This is a big ass aw sh*t. I hooked the scanner up to my specially purchased (that means expensive) lap top and no bueno. I tried an external hard drive and no bueno. Both are IEEE 1394 devices. So I went back to EPO and tried a different fire wire cord. No bueno. SO, I called HP customer service. I spent HOURS on the phone with the high tension thinkers in India. First they wanted me to download a new driver for the video card. I convinced them that wasn't the problem. So we installed and uninstalled, looked at device manager til I was blue in the face. We restored the whole damn operating system. No bueno. We talked about all sorts of stuff. Then this morning (after the reinstallation of Windoze XP) I called back to take the next step. I followed the instructions very carefully. The guy asked me (after reboot) if I saw any error messages. I said no and he said "Now your firewall is working very nicely." You idiot, I said FIREWIRE. Holy cats. He apologised profusely and asked if I would like a slurpee with that (Cross family inside joke, the boys will get it). We went round and around again and then declared that he would hook me up with a level three technician. I think Level three indicates something, but I sure don't know what. Anyway, that person, another friendly english pronounciation challenged one, by the way, took a bunch of information and said they would FedEx a special box for me to send my computer in for repair. I ruined Ginny's sleep because I was at it until 2 or 3 in the morning and speaking loudly on the phone. I don't care where the customer service group is located, but DAMN please find someone who can speak in sufficiently un-accented English so that I can understand them. I would even settle for un-accented British. Or even Rentonese. I draw the line at Michiganese. Unless there is beer involved, of course. If it is free and cold I won't even care if you spoke no language at all. Especially if you were a pretty blonde female like Ginny.
I will keep everybody posted about progress. At this very moment I am standing at the front door so that I can immediately open it when the Fed Ex guy brings my special box. I hope he speaks english.
Be careful John, I took a phone call from an English Government Department from a lady that spoke no English, I have no idea what language she spoke, possibly somewhere in Africa.
In case the call was important I rang back to find out what she said.
After explaining the reason for my call to a person who spoke perfect English, I was accused of being racist.
I never did find out what the original call was about.
I feel your pain, John. This offshore tech support idea stinks. Every advance has a corresponding downside: with computing, it is the nightmare you experienced. I will say a prayer to ensure a speedy resolution of this abominable problem. If it is any consolation, your suffering will guarantee you a free ticket to the Pearly Gates. Please keep us informed about this nightmare.
