Carbonite customer service?

Posted by Photonstopper on January 15, 2009
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Carbonite's automatic, online, off-site backup service came highly recommended by tech media legend Leo Laporte, which is why we purchased a one-year subscription. Most anecdotal information indicates the backup and restore work fine. I have learned, however, that there are also many reports of little or no customer service when a difficulty is encountered.

One of the first places I checked for a solution to last weekend's Carbonite BSOD situation (Blue Screen Of Death) was the Carbonite site. I found no reference to such an issue there, no weekend contact hours, and only an email "customer service" form available on their Web site — so I used it.

It's Thursday and I've yet to hear back from Carbonite. Fortunately I was able to discover the resolution to my issue (see previous post) as published by fellow Carbonite users, independent of that company. My issue was well-documented, there was a relatively easy solution that was also well-documented, so why wasn't that solution posted and available on the Carbonite site?

The incident, and Carbonite's lack of response to me and to others, is a clear indicator to me that there is something wrong with Carbonite's attitude towards technical support and customer service, qualities that should be core to a company whose business it is to protect our precious data.

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Acronis/Carbonite issue solved!

Posted by Photonstopper on January 11, 2009
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The computer of She Who Must Be Obeyed was working fine yesterday and today so I decided to reinstall Carbonite and resume Her backups. No sooner did re-installation complete than Windows XP gave up the ghost with the all-too-familiar Blue Screen of Death (BSOD): BAD_POOL_HEADER …. STOP:0X00000019.

After uninstalling Carbonite –again– in Windows Safe Mode, I resumed my online search with a little better focus: Carbonite was somehow directly involved in the issue. After a couple of variations I finally tried Carbonite BSOD as Google search terms. There, among the search results was a description of our issue complete with THE SOLUTION! It seems some other poor saps had also cloned/migrated their Carbonite-protected hard drive using an Acronis product and had the same BSODs as our computer experienced. Thank goodness those who solved the problem posted the solution to their forum!

The solution (found here) involved these steps:

  1. Go to Windows Device Manager
  2. Click "view" and select "show hidden devices"
  3. Scroll down to "storage volumes"
  4. Click on the plus to expand.
  5. Click on each one listed and right click and uninstall. (you will get a message on some saying to reboot before it takes effect. Select no until you do them all.)
  6. Reboot.
  7. Wait till windows automatically reinstalls devices. Will prompt to reboot again.
  8. Reboot.

I knew it had to be some persistent file or process but had no idea what it was or where to find it. Following the prescribed steps I then reinstalled Carbonite and watched breathlessly as the hard drive began accesses similar to those that had led to crashes. No crash! Carbonite completed its updating file scan and began its backup work. Success! What a relief.

Now, I don't know why Carbonite got messed up or whether Windows Indexing Service was implicated. Apparently the same thing has happened to people who have used Retrospect to back up and restore. And what a strange set of circumstances. Sometimes even good software doesn't work or play well together and I guess this is one of those cases. I am, however, feeling much better about things but worry… how much more grief would have been suffered by someone with less knowledge and experience than have I ? I don't want to even think about that one… but the software producers ought to!

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Just try and do something nice!

Posted by Photonstopper on January 10, 2009
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ALERT: This one is pretty geeky but, well, look who's writing it….

Crashed Again!
Crashed Again!

I spent a good part of my day off yesterday making what should have been a routine group of upgrades to the computer of She Who Must Be Obeyed. One of her Christmas gifts was an upgrade copy of Microsoft Office 2007 Professional –yes, that what She really wanted– but when the time came for Yours Truly to install the package we got an unpleasant surprise. Unbeknownst to us, the free space on her PC's original equipment 30-gigabyte hard drive had shrunk to only a few GBs and the upgrade would not install. So we purchased a nice new 80 GB drive for her. Yes, bigger drives are available for the same money, but it's my opinion that they are less reliable than the more modestly-sized units.

Now, how to transfer the operating system and all those nice applications and files… Cloning was the answer and, after much research, I found an excellent home solution in Acronis Migrate Easy. I know, IT is my business and my fellow geeks might look down their noses at an easy, commercial solution. But IT is my business, not my hobby, and I didn't want the bother of the many other home-brew cloning processes and solutions; I just wanted to get the job done and on the first try.

