Can I get in trouble for this?

[Glacier10]

Alright so I am in a bit of a situation right now and would appreciate any help. I've been doing computer repair for a while now, and have been a long time lurker on this forum, its a great resource and has helped me a lot. I have my own registered business and do work for mostly family/friends/relatives and referral work.

The situation...

Recently the gym that I have been going to for the past 7 years said they were having computer issues. I am not going to mention the gym, its just a small local one not a big chain. The owner told me that there was connection problems going on and I told him that I do computer work and that I could help. What he wanted was for me to re-do the termination on the cat 5 cables. He thought this was causing the problem, but it wasn't because he is not computer savvy. What really was going on was that their old router was just f***kn everything up. Unfortunately the owner was not there that day, he was in a meeting or something. So I told the front desk lady and went ahead and proceeded with the repair. So I setup a new d-link wireless n router that I picked up at micro center and got them setup with wireless. Connection issues have stopped after this. Now I didn't have them sign any sheet going over terms and conditions because I have known these guys for years. I didn't write them an invoice because he told me that I was going to get a free membership, we were doing a trade off.

After a week goes by I get another call saying that they are having server issues this time. Now I told him that I don't do much server work, but I could take a look at it and tell him what I think. On the server, 3 out of 4 of the drivers were flashing amber and one was green. It would not get past post and just said raid-5 failure. I told him that he probably lost data because it looked like the raid array has failed. He calls his other guy that knows a lot about servers and tells the owner that we have to 'set it back online' and do something else to rebuild the array. I told the owner that I had no idea what he was talking about, but he kept on leading me on with a "well he said that, so could it be this?" kind of thing so I kept looking at it. I really wanted to help him to try and get this working so I continued on. The only thing you could do on it is go into the bios. I really didn't want to mess with anything in there. So at this point I have already been talking with the owner for 2+ hours about this and wasting my time. I saw an option for SCSI and told him it might allow it to boot, but I really wasn't sure. So I told him I could set it to this and it might be what the guy was talking about. We set it to that and all drives were green lights after restarting, but it still would not boot into windows. Right after that the guy calls us back and we tell him what we did then he tells us everything was lost from me setting it to SCSI. Now I told the owner that I didn't feel comfortable messing with it because this could happen and it did. So after that we just set it back to raid and restarted. It did the same exact thing as before, not booting up and raid-5 failure. His guy told him that he would take a look at it the following day. Also, they have no recent back ups on the server, the latest one is a couple years ago.

I go back yesterday to see if he was able to recover anything off of it and he tells me that they lost everything and have to rebuild. He told me that hes not mad at me, but at himself for letting me look at it. I told him I have an invoice for the first work that I did. He tells me that we are going to have to meet tomorrow to talk about the deal. He said that I caused a lot of damage and that I did repairs that he didn't want me to do(the wireless router install).

Now my question is probably obvious, could I possibly get sued for this? I don't think he will, because I have been going there for so long, but is this a possibility?
Also my question is should I still bill the gym and tell them that they owe me xx amount for my time with the network connection issue?
I want to say that I have learned my lesson from here on out. I will always have the customer sign a terms and conditions sheet.

And No I am not trolling, I do realize this is my first major post and would appreciate any thoughtful responses. Thank you.

 

[TenYardFight]

It's a known fact in doctors offices that aggressive collection practices lead to malpractice suits. I think that premise applies here. Your best bet, in my opinion, it not to pursue this invoice AT ALL.

 

[Glacier10]

ok thank you for the input

 

[Tony_Scarpelli]

Can I be sued is not the right question. In the USA anyone can file a suit against anyone for anything. That is nothing like "Can they win a suit against me."

IMO no they cannot.

Sounds to me like this cheap SOB wanted you to do free work in exchange for you not paying your $29 per month membership. Really a bad deal for you and a great deal for him, even if he only had a single workstation with no servers.

Then he wanted you to not only do basic workstation support but also do server support. There are not many server support people who work for less than $100 per hour. The reason is that they have more skills than basic workstation support.

Further, you told him you are not qualified to do. And he still wanted you to take a look. So he accepted full responsibility when he still allowed you to work on it.

you are entitled to get paid. The question is do you sue him for the money he owes you and go to another gym somewhere or whether he honors your agreement.

I deal with many businesses and it is inconsistent that the owner specifies in great detail what to do or not do at the same time has me come in to work when he is not there or reachable by me. I will not go out on a call unless the decision maker is there or I am just spinning my wheels.

You learn these things with experience.

This isn't so much about having it in writing but you just let this guy walk all over you. You need to learn to have a emotional contract. That is where you specify I do this, this and this, I do not do that, that or that. I will get paid this. Then compare that to what his charges are.

maybe you better go with written contracts until you learn to establish virtual/emotional contracts. Especially with trade outs as they are where most problems arise.

