Reformatting Blues (A Long Semi-Rant)

"Anything that can go wrong, will."

This is my favorite version of Murphy's law - a line that struck me due to its honest simplicity, and, at the same time, the potential danger it brings to anyone that succumbs to pessimistic generalization.

I first heard it on the first term of my freshman year in college. Back in the days when we had to submit our machine projects in 3.5-inch floppy disks, I had a classmate who either brought the wrong floppy disk or saved the project in multiple disks and kept them in different locations for backup. It prompted my professor to utter the line above. I was amused by it. It offers itself as a stinging lesson to one who faces a dilemma and regrets being unable to foresee it. On the other hand, I thought of how it regresses into futility: How many pens should I bring to school if all of them will somehow fail to write?

Murphy's Law came back at me last week when I tried reformatting my computer. I thought I had everything accounted for. I've backed up all important files. I took a note of my machine's sound driver because when I used to reformat my old pc, I always had to install the sound driver anew to play video games. After doing a fresh installation of Windows XP Professional, I found out that I could not get to the internet. Something went wrong. Murphy's law.

Sunday

I first called my Internet Service Provider, AT&T,whose technical support agent was kind enough to help me identify the problem. We found out that the Local Area Connection under Network Connections in my Control Panel was missing. For this, I had to contact the computer manufacturer, HP.

Monday

The next day, I explained to HP Customer Support the problem that I have and was directed to their HP Technical Solutions agent. I explained what I found out upon my call to AT&T (I have no Local Area Connection) and that the appropriate Network Adapter is missing when I check my computer's Device Manager. Before offering to help me, I was informed by the agent that since I reformatted my computer and changed the Operating System (OS) from Windows XP Home Media Center Edition to Windows XP Professional, I have voided my one-year warranty and would have to pay for their service. I never knew about such a policy and decided that I can just give it a try myself. No thanks, and so much for customer service.

I just needed the model of the Ethernet/Local Area Connections (LAN) adapter that came with my PC. Since my computer is unable to recognize the LAN adapter hardware, I needed the driver for it. A driver is a computer program that enables the operating system to interact with the computer's hardware device. Once I know what the adapter model is, I could download it from the internet.

(I remember calling my friend Jason about this. He was the one who first suggested of downloading the driver. I decided to call HP again to ask of my PC's hardware details.)

On my second call, I got a very different diagnosis from a different agent. She told me that I should contact Microsoft, since everything was working perfectly well on the previous OS (XP Home Media Center). My new OS (XP Professional) can't recognize the hardware and it is an issue that I should inform Microsoft of. It sounds bizarre, much like an effort to direct the blame at others when you cannot hold yourself accountable. But, giving the benefit of the doubt, I decided to go along thinking she might be right. I am at fault, though, for forgetting to ask what the adapter model is, the very purpose of my phone call.

Tuesday

The Microsoft agent that I talked to seemed to recognize the problem and realized that the problem is not really with them but with HP. I agreed with him and he directed me back to HP Customer Service. By this time, things were getting really cool and I'm being sarcastic about the first few words of this sentence. The HP agent assured me that the problem I have has been encountered before and that they can offer an immediate solution to it. But first, I had to pay $69 for their service since I have voided my warranty.

(At this point, the technically savvy might think of a better solution than the one that I chose. Let's just say that I'll end up doing the "better solution" by Friday after a time-consuming and expensive de-tour).

Wanting to have my problem fixed "immediately" and thinking that I might not be able to get the driver online anyway, I agreed to pay for the service. In the middle of the phone call though, it seemed that the HP agent was just searching for the correct driver over the internet. I realized then that I should have just asked my friends to download the driver. I thought that HP had a special software and that I would be given a link to a special site where my driver would be uploaded. But in fact, the software/driver that he gave me was easily googled by my friend, Marc, who burned it on CD so that I can install it to my own PC. The HP agent stressed that as soon as I installed the driver, my computer would work perfectly fine. The call lasted for more than 2 hours.

When I got home from school, I tried installing the driver. It turned out that it was the wrong driver. Before I could feel dismayed, I was informed that Microsoft called back when I was at school and leaving a message that they might have a solution at hand.

Wednesday

I called Microsoft to ask about the solution that they might have. Unfortunately, I was talked with with a different, but equally respectful, agent who tried coming up with a solution again. It seemed like an endless circus of trial and error (sometimes an unavoidable alternative in IT) which lasted for more than 4 hours. After exhausting practically all possible solutions, the agent decided to forward the problem to Microsoft's Research team who would call me back to ask me about the problem and possibly offer a solution (again). By this time, I was growing skeptical, thinking that it is HP who should have the solution for me.

I called back Jason who offered to find the the internet link for the driver. We got the adapter model and a link/location where I could download it.

Thursday

Unfortunately, I couldn't download the driver as the link directed me to HP's Driver and Downloads page. (A quick visit to the page will show that no such driver is available on the page).

In the meantime, Marc offered to search for the driver himself. He later phoned to advise me to just but a new Ethernet adapter rather than forcing the situation. Only then did I realize my mistake of not thinking an alternative solution to the problem. Indeed, why not buy a new hardware if it's relatively cheap instead of trying to fix the current one? I told about this to my classmate, Nobu, who specializes in networking and hardware devices. With a laugh, he said that he should have been there while I encountered the problem and he would have thought of the solution in 10 minutes.

Friday

I went on to Circuit City to buy a new Ethernet adapter which cost me just about $17 - a discount, compared to the HP Solutions fee. For some weird reason, the software that came along with the product could not get detected by the computer (Murphy's Law). Actually, it got installed but when I scanned for new devices, it went out again. Thinking that it might have been because of altered registry values, I decided to do another reformat to my computer. It was not working smoothly eversince I performed the solutions suggested by the Microsoft agent.


Saturday early morning

Well past midnight, I decided to watch a DVD movie that I borrowed from the library while waiting for the reformat. After which, the software was accepted by the computer and the driver got installed.

I got my internet connection back!

By this time, I thought of Murphy's law.

"Anything that can go wrong, will"

I used to think with amusement: Therefore, Murphy's law itself can go wrong.

But for me, last week, Murphy's law didn't go wrong.