relievedAnd after that, it just wouldn't come on. There were a couple of half-hearted attempts, but then it gave up totally and would only beep at us. Beep-beep... beep-beep... beep-beep...
We tried the Web, in case it was something that was easy to fix, but couldn't identify the beep code and by then it was nearly midnight, so I didn't call the PC World helpline until yesterday. They were not terribly helpful as they just said it was up to Dell to deal with it. (Fortunately the computer is still under warranty as it's less than 12 months old.) Dell's helpline wasn't open on Sundays, so I had to wait until this morning to call them.
And you know what? I had a very helpful chap who talked me through the steps to get it working again.
After a moment of total panic -- Ulp! You want me to open it up and do things to it? -- I managed to follow his instructions, removed the memory and replaced and, lo and behold! it worked again.
This is such a relief as I was expecting a long saga of having to send it away for repair and G having the sulks until he got it back, because he had important work on there that he hadn't backed up! *Sigh*
So he got away with it this time, but I had to print a heap of documents for him yesterday and today I'm going to make him use the mobile hard drive to back up all the important stuff. I don't need the small mobile drive any more as I bought the big Iomega drive for backing up photos and if I want to take the odd thing into the college, like a PowerPoint presentation, then I use a memory stick.
