Today was the day my new computer was to have been encrypted. But some things aren’t meant to be:
Thanks @hp. You knew that your encryption software on some @hp computers would cause an OS crash requiring a rebuild of the entire computer.
— Russell Fox (@russcfox) January 12, 2016
(That was a Bronx cheer for @hp if you haven't figured it out. My IT person has been trying to restore my computer for hours.)
— Russell Fox (@russcfox) January 12, 2016
So what happened? When my IT person started the encryption process using HP software, my computer decided to take a siesta — the operating system crashed. When he called HP support, he discovered that the problem was known, impacting a “minority” of computers. My IT person had tested the encryption on a test computer but all worked well.
Little did we know that the HP encyrption software fails on that “minority” of computers. Well, at worst it’s a failure rate of 50%: it failed on mine and worked on his.
I lost half a day, but no data. A key lesson I had learned years ago (and that my IT person had learned) is to have backups. We made three backups prior to the process, and they were useful in getting me back up and running.
So I’m back on my old computer while my IT person will get my new computer up and running…again. We’re going to use different encryption software—software that does not destroy the operating system.
Right now you could not pay me to buy a product manufactured by Hewlett-Packard. I’m that annoyed with them.
Tags: HP