Hard Drive Speed

I installed a Maxtor 60Gb 7200RPM ATA133 FluidBearing for a client last week. He purchased the drive and retained the packaging and all documentation. I installed the drive in front of him using the provided new cabling and as requested partitioned into 2 halves and formatted. I then installed Ghost for him and ghosted the primary drive onto one of the partitions and configured Ghost for automated backups. An easy 75 bucks right? Wrong. While doing the work he told me of his expectations of this drastically improving his preformance. I noted that he had only 96 MB of Ram, a 500 Mhz. processor, and an ATI Rage Fury Pro 16 MB and an 330 Watt power supply. I explained that he he was mistaken, recommended upgrading RAM and newer video card and the numerous reasons why. I didn't recommend upgrading processor and system board only because of the expensive preice tag; max processor upgrade would be 550 Mhz not worth bothering about. I suggested software also being related to performance as well wrong road to go there. He completely refused to believe me. Long story short he has chosen to disregard my advice insisting he knows more than I do. (If so why get someone else to install a hard drive?) Now that he has had the system fo 4 -5 days and still not noticed marked improvement he has convinced himself that the drive isn't running at 7200RPM and must be a slower 5400! The system is not any slower but not faster. He has all the required documentation, the packaging and inspected the new Hard Drive when installed and still refuses to believe that he bought a faster drive. He has spoken with Maxtor and local repair shop and he is feeling bamboozled and that we are all trying to dig deeper into his wallet. Is there any software anywhere that will demonstate to this A Type personality that he was given what he bought?

Hi Calpitor,

What does he expect to do....play Solitaire faster?! Get him out of your life even though he is perfect. The perfect example of what NOT to be!

My empathy---

Spaceman

I run a small business and depend on word of mouth. Going on five years now and never a dissatified customer. I am a great believer that the customer is always right even when they are wrong. I work with you until youare satisfied. Giving this .... wonderful person his money back is not an option..

If he's unwilling to check other sources to confirm/reject what you've said, then a money back offer may be the only way to go. Trying to deal with impossible/unrealistic expectations cannot be part of a successful business.

A couple of times I've had to say to such a customer, "You should find someone whom you trust to do your work." One time it resulted in a turn around of their attitude. The other time it didn't.

Either way life is too short to bang your head against the wall with this type of situation.

Does not the software that comes with the dive, I believe thay are up to "MAX Blast II" detect and tell you what Maxtor drives are in the box?

My first thought was that what you really need is a hardware fix, something like a 8 oz ballpean hammer to this guys head, but that might not be good for the business. ;)

OPOVET2 LOL it did but it doesn't identify the speed of the drive. I really like the ball pean hammer idea though. Apart from this ID10T's insulting attitude he's got my back up and besides I did what was contracted for... essentially. I installed, partitioned, formatted, and installed ghost and went the extra mile by backing up his data and configuring Ghost.

Both Device Manager and Sisoft Sandra will display both the make and model number of the drive, which will match that of the packaging. I suggest you show him that and then take him to the Maxtor website, which will show him that that model is a 7200 RPM drive.

No doubt he'll then accuse you of reprogramming the drive to show the wrong ID, but it may take you a little further forward :D

Been looking for a proggie that would tell you the rpm speed with no joy. Lots of bench marking proggies out there.

Take a look at this proggie called HDtach to see if it would be any help. Look Here

I sort of doubt this kuncklehead will believe anything that you try to explain to him and you are wasting you time with him. If he comes back for any futher work I would tack on a surcharge.

Sort of like those shops that charge extra, if the customer tries to tell them how they think it should be fixed.

As SuperSparks said, you really can do no more than confirm via whatever method the model number of the drive and then match it against the specs from maxtor. You're not likely to find anything that can measure the rotational speed of the platters (7200), a constant. Likely anything that is going to perhaps say it is a 7200rpm drive is going to derive that info based on some other info, not actual measurement. Things like latency, seek times, etc you can measure. Rotational speed... Besides, ultimately the important thing is not rotational speed (though it has an effect), rather things like seek times, latency, etc.

By the way, this guy does also realize he's not getting Ultra133 (perhaps no more than ultra66) out of this drive if its running off the motherboard controller (not that getting ultra133 is that important). A board as old as to support a 500mhz processor isn't gonna support the higher UDMA transfer modes.

Thanks to all who replied!

Here is the upshot. I printed off all your responses minus mine and gave them to him at church. Figured this way there wouldn't be a scene. With his wife and the priest next to him he apologized for his behavior and finally relented. Tomorrow I go looking for a new video card and 384 Mb of ram for his system that he is bringing over so I can completely fromat and configure his drive!

Though this is resolved, I've been playing with Aida32 Enterprise Edition tonight, and lo and behold if you click on any drive it shows the rotational speed. I have no idea whether the info comes from a database or whether it's empirical, but it might well be useful if someone else is ever in the same position in the future.

