Tuesday I mailed my 2 year old Toshiba Satellite to their national service center. My complains were: 1- CPU heating up and laptop shutting down - happens every two days; please clean inside from dust and check cooling fan (I had it cleaned a year ago and the problem went away, I live in a lent-dusty room). 2- One USB port doesn't work. 3- A little slow overall.

I get the laptop back and the service paper says (verbatim):
defective system board & cooling fan - replaced
software problems - reiamaged hhd & tested

I was about to go crazy when I got it back yesterday. My complain was about the cooling fan and dust - why would Toshiba's "Denise" re-image my hard drive? The software and operating system were working great, and I knew the problem was a heating problem. They didn't even call me to ask if it was ok to delete all my files! I know I signed a consent form about possible data loss but since my problem was not software related I did not expect at all they would touch the system, let alone return it blank like when I bought it. I feel like I sent my laptop for a spa treatment but it came back brain dead. I did back up my most important documents (thankfully) but everything else is lost.

Were Denise's actions correct? Was this the only way to solve my complaints? Or was it my fault for not seeing this coming at all?

P.S. I am running Final Data Enterprise V.2 on it now and hoping for the best (using my 1GB flash drive as a second hard drive)

Like it or not you consented to the work. I believe when you complained about the system being slow they did not even check, they just 1) popped in a new drive, or 2) formatted and install Windows. Either way your back at zero.

If you go in for a nose job, the doctor makes you sign a consent form, but that doesn't mean you consent to him removing a lung.

Anyway, that's what's making me mad. He didn't even look at the computer yet simply discarded the whole hard drive. It’s like he sacrificed the patient to save the surgery.

If he popped in a new drive, does that mean my old one is still with them?? can they put it back?

I feel your pain. That is why I decided to learn about computers. I have been bite also. I do not think it is right what they did. I just understand what they did. Also remember it is not personal what they did. They have probabily been instructed to but minium time in. That reduces the amount of labor the Service Center has to keep on hand.
If they replaced it, it is likely already have been scraped.

Sorry

Acklan, thank you for your support. However, I have great news!!

It took all night but Final Data worked and I have been able to get back my inbox and many files!

Turns out I still have my old drive and inspite of the formatting and reimaging Toshiba did, I was able to restore the files I needed.

All thanks to my 21 year old younger brother who recommended the program. Thank you Tarik!!!

Joy to the world!!

Now that I learned my lesson... what is the best way to back up my complete hard drive for the future? Image it, simply copy files on to an external drive, or get Norton Ghost? Can I image 40 GB onto CDs, or do I need an external hard drive?

you have 40 gigs of data? or just a 40 gig drive? you can with the 2003 version of ghost, burn the image onto dvd's/cd's.
personally, i have an updated ghost image of my drive every month or so, i also keep a regular backup on another drive, for me internally, for you , a usb bay with a hard drive mounted inside would be perfect for dta backup.

Excellent. I'm glad you could work it out.

I would use a external hard drive. Use Microsoft's backup to make a differencial back. After the first time it will only backup the new data.

Get a large external drive such as a LaCie. get a backup program such as Acronis TrueImage. Make an image of your PC now and rename it and keep it safe on your external drive. Then set up acronis to do a complete image once a week and then incremental image daily

TudorDoc