Sit down ye weary bones and let me tell ye a tall tale of tragedy and woe...
Seriously though, I need some validation here from the good folk on this website that I'm not being conned. I have a GS63 7RD Stealth MSI laptop. 2016-ish, but it's a neat little machine I wanted to breathe a bit of life into. So I bought 2 sticks of 16GB RAM to boost it to 32GB from 8GB (yikes), got a NVME SSD 1TB to upgrade from 250GB, and a 2TB HDD to upgrade from the 1TB.
Sadly, it's notoriously horrible to upgrade. (Here is a teardown video of the procedure I wanted to do, which involves essentially taking out the whole motherboard and then some. Decided it was out of my comfort level and to let someone with more experience do it: ) I also tried cloning my SATA SSD to an NVME myself in my main rig earlier last year and that went pear-shaped. The thread I made should still be here somewhere.
So, I decided to take it to a local PC Repair Store. I told them to slap in the new components and clone the old drives to the new. Now, please note, I'm out of home country right now. LONG personal explanation of circumstances aside, basically I really need this laptop as it's my only PC access for months going forward, my main rig is in lockup, and I was unable to take it to a store until a week before my flight back home. I have no car access here and I'm reliant on the transport and timetable of others. So this was the earliest I could do it.
That being said, told this to the store on Monday, they said no problem, we'll have it back to you in 2-3 days and will give you priority. They took my number, my details, and left me feeling confident.
Roll on Friday. Come back into the store, and...
Told me the SSD clone failed, so they made a whole new Windows installation, and the new Amazon bought RAM I gave them was DOA. Oh, and they installed Windows 11 without my permission and wanted 125 dollars for the pleasure. But my HDD clone went fine!
... Wait. What?
Is this normal business procedure? I have many questions, the major one being why the heck they didn't call me about the RAM so I could return and order a replacement from Amazon in time, let alone the ignorance of just assuming I wanted Windows 11 on my machine. I know it's being rolled out, I'm not adverse to it, but it's the lack of permission that gets me. So, I complained. Politely. I didn't ask why they didn't call - which I should have done in hindsight, but I was low-key panicking at the mess of files and missing user profiles and program icons on my laptop screen at the time. (Side note, my most important files were saved to a USB/external HDD I brought with me beforehand, so my data is mostly safe. But the mess they left me with still kicks.)
I tried to ask what happened, that the RAM was one of the main things I wanted upgraded and I shouldn't have to pay another service fee back home for someone else to install new RAM when I already paid them to do it. (So much for priority, sounds like they rushed my job in the last hour or two before I came to pick my laptop up.) So they told me if I could get a new batch of RAM to them before they closed for the weekend, they'd install it for 'free', and try to get my laptop back to me Monday. My flight leaves Tuesday.
So they told me to get new compatible RAM in less than 2 hours basically. I could tell they didn't think I'd make it, but I did. Miraculously found a store close by that had some (last one in stock), paid double the price, brought it back to them to install. Don't think they were too happy to see me again, but now I have to wait and see if they'll repair it for the day before I leave or cause further mess.
I realise my time constraints exasperated this whole process, but what are your thoughts on this? Is this botched mess par for the course with cloning (in my personal experience so far) or should I just slap myself on the wrist for trying to rush an upgrade job overseas? I know, not the best idea, but my circumstances are complicated which led to this to begin with.
TL;DR: Took laptop in for upgrade, store didn't call me to say RAM was DOA and that SSD clone failed, and they installed Windows 11 without permission. I also have to leave in a few days. Is this bad business practice or to be expected with cloning? Thanks for reading.
Seriously though, I need some validation here from the good folk on this website that I'm not being conned. I have a GS63 7RD Stealth MSI laptop. 2016-ish, but it's a neat little machine I wanted to breathe a bit of life into. So I bought 2 sticks of 16GB RAM to boost it to 32GB from 8GB (yikes), got a NVME SSD 1TB to upgrade from 250GB, and a 2TB HDD to upgrade from the 1TB.
Sadly, it's notoriously horrible to upgrade. (Here is a teardown video of the procedure I wanted to do, which involves essentially taking out the whole motherboard and then some. Decided it was out of my comfort level and to let someone with more experience do it: ) I also tried cloning my SATA SSD to an NVME myself in my main rig earlier last year and that went pear-shaped. The thread I made should still be here somewhere.
So, I decided to take it to a local PC Repair Store. I told them to slap in the new components and clone the old drives to the new. Now, please note, I'm out of home country right now. LONG personal explanation of circumstances aside, basically I really need this laptop as it's my only PC access for months going forward, my main rig is in lockup, and I was unable to take it to a store until a week before my flight back home. I have no car access here and I'm reliant on the transport and timetable of others. So this was the earliest I could do it.
That being said, told this to the store on Monday, they said no problem, we'll have it back to you in 2-3 days and will give you priority. They took my number, my details, and left me feeling confident.
Roll on Friday. Come back into the store, and...
Told me the SSD clone failed, so they made a whole new Windows installation, and the new Amazon bought RAM I gave them was DOA. Oh, and they installed Windows 11 without my permission and wanted 125 dollars for the pleasure. But my HDD clone went fine!
... Wait. What?
Is this normal business procedure? I have many questions, the major one being why the heck they didn't call me about the RAM so I could return and order a replacement from Amazon in time, let alone the ignorance of just assuming I wanted Windows 11 on my machine. I know it's being rolled out, I'm not adverse to it, but it's the lack of permission that gets me. So, I complained. Politely. I didn't ask why they didn't call - which I should have done in hindsight, but I was low-key panicking at the mess of files and missing user profiles and program icons on my laptop screen at the time. (Side note, my most important files were saved to a USB/external HDD I brought with me beforehand, so my data is mostly safe. But the mess they left me with still kicks.)
I tried to ask what happened, that the RAM was one of the main things I wanted upgraded and I shouldn't have to pay another service fee back home for someone else to install new RAM when I already paid them to do it. (So much for priority, sounds like they rushed my job in the last hour or two before I came to pick my laptop up.) So they told me if I could get a new batch of RAM to them before they closed for the weekend, they'd install it for 'free', and try to get my laptop back to me Monday. My flight leaves Tuesday.
So they told me to get new compatible RAM in less than 2 hours basically. I could tell they didn't think I'd make it, but I did. Miraculously found a store close by that had some (last one in stock), paid double the price, brought it back to them to install. Don't think they were too happy to see me again, but now I have to wait and see if they'll repair it for the day before I leave or cause further mess.
I realise my time constraints exasperated this whole process, but what are your thoughts on this? Is this botched mess par for the course with cloning (in my personal experience so far) or should I just slap myself on the wrist for trying to rush an upgrade job overseas? I know, not the best idea, but my circumstances are complicated which led to this to begin with.
TL;DR: Took laptop in for upgrade, store didn't call me to say RAM was DOA and that SSD clone failed, and they installed Windows 11 without permission. I also have to leave in a few days. Is this bad business practice or to be expected with cloning? Thanks for reading.