 

[Jeffreynya]

Pretty much everything here as been covered. However I would point out that I would never ever buy equipment and hook it up without getting approval for it first. If the router is bad, its bad. But its still up to the client to give the go-ahead to have it replaced. From what I read that did not happen and by all rights he does not have to accept it. However I would still charge a hefty diag charge for my time and take the router (for a return to the store)and leave. You should get paid for the work you did regardless of what happened to the server.

 

[TheITGuy]

Its a shame to hear something like this. And its unfortunate because you were really just trying to help out. In my opinion, written documents are a must and I wouldn't have started any work until he(gym owner) signed off on the work order. As for the server, that would've been an automatic no go. If i don't know how to do it or feel comfortable doing it I usually don't do it. If its something i may be able to pull off. I always get it in writing that they are taking a risk because i dont specialize in that type of work.........I've learned the hard way a couple times through past experiences and its just best to get things in writing, especially with business's.

When it comes to the invoice, i would just leave it alone and call it a loss.

And always remember to CYA........Cover your assets

 

[Knightsman]

You know, the big question here is, how does the owner know you did it.

How do you know the owner didnt try this in the first place?

It didn't boot beforehand right? Sounds to me he lost his data in the first place.

10 bucks says that data was just fine if you just switched it to scsi, as long as it didnt rewrite the drives.

Either way, im sure it would be easy to pull this data with a data restore option.

I would cut ties, and find a new gym, not worth the battle. If he calls, tell him what I stated above, how do you know.

 

[Tony_Scarpelli]

No crying over split milk. Truth is that no amount of paper work or planning avoids running into the occasional cum bag. Just learn from it.

At this point just ask the guy If he wants to continue the deal yuou have or not? If so you need to get paid for your time just like he needs to get paid for his service. If he wants to continue the deal trade out you started which is a very good deal for him, he needs to look out for you as well as you look out for him. Don't mince words its a straight out deal. Pay me or lose me. He'd be a fool to pass this deal up.

Then also ask him in the future if he wants his crap to stay down until he comes back and calls you and schedules an appointment or if he wants it just fixed.

The matter of needing his permission seems redundant if you are doing a trade out....the purchase of hardware not withstanding but that is probably less than $99.

If I had a customer complain about a bill of $100 they would find that I may not answer the phone when they called next time.

 

[Glacier10]

You know, the big question here is, how does the owner know you did it.

How do you know the owner didnt try this in the first place?

It didn't boot beforehand right? Sounds to me he lost his data in the first place.

10 bucks says that data was just fine if you just switched it to scsi, as long as it didnt rewrite the drives.

Either way, im sure it would be easy to pull this data with a data restore option.

I would cut ties, and find a new gym, not worth the battle. If he calls, tell him what I stated above, how do you know.

That's what got me thinking, because after we switched it back to Raid mode it did the SAME EXACT THING. So how do we know the drives got rewritten? I don't have enough experience with this yet so I can't tell you. But the other guy that he calls told the owner specifically that it was my fault by doing that because all the data got rewritten. But if it was rewritten then why would it do the same thing switching it back to Raid mode? I've already told the owner this, but he trusts his guy more because he knows him better.

And always remember to CYA........Cover your assets

Yea your right, at least I know what not to do next time. Thanks for the responses guys, I think I am just going to take this as a loss and learn from the experience. Its just not worth it in the end.

 

[ljtechservices]

He calls his other guy that knows a lot about servers and tells the owner that we have to 'set it back online' and do something else to rebuild the array.

just a guess. HP server? sounds like something we used to do with LSI controllers. usually what would happen is a couple of drives would go offline and you could force them back online and run a consistency check on the volume. Usually the cause was a lot of errors on the drives or the SCSI backplane.
sometimes we would get lucky and the volume would be intact.

but unlike the folks in your situation, and i'm making a big assumption, once the server was operating a backup would be taken and we'd get the necessary hardware replaced
Sounds like this has happened more than a few times to these guys and they never fixed the HW.
no backups for a few years? they were practically begging for this situation

 

[14049752]

If everything you described was accurate, I find it extremely unlikely that the data was lost. You're not in the clear for messing with it with zero knowledge, but it sounds like you know that. My professional opinion, entirely based on what you said, is that the other IT guy is a dunce and he probably doesn't know how to rebuild the raid correctly either. On top of that, RAID is NOT a backup...so if he set them up without a backup plan, he did them a great dis-service.

 

[ljtechservices]

On top of that, RAID is NOT a backup...so if he set them up without a backup plan, he did them a great dis-service.

there was an article on slashdot a few years ago about a project that had to fold because the maintainers kept the DB on a RAID1 set. no backups because in thier mind a mirrored drive is as good as a backup.
well it was until somebody malfed the tables on the DB and the RAID controller dutifully copied the changes to the other drive...