So I installed the new drive; purchased, downloaded, and installed the Acronis package; and ran it. It was easy as pie and maybe easier — crusts can be a pain. I was able to just click through the setup screens, tell it to start, and walk away. It didn't run as fast as I expected but, after four hours the process was complete. I removed the original drive and the PC booted up perfectly. I was delighted. So I went about installing the Christmas gift, installing Microsoft updates, and finally defragging the hard drive — there wasn't enough space on the old drive to do that before cloning. After those hours of work, all seemed well and I was ready to proclaim success to SWMBO until I rebooted and was presented with the dreaded Blue Screen of Death in the late afternoon. Too many changes, too many actions to know what happened to the poor Dell Dimension to make it so sick!

BAD_POOL_HEADER …. STOP:0X00000019 the screen announced (in part). So I did some other diagnostic and utility stuff including scandisk, with the /f /r switches, but still was getting blue screens. Lots of thinking and searching indicated a leading cause was the Windows Indexing Service, or device drivers, or new software. I shut off indexing and still the computer crashed. Troubleshooting went on well into the night with a long break for Monk and Psych. This morning I continued my efforts first by disabling the Indexing Service, then restarting… a step I had not done the night before. Ah-ha! The system was stable. It ran until I tried starting the Carbonite online backup service which I had disabled for the cloning; I got an immediate Blue Screen! I uninstalled Carbonite (I hated doing that but it made sense.), rebooted, and the system was stable again. Hmmmm….  finally we can get into some computer science experiments!

So with the computer stable all morning I restored the Windows Indexing Service after lunch. Soon the hard drive began to rattle as it had previously just before each crash. This time, however, the system stayed "up" and remained usable. My conclusion, after all this, is that the index file had been damaged during the transfer and my efforts (mostly leaving the Indexer disabled for some time) resulted in the Service rebuilding the corrupted file. I don't, by the way, blame Acronis which I still think is an excellent product –especially for home PC users who are migrating to a single new hard drive.

Tomorrow or early next week I'll reinstall Carbonite and see what happens. I expect things will be just fine now, after all this stress and effort. That's how it goes, though… just try and do something nice!

Oh, and it snowed about a foot over the past 24 hours.

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111111-01-01-09

Posted by Photonstopper on January 2, 2009
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We passed New Year's Eve watching old movies and enjoying a bottle of Martini & Rossi Asti served up with too much smoked Gouda cheese and crackers. The Asti was excellent — so light and delicious and (for better or worse) with seemingly very little "kick." The cheese was good, but a little too old, and we ate too much of it. The movies were excellent and we had a fine night waiting for the end of the year to arrive. She managed to stay awake which is unusual in itself but She not only stayed awake 'til midnight, She stayed up 'til 1:00 AM and would have stayed awake even longer if Yours Truly hadn't shut off everything around her and toddled off to bed by Himself!

New Year's Day felt like a Sunday. It was quiet, cold, and windy. Late in the morning we visited Mom-in-Law and, whilst She tended to her mother's needs, I headed to the attic to swap out the antenna installed a few weeks ago for a much larger model wa already owned. The larger antenna supplied critical signal strength to Mom-in-Law's living room TV to give her solid reception on a couple of formerly weak stations. She'll enjoy that. We'll install the smaller model at our house — we live within sight of the local TV broadcast towers so don't need much antenna.

Then we did a big loop tour of points south, just to get out, on a beautiful winter's day. We some looking around to see how and whether the fortunes of an outlet mall { Lodi Station Outlets } had changed since its renaming and the addition of an amusement passenger railroad around and through the property. The train, which was running, looked great but the shopping center looked like its decline is unchecked. There are lots of dark stores and "closing" signs on a couple of others. It will be interesting to see if it survives another year. I think its troubles started well before the ongoing sag in our economy began: it was supposed to be an outlet center implying low-low prices on name-brand merchandise. In reality, few bargains were to be had and its remote location made the trip not worth the effort. The recession may well do it in as, apparently, happened to a neighboring automobile dealership. That's my opinion, anyway. We do love the countryside out in Wayne County, however, and very much enjoyed the day's travels.

Um, the title of this article? As we arrived back in our driveway on January 1, 2009, the odometer on my car read 111,111. The miles are really piling up on the 2002 Honda. I like seeing the number patterns develop on the odometer and all ones is nifty. Alright, it's maybe not as big as celebrating the arrival of 2009 in Times Square, New York City, but I think 111111 on 01-01-09 is most excellent.  Or kinda sad.

