Apparently I didn't read enough of the fine print (computer rant)

So I bought my wife a brand new Toshiba laptop from Best Buy for Christmas. I made sure to get the two year Geek Squad warranty on top of the Manafacturers Warranty.

It started acting up the first week we had it but it seemed to fix itself. Well I ran out of the free Norton anti-virus and I decided to install the Kaspersky Anti-Virus that I had gotten from my mom. After I installed Kaspersky and the system rebooted, now the computer can't start Windows. Great.

Well it's been a week and I decided today that I would take it into the Geek Squad to get it fixed. I was kindly informed by the Geek Squad that software issues aren't covered by the Manafacturers Warranty or the two year Geek Squad Warranty. That I can either pay Best Buy another $200 for them to fix it and that comes with Virus protection and support for up to three computers. OR I contact Toshiba to get the restore disks so I can restore the system myself.

Are you joking? I was never offered this "software service" when I bought the Laptop. Its ridiculous that we the consumers spend ridiculous amounts of money on electronics then get shafted because we didn't spend even more money on something that was offered to me in the first place.

I feel like I've been had. So now I'm sitting here rebooting the laptop to factory default settings.

If this doesn't work, I may just drop it down a set of stairs since I have the accident protection that I paid extra for.

I'm sorry.

FWIW, if you have Windows 7, just use the built-in AV. It really is that good.

Or, my best suggestion: Mint Linux. It's Ubuntu minus the F/OSS zealotry, so it comes default with support for all the non-free codecs that you use on a regular basis (like mp3s),

Best Buy = Rip Off. Find a local neighborhood guy who will charge something reasonable. (I do side jobs for a flat $50 or couple cases of beer). BB will charge $200+ for running a restore cd that takes 5 minutes of a techs time.

edit: The extended warranties are great at one month before service ends in 2 years. ;) that's when it gets dropped down the stairs.

If you paid for the accident protection i believe the proper term is laptop car ramp. I have MAJOR issues with Best buy and the extended warranty program. RIP OFF

As soon as I read "Best Buy," I knew how this was going to go. A lot of people make a lot of money fixing the "geek squad's" screwups and failures.

Oh, and get free Avast once you get the virus off your computer and the thing restored to bootable condition.

Yeah when the guy told me $200, I just told him I'll just take my chances and walked out.

I just bought a computer last week. Started at Office Depot, looked around, then decided to go to Best Buy to compare. They had the same stuff, same price, but the salesman pissed me off. Went back to Office Depot.

I was in a pinch around Christmas, Best Buy was my last choice, trust me. It was the right computer for the right price. I bought it online too to avoid the sales people.

I have to bite my tongue to avoid screaming NOOOOOOO!!!! every time somebody buys a warranty in line in front of me. And the outright LIES they tell to sell them. "Well replace it even if your dog/cat/t-rex chews it up", Bull Malarkey you wont!

I have had two laptops from Best Buy with warranties and I have had nothing but good experiences.

In reply to 93EXCivic:

My past experience with an older laptop was good. I had a similar issue and they fixed it. This time they told me they don't repair software issues, so they must have changed their policy.

Find some nerdy highschool kid to fix all your stuff. And buy a harddrive or a dropbox account for critical backups.

Worst case scenario with a software issue is an OS reinstallation. I charge $35 an hour, and I charge 1.5 hours flat rate for an OS reinstall, and I come to you. If anyone is charging much more than that, they're ripping you off.

If you have accidental coverage on it, read the fine print and make sure it covers everything (it almost never does). Take it to the store, walk up to the counter, put it on the counter, tell them you're having an issue with it, knock it off the counter, step on it, pick it up, drop it again, make sure someone in an electric wheel chair drives over it, film it, post it to youtube, profit.

I can't believe they do not ship with restore discs anymore

I have the computer rebooted. Everything seems to be working fine, ran two scans, nothing has popped up. Unfortunately, we lost the music we have put on here since Christmas, but that's it.

I'm gonna put some money aside and get an external hard drive, this is the second time we've lost our music and I'm not doing it again. Luckily we didn't have any of our pictures on here.

mad_machine wrote: I can't believe they do not ship with restore discs anymore

The guy at the Geek Squad said that Toshiba's don't have them anymore, there is a program on the laptop to make your own disks.

I WILL NOT buy a system without a restore disc, or at least the OS discs so that I can reboot the system WHEN (not if) it needs it.

Yes, every two to three years I wipe the drives and reinstall the OS. Yes, I run antivirus (AVG and Windows defender), but even if every scan comes up clean, it always comes up much faster after a wipe and reboot.

Norton/ Mcaffe did not prevent the performance loss and I HATE how much of a system hog they are. (they are so overbearing)

External harddrives are so cheap now, there really isnt an excuse to not have one to back up your data.

These days, most systems come with a utility that will allow you to burn a restore disc. I always suggest that you should do that as soon as you power the computer on for the first time.

No matter how meticulous you are with your computer, most instances of Windows get crapped up, especially if you let them go for a few years. I used to do it monthly back in my desktop days. Now my laptops last about as long as that installation of Windows, which is about 2 years.

Seriously warranties are absolute rip offs, basically you spend 20% of the purchase price for nothing. If something is legitimately bad the company should honor what is known as a good will warranty. If I bought a computer and it died after a week I'd be pissed off. I got my computer when I went to school in 2004 and guess which one I still use? My mom bought a warranty on her computer and guess how much it was worth? How much was the one on the motorcycle worth? They are berkeleying worthless! Make the company live up to their recognition on their own volition.

I never buy extended warranties on electronics. If it's gonna barf it will happen during the original warranty period or not for a long long time. And I was in Circuit City behind some girl who discovered that her extended warranty there did not cover software issues. So it's not just a Best Buy thing.

I learned the hard way to IMMEDIATELY create a set of Restore discs when buying a new computer, this was from my old old computer running Windows 98. That saved my kid's bacon when she decided to create a password and typed it in about a million miles an hour, thus transposing a digit somewhere. Dad spent ~4 hours redoing her computer and threatened to break it over her head if she EVER did anything like that again. It also showed her that Pops might look like a wobbly wore out old coot [curmudgeon] 'Hey! You kids get off my grass!' [/curmudgeon] but he's smart enough to get into her computer any time he wants and passwords mean nothin'.

I had somewhat the same thing. Well, no, it actually was different. I only had it a few months and mine won't boot up. BB tried a restore disc while I waited, but it won't boot. Anyways, I called Toshiba and sent it back for them to fix. They sent it back to me restored to factory, for free, but I lost everything else. I didn't and won't buy any extended warranty from BB. In fact, I won't buy anything from them, but the laptop was a gift.

You got two weeks out of a Windows computer before the first crash...that is pretty good!

I've been very disappointed with Best Buy lately, to the point where I won't ever bother to go into their store again. If they happen to have what I want (a rare occurrence), it's priced 3X what I'd pay online. Mostly, they just don't have it but will be glad to order it for me. Ha! I can do that myself and save a chunk of change.

And regarding computers, I won't ever pay money for one unless it's a collection of parts I've built myself and done the OS install myself. I am my own tech support!

I guess I have been lucky. Wife's son is an IT Admin. Slow as hell getting to us unless it's major, but very good when he gets here. But we buy quite a bit of electronics on line, mostly monitors and hard drives. Generally the monitors from Tiger Direct, hard drives from Amazon. Have never had a problem with either. I believe that Best Buy and TD are the same company, but it sure does not seem like it!

Never buy warranties on electronics because heavens knows that the thing will conveniently have every problem not covered by the warranty.