This morning I received the motherboard, the hard drive and a few recovery discs. They were addressed to a Mr. A. Tabob, there is no one in the house with a name remotely like that. I took a risk since I could see they were from Hewlett-Packard and opened the packages. About an hour later I received a call from the technician who was scheduled for Monday between 1-5 pm. He had a thick Russian accent. He said he wanted to schedule the appointment. I told him it was scheduled for Monday. He asked if today would work. I said sure.

The technician arrived at 1pm. He asked me to sign a form relieving CompUSA of all liability. He said he was not allowed to start work until I had signed it. Fine. I signed it. He installed the motherboard first. He thought that maybe that might be the problem and possibly he could then recover the files on the hard drive. No dice. So he installed the hard drive too. Then he started the recovery process with the discs that were sent. He packed up everything and said he would dispose of the old motherboard and hard drive. This was required by HP as they wanted the old hard drive back. He then asked me to sign another form so he could leave. He said that I should insert the second disc when prompted. There is a third disc but he didn’t think the computer would ask for it. I asked him what I should do if it didn’t work. He assured me that it would. I asked again who I should call if it didn’t work. He told me to call HP. He had no plan to stick around and make sure the installation was successful.

During all of this I have an electrician drilling holes in my attic, my 5 year old running around trying to get my attention and my ex husband stopping by to see my son’s new braces. The dogs are barking every time the door bell rings. It was chaotic to say the least. I signed the form so he could leave. Upon inspection I had just said that the job was completed to my satisfaction.

It has been two hours since the technician left. Five minutes after he left the computer prompted me to insert the second disc. It took another five minutes for that disc to be loaded. There has been many restarts since then but the screen proclaimed this was to be expected. I was to leave it alone until it told me to do something with it. For the last hour and fifty minutes I have had a black screen. The green power light is on but the computer does not appear to be doing anything. I keep checking to see if anything different has happened. Do you think they have placed bets on how long I leave the black screen before I call?