Still can't hide from the tech support....
So, even though I'm a little over 5000 miles away from England, I still get hit by tech support for my family.
Yesterday, one of my nephews posted on my Facebook wall with a problem his mother (my sister) had an external hard disk (he said it was a memory stick but) as it wouldn't show up on her laptop but it did on his. So, I do some normal techie stuff (ie google it) and realise it should work - so I comment asking for more information. His reply made me remember what this family is like. She's still running Windows 98, at this point I get some tea as it could get interesting.
Let me explain what this particular route of my family is like. Years ago, when they first asked my opinion as they decided to buy a computer the first thing I said was "Don't whatever you do, go to PC World and get one there". Now, PC World is an okay place for parts (in an emergency) and games/some applications. The computers suck, and suck badly - the quality is not great, still they got a computer from there and I spend a lot of time over at their house over the years repairing and fixing the various issues they had.
They needed a wi-fi adaptor for their (new) computer a few years ago - I told then that the shop they use didn't matter but get one that is a Belkin as are the best to have. They came back from PC World (after listening to a dumb sales person) with a Broadcom - which causes a lot of issues (as babyghia may recall during one of her visits).
So, eventually after going through some of driver sites I know of, I come up with two options. A driver from the company who built it (not the one for the drive but could work) and a generic one from Microsoft.
Thankfully, one of those must have worked but sometimes I wonder why. I guess that I can be a little cheerful that it wasn't (a) Windows 95, (b) Windows ME or (c) Windows 3.1
Yesterday, one of my nephews posted on my Facebook wall with a problem his mother (my sister) had an external hard disk (he said it was a memory stick but) as it wouldn't show up on her laptop but it did on his. So, I do some normal techie stuff (ie google it) and realise it should work - so I comment asking for more information. His reply made me remember what this family is like. She's still running Windows 98, at this point I get some tea as it could get interesting.
Let me explain what this particular route of my family is like. Years ago, when they first asked my opinion as they decided to buy a computer the first thing I said was "Don't whatever you do, go to PC World and get one there". Now, PC World is an okay place for parts (in an emergency) and games/some applications. The computers suck, and suck badly - the quality is not great, still they got a computer from there and I spend a lot of time over at their house over the years repairing and fixing the various issues they had.
They needed a wi-fi adaptor for their (new) computer a few years ago - I told then that the shop they use didn't matter but get one that is a Belkin as are the best to have. They came back from PC World (after listening to a dumb sales person) with a Broadcom - which causes a lot of issues (as babyghia may recall during one of her visits).
So, eventually after going through some of driver sites I know of, I come up with two options. A driver from the company who built it (not the one for the drive but could work) and a generic one from Microsoft.
Thankfully, one of those must have worked but sometimes I wonder why. I guess that I can be a little cheerful that it wasn't (a) Windows 95, (b) Windows ME or (c) Windows 3.1