Beware Microsoft Support!
What on earth is up with Microsoft Customer Service? I had an issue with Hotmail not downloading. I contacted Windows Live Mail Support, and was told to install a Beta version, that my current version of Live mail was not functioning anymore. So I down loaded it.
Then, every time I booted, I got a message,” WINDOWS NO DISK processing message c000013 parameters 75b6bf7c 4 75b6bf7c 75b6bf7c.”
Windows Live Mail Support then told me this was a Windows issue, and I should contact XP support.
I got contacted by XP support, and was telephone and told that I needed to allow them to do remote assistance to access my computer to determine how to remedy the problem.
WHAT A DISASTER!
The guy (for whom English is certainly not a first and likely not even a second language) immediately determined that the problem was because my External disk drive, (which has all my documents and half my programs installed on it) was assigned drive letter K. He insisted that this had upset my registry. Forget the fact the computer had worked flawlessly for 14 months (with the drive letters my installation of XP Pro SP3 on a virgin computer automatically chose), other than the email glitch.
After spending 90 minutes (on Christmas day, mind you,) on the phone with this clown, he had succeeded only in changing my drive letter from K to M. I told him at the 90 minute mark I just couldn’t spend more time that day.
I got a nice email saying that he would be gone for ten days, but if I needed immediate assistance or wasn’t happy with him I could email his supervisor.
Well, then not only did I have the same error message, but I got it 104 times and had to keep clicking “cancel” and THEN got error messages from all the programs looking for drive K. about 6 programs failed because the drive letter was so screwed up.
Then the power supply on my computer failed. AARRRGH! I had been copying my Docs to the built in hard drive, and had numerous other applications open and got frustrated at all the error messages so shut down for the night New Years Day. My intention was to reassign K:\ back to my external drive.
Just wouldn’t boot up the next morning. We hoped it was just the power supply, tested the HD on Jims computer and it seemed fine.
And Thank You God…… for leading me to keep all my data on a (now properly backed up) external drive. I unplugged it from the dead machine, plugged it into the laptop, plugged the laptop into the 22” monitor and called Geeks and found the appropriate new power supply (650 watts instead of a measly 300).
I also found three empty RAM slots and one lonely 1MG stick of RAM. Well, for $12.50 each, wouldn’t YOU buy three more? And, why use up a USB slot with a mouse when I could get an optical PS/2 for $1.99?
Well, all that good stuff came this AM, and Jim kindly installed it all for me while my friend and I were humiliating ourselves at the Corrections Officer Training Academy in Tucson (my knee gave out on the stair stepping and she couldn’t make it around the track LOL so much for our immediate prison guard careers).
But tonight, I moved my docs and changed my drive letters back, and guess what? NO ERROR MESSAGES! Except for things that the new version of Windows Live Mail will not do, like mail directly from Windows Explorer, the “Send To” command.
But all my formerly ferklempt programs now work again.
Thank heavens I was able to undo most of the damage done by Windows Support!