I'm absolutely flustered. I'm also sick--SICK--of typing. Good thing, or this post would be in excess of 100,000 words.
I spent over one hour on your "chat help" today with someone who was so clueless I'm surprised they were even able to find their keyboard. And I'm not exaggerating. I went into great detail what I'd done, that I had loaded up the software from the recovery CD, had enabled the network, had success, was assigned an IP address from the DHCP, and could ping *every* computer on my network. I assumed it might be the workgroup name, so I asked if I could change the workgroup name inside of the recovery environment. Yet, what does she proceed to do? Step-by-step-by-step-step-by-step-step-by-step-step-by-step-step-by-step-step-by-step-step-by-step-step-by-step-step-by-step-step-by-step-step-by-step-step-by-step-step-by-step procedure, even asking if I had created the CD in the first place (hello? Did you not just SEE what I had typed?), if I had enabled the network communications (hello??????????), and so-on. Then, after an hour of this garbage, she said, "My research indicates that yes, this can be a problem". Again--HELLO????????????????? (What--do you guys find some sap with a computer, show them how to use Google and promote them to tech support?) She then proceeds to tell me that the computer I'm trying to restore needs to be of the same workgroup name as all of the others, which leads me back to the question I ASKED HER FIRST: Can you change or set the workgroup name inside of the recovery environment?
Now for the punchline... after asking me to wait for her to do more "research", she says, "I apologize, but there isn't any way to change the workgroup name inside of our environment. Is there anything else I can help you with today?" Holy snikeeeeeeees! I seriously contemplated asking her if she could help me find a gun with which to shoot myself in the head. Norton guys--if you don't think this is absolutely WRONG and downright insulting of your customers, then you need to find a better moral compass.
Yes--I tried to type the share name (\\yada, yada) and so-on... no luck. So what did I do? The same @#$ thing I have to do with a free backup software program I own--copy the backup to an external drive and restore from there. This is the SOLE reason I bought your product--to be able to do it from the network!
So--can someone, preferably with more than 2 days of experience with computers (or any electronic devices), answer this for me? I know I'm ill and being a bit sarcastic, but I'm so irate at the poor quality of your "help" staff that I'm tempted to send you a bill for 8 hours of my time WASTED to finally get your product to work by another method. Please, PLEASE rectify this situation so I don't feel like an idiot for buying it in the first place.
BTW--if you have any interest, I have the entire chat--along with the person's "name"--in case you want to see it. I thought about copying and pasting it here, but that would just be mean. Funny (trust me), but mean.