Aida32

And I'd like to add that Aida32 is just about the most impressive piece of freeware that I've ever downloaded - well worth the 50 seconds :D :D

My suggestion would be to install the new items he is bringing and then ask him if he wants to see a vast improvement in his data transfer speed.

If yes, install an ATA 100/133 controller card (whichever is appropriate for his hard drive) and let him test the difference in speed.

To run an ATA100 or 133 disk at ATA66 is a pity.

Hardware info comes from a database
check this linkAIDA info

Thanks, nodular, that's cleared that up, I didn't spot that.

He is the type that will never be satisfied, I have dealt with his type and you cannot win. At some point you have to stand firm and say you've done all you can do with his hardware and if he wants to talk and waste your time he will have to pay for it. The ATA 133 thing may be opening up another can of worms you'd have to deal with. Maybe you've seen this article:

http://www.realworldtech.com/page.cf...WT011701000000

Quote:

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Originally posted by shadow1
He is the type that will never be satisfied, I have dealt with his type and you cannot win. At some point you have to stand firm and say you've done all you can do with his hardware and if he wants to talk and waste your time he will have to pay for it. The ATA 133 thing may be opening up another can of worms you'd have to deal with.

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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Calpitor
Here is the upshot. I printed off all your responses minus mine and gave them to him at church. Figured this way there wouldn't be a scene. With his wife and the priest next to him he apologized for his behavior and finally relented. Tomorrow I go looking for a new video card and 384 Mb of ram for his system that he is bringing over so I can completely format and configure his drive!

I would say I've won. I have his repeat business, an apologie, and I don't have to deal with him any more, all further business will be done through his wife. Her idea by the way. My business is mostly service related and satisfaction is what counts in my business. The phrase "The customer is always right." is no homily. It is how you achieve satisfaction. I always stand firm, when I know I'm right, but I'll never let the customer feel that he is in the wrong. Telling the customer "you've done all you can do with his hardware and if he wants to talk and waste your time he will have to pay for it." is a good way to lose his business and the business of the 15 people he tells. One of the greatest advantages, and disadvantages at times, of owning your own business is that you din't have to justify the length of time you spend with your clients in order to achieve total satisfaction. I've had my own shop going on five years now and although there have been the occassional disappointment I have always been able to make sure that everyone is satisfied with the service they have received or product that they have purchased. Your attitude shadow1 is far too prevelent in our society try to keep in mind as long as he is dissatisfied he feels you are wasting his time as well.

I do admire your patience and integrity, I too have been in the service business a long time and I can count the number of people on one hand that I could not deal with and at some point had to cut the losses rather than deal with the stress and lost time. It isnt easy but when our paths cross with difficult people and all avenues have been exhausted, there's no other way...everyone deserves to be paid for their time when performing a service. I dont think any person would fault anyone for doing that. I'm glad you have resolved the problem.

This is a bit tongue in cheek, but you might offer to help him get his A+ Certification by loaning him your book. :D

Maybe people like that should get a freebie such as Sandra or Belarc so they can check their computer themselves.

I have a 450Mhz cpu in one of my compurers (Compaq 5360) and the best improvement and the most inexpensive way to improve the performance with a noticeable difference is to add a bit of memory and maybe a 7200RPM hard drive.

I think you handled the situation extrodinarily well even though you were at max frustration. Congratulations. :)

Calpitor, if you haven't met a customer that's completely impossible to satisfy, then you have been lucky. And if you're dealing with the wife at her suggestion, I would guess that this story is not over yet.

Quote:

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Originally posted by DVOM
Calpitor, if you haven't met a customer that's completely impossible to satisfy, then you have been lucky. And if you're dealing with the wife at her suggestion, I would guess that this story is not over yet.

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Two articles for you to take a look at. I would say ceci est tout fini!
First is the bill for work completed earlier today and the second is the body of the text of the email the client sent me when he got home.

Email:
Geoffrey,

When I got home I found the bill you presented my wife. All I looked at was the total billable and to say the least I was displeased. Upon further inspection, some research and a little reflection I am willing to admit that you have done extensive work on my system. According to our local computer shop, Kaylen Computers the work done is in line with that of your competitors and in fact we got of light. I got home and decided to put this puppy through its paces and I am very impressed. This system has never booted so quickly! I can open anything I like with Media Player running my favourite MP3s, of which none were lost, and it marches on like a true soldier. You have our deepest gratitude and I won’t hesitate to refer your company to others. I have one quick question for you. How did you manage to get The Sims to play my MP3s?

Roger.

to the best of my knowledge ... ive never been able to notice any performance upgrades from hdd upgrades

you want performance upgrades ... 2x cpu speed; increase memory; upgrade videocard and system cleanups provide me with noticible upgrades .... (noticible being the operative word)