111111-01-01-09
111111-01-01-09

 

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Cold nights and Christmas cards

Posted by Photonstopper on December 23, 2008
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It has been very cold here, of late. Not so bad as some parts of the country but when the weekend's nighttime low temperature is zero (F) and the wind is racing at >30 MPH, it's C-O-L-D. The electric heat pump can't keep up so we've had to resort to space heaters to keep the chill off. Running the oven for holiday baking also helped. At night Tasha has returned to sleeping on my pillow, next to or wrapped around my head; the arrangement is mutually beneficial to the feline and me. We did some running around by car on Sunday, chiefly because the clouds parted for the day and we wanted to be out and at least see the outside world, if not walk about in it very much.

When She Who Must Be Obeyed saw the "Ice Globe" photo in this blog (below) she said it should be our Christmas card this year. Hearing and obeying (most of the time) is my primary job. So, Sunday night I uploaded the high-resolution image file to Dodd Camera –an area photographic institution– and picked up the prints Monday evening on my way home from the office. Last night, as She toiled mightily at holiday preparations in the kitchen, I worked at assembling the cards:

  1. Adhere individual photo prints (four sticky tabs per card) to the faces of pre-made card stock
  2. Selected an appropriate quotation (in consultation with SWMBO) and
  3. Printed the approved citation on labels for fastest turnaround.
  4. Created photo caption labels for the back of each card
  5. Applied caption and quotation/sentiment labels to each card
  6. Applied address labels and return address labels to each envelope
  7. Signed each card for the two of us, sealed, and finally,
  8. Got to bed at about 1:00 AM. {Whew!}

On the way in to the job, I stopped at the Post Office and bought stamps, applied them in the lobby, and immediately mailed the cards. Andy in Japan: You're included. Despite all that, most will likely be received the day after Christmas. Still, I like to think of these cards as a sort of gift unto themselves and hate to skip a year. Late receipt is better than not at all.

My usual choice for digital picture printing was Cord Camera in North Olmsted. Not too far from my office, that store was also Cord's Cleveland area "super store." I discovered, to my dismay, that I couldn't upload for printing at North Olmsted because that store had been closed! Cord's Web site blamed the slow economy for the store's closure and, as I explored their site, I noted several other of their stores were also shuttered. Too bad they couldn't have held on at least though the holiday shopping season — the Dodd shopping center store was very busy when I visited to pick up my pix. I'll miss the Cord store in North Olmsted; it was well stocked with all kinds of gear and the photo printing service had some very nice features and good quality output. Dodd's upload system was quick but didn't offer online cropping. The folks at the store, however, were very helpful and, over the phone, honored my request for cropping on my card picture to fit best on a 4 X 6 format. I'm sure we'll see more changes due to the screwed-up economy but you just hate to see your favorite places and services disappear.

 

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Little ice storm

Posted by Photonstopper on December 20, 2008
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Icy Feeder
Icy Feeder

In the pre-dawn hours this day snow fell lightly. Soon it changed to light rain dripping from the low clouds on to ground and objects chilled to below-freezing temperatures. Pretty much everything received a thin coat of ice making for a hazardous commute for people driving to work. Me? It was a day off for me… I worked my weekend rotation last week and this day off was comp time!

After It stopped raining I ventured outdoors to clear out the seed-catching trays from our bird feeders. The trays were blocked by ice and seed shells and, with rain expected, needed to be emptied to be clean.

After my little chore I strolled around the grounds with my camera. Trees and shrubs were covered with a thin  coating of ice that was rapidly melting. I thought I had a couple of very good images but, for various reasons, found I only had one or two I liked. A berry, encapsulated within an ice globe, was pretty and fascinating.

Ice Globe
Ice Globe

Holiday Card?
Holiday Card?

It's looking like we won't be making our own holiday cards this year. I'd picked out an image –ivy in a snowy setting– but it was judged not "just right" for a card. {sigh} Shown here is that image, which I like very much, recorded in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, during a November 22 visit. There's still one more photo that may please us both, but precious little time remaining to make and send cards. Sorry!

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Fleeting December rainbow

Posted by Photonstopper on December 15, 2008
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December Rainbow
December Rainbow

This morning we were treated to a most unusual sight. A clear patch of sky behind us let the sunrise illuminate a shield of approaching rain drops to create a most unusual rainbow. At about 7:47 AM we first noticed a band of color streaming up from the western horizon. I grabbed my camera, ran outdoors and got off one shot. As I stood there composing a second frame the bow began fading and rapidly disappeared. Clouds, moving in with the rain, snuffed out a brilliantly golden sunrise. The rest of the day was dark, breezy, and damp. A good day to spend in the office where I was stuck, actually. Better would have been at home, sipping a warm drink and listening to quiet music. Tonight we hear the wind howling around the house, sometimes screaming as it pushes on the windows. It should be a good night for sleep –if the rising winds are not too noisy– but we'll remember the fleeting December rainbow that started this drab day.

