Restoring without any ports enabled

[flextech]

HP tried to help me install a printer last week. I granted the service tech access to control my Dell Inspirion 570 (all USB ports). She was having a challenge and disabled all the ports thinking that would help with the printer issue. I had an appointment and had to leave so she logged off. When I returned, the mouse and keyboard are disabled as all ports were disabled. HP cannot help (printer group) and recommended I contact Dell. Dell says there is nothing they can do since there is no keyboard I cannot access the restore or execute commands! First screen is Dell logo, tapping F2 or F8 gets me to a 2nd screen that states the keyboard is not functioning and the third screen is the error recovery safemode screen.....which needs a keyboard to make a selection!

4 year old nice desktop machine.

Any ideas (other than having a new boat anchor)?

 

[MilesAhead]

If the support person really disabled all your ports and logged off or even didn't tell you not to log off until she enabled them then they can do something. They can be responsible for their employee or contractor crippling your macine through incompetence. I would definitely stay on them. By the time it's resolved you may need to get another PC and pull your drive to get your data. But I would not let them off the hook. That's like removing the oil pan drain plug from someone's car and when they say they don't have time to finish the oil change you just put the plug back in and say "come back when you have more time." I don't think so.

Give them another chance to resolve it. But if they try to avoid responsibility I would let them know the bad PR will cost them more than a PC if they leave you in the lurch.

If it happened as you say there's no excuse for such a person manning a support phone never mind doing remote debugs.

 

[flextech]

Not giving in yet.

Thanks for the comment Miles. My first priority is to get the machine up and running if possible. Secondly, HP has tried to get me to agree the ticket is now closed as the printer is indeed hooked up and operating on another PC. I have refused to do so and sited my reasons. They certainly are persistent in trying to close out this ticket! lol

 

[MilesAhead]

Thanks for the comment Miles. My first priority is to get the machine up and running if possible. Secondly, HP has tried to get me to agree the ticket is now closed as the printer is indeed hooked up and operating on another PC. I have refused to do so and sited my reasons. They certainly are persistent in trying to close out this ticket! lol

Most likely they will drag their heels but if you hold your position and just keep dealing with them "on the back burner" you should come through eventually.

I'm not a hardware aficionado. I learned a bit about how the hardware works when I was programming in assembler. But there have been a lot of changes since then. Perhaps a hw guru on the forum knows if there is some jumper that can be pulled on the motherboard or some other trick to go to factory default settings.

I wish I could be more help.