Manufacturer Warranties and Protection Plans

[oscaresc2000]

Deus,

Thanks for the answer. Still I have to say that... after many years as a customer I will relieve Best Buy from ever having to accept my money again.  And sorry for the incovinience.

[deusexmachina Valued Contributor]

That's definitely your choice, just don't expect anything different elsewhere as any law-respecting shop will have the same policy.

[oscaresc2000]

Deux, I don't know what you mean by "It's illegal for any store to have sets of recovery discs for ever computer ever made". As I said before I DON'T NEED THE RECOVERY DISCS, BECAUSE THEY ARE USELESS!  What I neede is the OPERATING SYSTEM! Wich is Windows 7 home premium.

It is my understanding that this(Windows 7) has been the most common OS available for PCs since late 2009, other than MACs. I am sure there are others, but I don't thikd that any store needs the Operating Systems for "every computer ever made", Just those that would cover at least the length of their extended warranties, which I thing run from 1 to 3 years.

The only thing may be different to each pc or laptop and may be specific to every pc or laptop model are the "Drivers", but these ARE available for free download from the manufactures for their specific models.

So let say I bought my PC on 2009 with a 3 year warranty. That means I may need Windows Vista or Windows 7, let say perhaps even windows XP if it was an older PC. You may say there are other OSystems, but I don't think there are too many more that were available on the PCs that Best Buy sold in that time frame.

So here it is what I spected from the store:

Replace the hard drive (THE ORIGINAL PROBLEM!)

Load the OPERATING SYSTEM (Windows 7 Home Premium)

Load the drivers (Free download from manufacturer) I would have had no problem if they told me I had to do this myself.

So in my view the problem is not the availability of the Operating System, is that after loading the OS it may be time consuming to configure the pc, time that clearly Best Buy does not want to spend.

[deusexmachina Valued Contributor]

You do need the recovery discs. The recovery discs contain your operating system, along with drivers and all pre-loaded software.  Your computer is shipped with a recovery partition...which creates a section of the hard drive to store the Operating System/Drivers/Software on it from the MFG.  If you are having issues you can reload your computer using this partition. However, if you have a bad hard drive, that partition cannot be used as the physical drive containing the partition has to be replaced. 

When you buy the computer, you are given the option to create a copy of this recovery partition on to 3-5 DVDs. This recovery disc will now have your operating system, drivers, and original software on it for your specific computer. This disc will also automatically activate Windows as long as the discs are for the right computer. So you can either use this recovery disc (not a system repair disc, or system backup) or a retail copy of windows to reload your computer's operating system. 

This has nothing to do with time. They replace the hard drive, put in each of the recovery discs and it installs everything for them. The only problem comes in is if the recovery discs have been damaged and no longer work or the hard drive is an advanced format drive and you have a Sony computer or something.  

The store cannot have OEM / Retail copies of Windows just lying around. This is illegal.  They also can't hold on to recovery discs for every computer out there for similar reasons. That is why they will do all of the work and cover all the hardware repairs if you provide them with this recovery disc. Trust me, if they could do it without having to get you to bring in the discs and listen to you complain about it, they would have.