Island Computer Specialists

Sep 2023

The power supply on my computer died. The computer is 12 years old and really not worth fixing. But the data on that computer is really quite valuable. Of course I made a backup of that SATA disk drive before I came to Oak Harbor, and that backup is sitting on a shelf... in Seattle. However, the data on that drive is probably okay. So all I need to do is get the data off of that drive. My first thought was, "Okay, I will just go to Walmart or Office depot and get a USB to SATA cable for on the order of $10-$20." Except that none of those places actually had the cable in stock. The nearest place that actually had one was in Seattle, and if I have to go back to get the cable, I might as well just get the drive off the shelf and recover that way. So then I went to Pioneer computer, and explained to them my problem - with the complication that the file system on that drive is EXT4. No problem, "Kenny" knows all about Linux. He recovered all of the data I needed, ahead of schedule and precisely on budget. Here is the best part. They knew that they could sell me a new computer, that I could use with that disk They had a couple of dozen machines for sale, at what I thought were reasonable prices. They did *not* try to sell me a new computer. An important caveat: They're busy - as all successful businesses are. So they are not so good at returning phone calls, at least not today. But if you go there, in person, then they will take good care of you, right away. When I was a sysadmin, I used a similar system to triage my work load. E-mail: low priority. Phone call: medium priority. In-person: highest priority. Zoom call: a little complicated. Nice work, Kenny.