Hardware or Software issue ?

[mkbert]

I have replaced (At the insistance of Dell tech support) motherboard and both CD drives on a customers PC. He has a 40GB HDD with only 3% free space left. He can't play games that require the disk to be inserted. Can this be due to the fact that his HDD is pretty much full ? I say YES, Dell say's NO. Anyone other than me think I'm right ?

[Panama Red]

You are correct. And if the machine has an inadequate amount of memory, where's it going to find the space for an increased Page File needed to play the game? Your client needs to install a new hard drive and transfer a BUNCH of data to the new one. Anything less that 15% won't even let you defrag a hard drive. You might gain some space to help facilitate the data move by deleting all the Temp, Temporary Ineternet files and Clearing the old Restore points using Disk Cleanup.

[mkbert]

Thanks, I sent a copy of your reply to the customer. He seems satisfied I knew what I was talking about. I'm not even going to try to sell this theory to the outsourced 'Phone people' . . . I've only been doing this for 8 years and they still treat me like a 1st time user !

Appreciate the advice as always.

Karen Bertolino
Portable Techs, CEO / DCSE / A+ Certified Technician

[Panama Red]

Gotta laugh at the "Phone people", Karen. If the answer isn't on the script page they're following, the customer is out of luck. I doubt there's a block labeled "the hard drive is too full"!

[mkbert]

They are speaking better broken english these days ! I'm getting used to them, but still don't like when they want to troubleshoot a no brainer. That's usually when I ask if I can talk to the person they keep putting me on hold to talk to. Or just politely tell them I'm hanging up on them now so I can call back and hopefully get someone that started work last week instead of yesterday.

Karen Bertolino
Portable Techs, CEO / DCSE / A+ Certified Technician