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Sunday morning in the attic

Posted by Photonstopper on December 1, 2008
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Radio Shack DTV Box
Radio Shack DTV Box

I spent several morning and midday hours Sunday (Nov. 30) at mother-in-law's house setting her up for broadcast digital television (DTV). She is resistant to signing up for cable television service but enjoys watching football and the news. Since her TVs are not equipped with digital tuners, we procured two DTV converter boxes for her through the government coupon program.

We looked at several models in several stores but settled on the one offered by our local Radio Shack. I hardly even opened the box before installation day but learned we'd made the right choice. My own mother's DTV box works just fine but has no volume control on the remote control — she must use two remote controls to operate her television! Fortunately she has satellite service so the DTV box is, for her, strictly for backup when weather or mishap stops the signal reaching her from orbit. The "Digital Stream" DTV remote does have television volume control on the remote. We set the boxes aside waiting for the right time to actually install them.

So we decided to spend this cold and rainy Sunday morning setting up the DTV converters for Mom-in-Law. I also hoped the boxes would finally give her clear TV pictures — an upgrade to her faint fuzzy analog reception. Up in the attic, near the peak of the roof I discovered, to my disappointment, the existing flat antenna wire had been strung many long years ago. There was no clear path to pull new coaxial cable between the attic, where the antenna was to go, and the living room. So I mounted the new digital antenna to a rafter, strung coax to a point where someone in the past had attached a matching transformer to the flat wire, and connected it up. In the living room, the reverse was done: connected new coax to the transformer that someone had connected to the flat wire down there. Then, with a minimum of fuss, I connected up the converter to the antenna, the TV to the converter, powered everything up, and scanned for channels. The main channels were displayed better on the old TV than they had been seen in years… maybe ever! One of the local channels is disappointingly weak and suffers from what I call "digital stuttering," but, in all, it's way better than before.

In the kitchen it was much easier: connected the converter box to the rabbit ears, the TV to the box, scanned and, because that TV is newer, was rewarded with even better picture quality.

So now she's got better TV quality and her TVs will keep working after the big national digital change-over coming in February. We still think mom-in-law would get more out of cable but that's her choice. It was a lot of fun doing something nice for her by spending Sunday morning in the attic!

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Hang on, it could be rough!

Posted by Photonstopper on November 19, 2008
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Snowy Flowers
Snowy Flowers

I took the day off today to attend the house while workmen from WindowPro featuring Renewal by Andersen repaired a patio door. A portion of the outdoor "skin" of the fixed (non-moving) portion had started peeling off! So, despite the cold temperatures (~28 F) the guys removed both portions of the door, replaced the deteriorating part with a brand-new door panel, and reassembled the thing. It only took about 30 minutes and the door is now –literally– good as new. With the entire patio door out for some time, it got really cold in the house (~ 54 F). I had the heating system shut off so as not to waste energy and it took a good long time to bring the place back up to comfortable levels once the install was done. Overall a good repair experience and I've got to hand it to Andersen for really standing behind their product. Thanks!

It's been cold here and, thanks to weather conditions peculiar to the region, we got not just arctic air but a nice snowfall as well. Between snow, ice, and clouds it looks and feels like mid-winter. Our beautiful late-season daffodils are covered with globs of flaky snow and are, no doubt, finished. I'll be hosting a Cub Scout troop at the Observatory tonight but all they'll see is the telescope — 100 percent overcast for days and more expected. {sigh}

Thistle Station
Thistle Station

With the snowfall I've started feeding the birds in earnest and they've responded in force. Cardinals, sparrows, woodpeckers, chickadees, goldfinches, and other varieties clamor around our feeders. One red-bellied woodpecker, in particular, repeatedly darted in, chased off smaller birds, picked out a peanut, and zoomed off to consume it. I topped off the big feeder this morning and it may be empty by nightfall! The thistle seed feeder is also getting heavy traffic but will "only" be down by half tonight.

Yep, it certainly feels like winter. Hang on, it could be rough!

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