Not-So-Genius Bar

To end my day with a bang yesterday, the monitor portion of my computer decided that it didn't want to work. Under normal circumstances, I would just go to have it fix and that would be the end of that. BUT I had homework that I had to post and information that I needed to get off my hard drive (that seemed to be functioning perfectly well. Ricky and I tried everything from letting the battery fully charge to attaching it through a VGA cable to the TV. Nothing. Fortunately, our house is bombarded with computers so getting access to the Internet is not exactly a problem. So I emailed my teacher and figured I would head to the Apple store today to get my computer checked out at their Genius Bar (yes, for all of you PC users, that is the Apple equivalent of a Geek Squad.. and yes I know it is a bit presumptuous, but we'll get to that)

So Ricky and I did the research and concluded that my video card was most likely the issue since I was getting a signal between my monitor and the base portion of my computer. I decided to try and make an appointment with one of the 3 Genius Bars in the area, but unfortunately, one of them is closed for 10 days, and the other two only had appointments as early as Monday. Considering I only have one more week of class, that didn't seem like the best option. So we decided we would go in first thing in the morning to wait in the standby line. I had heard nothing but good things from multiple people so I was hoping my problem would be fixed.

Ricky and I woke up early and got to the Apple store before they opened. I felt like those people who are outside of the Best Buy in the morning holding their towers because they have a virus and their computer died. We walked in and headed straight for an associate with an orange shirt on (we read online that they are the ones we needed to talk to). She had his little hand held telxon and we explained our problem. He asked if we had an appointment and we explained that we tried, but we couldn't get one until Monday and I needed my computer checked. He gave us a quick explanation about why we should have an appointment, but said that we could wait in the queue. I was completely content in waiting because I needed my work.

About 5 minutes later a "genius" comes over and asks about my computer. I took it out of the bag and he opened it up and pressed the power button. First of all, I pressed the power button about fifty different ways for multiple intervals. I can tell you exactly what it does based on how many seconds you hold it down, but that is ALL that he did. His next statement was to tell me that I should have made an appointment which at this point was getting old. I explained again that we tried but I needed my computer checked today. We also explained that we figured it was the video processor and that it should be an easy fix. He then went on to explain that at minimum it takes 3 to 5 days and in case we forgot, that next time we should make an appointment.

So Ricky asks if there is a way to dump my information onto a separate drive just until we can get an appointment so that I can upload my homework. His response was, "you cant retrieve your information if you can't see what you are doing." Really? I mean REALLY? So I looked at Ricky and he asked him about removing the hard drive and placing it in a case to use it as an external hard drive. Since Ricky has done the procedure with PCs in the past he wanted to know if the MAC process was as easy. Once he mentioned that, all of a sudden the guy was like, oh yeah its really easy, all you have to do is this.. Okay seriously? First you have snide comments about not being able to see your work and now all of a sudden its so easy?

So we head over to the young lady who makes appointments and we go to talk to her about setting up an appointment for a later date because we are going to try this hard drive plan. She says the same thing about getting us in earlier with an appointment and that she is going to check the appointment schedule. Completely annoyed with the appointment nonsense at this portion of the game, apparently I snapped at her and told her that we already tried that and that there are no appointment prior to Monday at ANY location in the Central Florida Genius Bar, yet she proceeded to check and what do you know.. there were no appointments until Monday (hence the reason I didn't have one in the first place) So I set up and appointment for Monday afternoon and we will see what happens.

The good news is that we went and got the case for my hard drive and it worked like a charm. I got all of the information off of the computer that I will need for the rest of the week (since my class is over on Friday) and the other information on my computer was put onto back up media previously. Besides, I know now for a fact that the hard drive is not bad. So if I go into the Apple store and they tell me otherwise I will know they messed something up.

Good news is that I managed to get everything uploaded in a timely manner and now I will use one of the other numerous computers in our house until mine has been restored to its original glory.