tat is common practice. HOWEVER they are at fault for replacing the drive without being able to do the backup first, so I would certainly go as high up that chain of command as fast as you can, becasue the depot will scrap the drive pretty quickly.

As far as the restore disks go, this is not their fault. It sucks that they didn't tell you, but they don't keep them on hand, becasue most models have a different restore disk (restore disks include the OS, drivers, crappy bloatware, etc. Everything that came on your computer) They go and install windows from a disk they have (and any tech worth their salt has the disks to do this becasue they are needed so frequently) and use the CD key on the computer, but they would then have to go find all the drivers for the computer (about 2 hours in all to get it running properly) and you still wouldn't have the software that came with it (a perk in my opinion, but many customers get mad about this).

anyway...move fast, get a hold of corporate and get this resolved from there. The store level really is as useless as you describe, and the manager probably doesn't have a phone number for the service center.

aguacarbonica
I'm not blaming the consumer. I clearly said that Best Buy screwed the lady over on the backup job. But when it comes to the OS install CD's, that's HER responsibility. And it is.

So the clear solution in this case would be for best buy to refund the money they charged for the backup, and return her original hard drive.

I had a hard drive failure on my Dell laptop a couple of years ago and also didn't have the OEM disks to reinstall Windows XP and all the drivers. I called Dell and they overnighted me all the disks free of charge. Has the OP tried calling HP and asking about this? Now, my laptop was still under warranty, which I am assuming hers is not since she took it to the Geek Squad. But maybe HP would send the disks. I'm probably naive.

I once contemplated using the Geek Squad when I popped the C key off my laptop and couldn't figure out how to get it back on (the rubber foot also came unglued). I didn't want to take the trouble of mailing it out to Dell and losing it for 3 days, so I thought I'd just pop in to Best Buy and they'd put the key back on for me. I decided I was too scared to so I just learned to type C by hitting the sensor with no key. It worked just fine for months. Dell eventually fixed my C key when they replaced my hard drive. I think I might just buy another computer rather than using the Geek Squad after stories like these.

I read the article and at first thought "Wow! What terrible customer service and what an appalling failure on Best Buy's part to provide the service they were contracted for and paid to do!"...

BUT

Then I read the comments and learned how this is not Best Buy's fault! It is actually the poster's fault for:
1) not being aware of the need to have backups of all her data
2) going to Best Buy at all
3) engaging the services of Best Buy technicians
4) overall and most importantly, for not being as computer savvy as the commenters here are.

Wow! What a revelation! Good to know that Best Buy is off the hook here and blameless in this situation due to the abhorrent lack of technical proficiency on the part of the customer.

I now know that anyone who lacks knowledge in any area of life and thus engages a professional to provide services in that area DESERVES any scam or ripoff that professional visits upon them.

/sarcasm

I really wish people would stop going to Geek Squad for their computer problems. I run a side business doing this stuff with computer troubleshooting and repair and I charge 70% less than these guys won't hold your data or computers hostage.