No, not me… My computer. In another trip down memory lane, remember when my computer magically [1] could not find a device from which to boot? And my subsequent email and [2] response from Dell Latin America Tech Support?

Well today, just about a month later, I finally got my new hard drive installed. While I am not impressed with the speed of service (evidently the authorized service tech had the part for weeks, but just figured out how to use voicemail this week), I am impressed with the quality of service. The technician was both nice and technically competent. I am also impressed with Dell's Extended Warranty - providing on-site service in a foreign country (a small Caribbean island, no less), which differs from the country of original purchase. I would have not expected it — I half expected to have to ship my laptop back to the US via express mail (read: very expensive) for service, so that I would be without it for a number of weeks. The extended warranty was definately a wise investment

After getting the hard drive installed, I ran [3] Norton Ghost and backed up my entire system to its previous state with a couple of clicks. No days of long labor of reinstalling all programs, changing settings, cursing because of lost data, etc. I should have done this years ago - it would have saved me a lot of headaches… Oh well, live and learn…