 

[Tony_Scarpelli]

I got a call from a brand new customer. Went out and they had online backup. They had a raid. Data was critical. 330 Gbytes. i7 cpu. She has been getting this beeping after backups.

I get on site the backup failed since November of last year since she was only paying for 5 Gbs but failed to read the error messages and didn't upgrade her backup size. So for 8 months she is unprotected.

Looked at the raid which was setup as ZERO.

So no back up and Array 0, as it is no raid at all.

It gets worse.

HD 1 was failing 'backup immediately' message from the raid controller. Long story short raid failed before I could get a backup.

In the end I was able to get her data in 13 hrs of work and $500 worth of parts, and the 7 hrs on site for a total of....$2000 labor.

Got her server setup with Raid 1, 2 backup USB HD's, couldn't get the online backup to work with that amount of data so we setup a migration of data so she only has to backup enough to fit on a DVD on a monthly bases in addition to alternating 2 USB drives.

I think she thought I was being really expensive $2500 to save her business.

 

[GRIMTECH]

If I had a customer complain about a bill of $100 they would find that I may not answer the phone when they called next time.[/QUOTE]
Love it lol

 

[bertie40]

I feel for ya glacier.

Your attitude to work mirrors my own. My base philosophy is to help people out.

Where my knowledge is lacking, I say so but suggest possible solutions.

Don't lose track of that and become hardened, after all, that kind of approach usually wins and keeps customers.

For your records, I would produce a formal letter with a bulleted time line indicating what happened and in what order. Keep it very short and simple. 1 page.

Don't forget to mention the lack of a data backup.

Sign it and date it.

Try to get the gym manager to sign it too. If he won't, write a comment on the bottom saying "the manager was shown this document but declined to sign"

Keep the meeting jovial, and maintain this isn't to bash him, but for any future manager.

Ask about the router, and give the option to keep it and pay, or remove it. Chances are he will keep it.

Smile.

 

[tito14112]

I see a number mistakes that you made. I know you were just trying to help but why would you agree to repair cabling without doing some troubleshooting first to determine if that was actually the problem. If you are an IT professional then its your job to troubleshoot and determine where the issue may be. I think that if you had replaced the jacks and the problem was still there then it still reflects bad on you. Second if you discussed cabling with the client then why would you buy and install a router? That's not what you and the client talked about. You should have made them aware that after you did some troubleshooting you determined it was the router and not the cabling and discuss the details BEFORE you replaced it. The biggest mistake however was touching a server that you had no knowledge about. You said that there were no backups made so right away you should have told the customer that you CANNOT in good faith try to repair the server. You had no knowledge of RAID or servers and that was just reckless on your behalf. I don't know exactly what you did but if you rebuilt the containers then yes the data was lost. If you are running a business then you need to conduct yourself professionally and take care of your interests. Do not touch anything that you are not familiar with because it doesn't matter what you told the client. In the end your the one who ends up looking bad. Data is very valuable and you may have gotten lucky in this case since the client is not upset. Had this gone to court Ive no doubt you would have gone done in flames. Forget about the invoice and learn some lessons for the future.

 

[anonymous Mac Tech]

If everything you described was accurate, I find it extremely unlikely that the data was lost. You're not in the clear for messing with it with zero knowledge, but it sounds like you know that. My professional opinion, entirely based on what you said, is that the other IT guy is a dunce and he probably doesn't know how to rebuild the raid correctly either. On top of that, RAID is NOT a backup...so if he set them up without a backup plan, he did them a great dis-service.

+1. Anything could have happened at any time to make that RAID fail. This whole thing is about the fact that you feel bad about what happened. But its obvious this "gym owner" runs his business making deals that don't cost him anything in return for half ass services and thinks he's making out (until now that is). I'm sure the whole RAID setup was another free membership for services backroom deal, just like he had done with you. So, what is a gym membership costing this guy? In your case, he is letting you use his facilities for another year after you had already been paying him for seven years. The only cost he is incurring is another body on his premises, which any expenses are easily being covered by any other member that didn't show up the same day you are there or by anybody who bought a membership and barely ever shows up (which in part gym owners are always making money on).

Yeah, truth is you never should have touched it, and never should have took it upon yourself to buy him a router. By touching it you are giving the "other IT guy" a scapegoat for his lack of expertise. But the whole thing centers around the fact this cheap ass gym owner got exactly what was coming to him by working these deals that didn't cost him a thing in return for services that would have cost him if done right by professionals. Anybody who does these services professionally would know the value of their services compared to the value of being offered a "free membership" and would have laughed their way out to the parking lot. So he got what he paid for and it came back to bite him in the ass.

 

[gikstar]

A Raid 5 failure allows for only one failed hard drive and if only one of the drives were green then he had multiple drives failing.

I think the fault is in the owner and the 'other tech' who were not responsible enough to check on the system prior to this and that they don't have a 'backup solution' in place.

Quote: "He said that I caused a lot of damage and that I did repairs that he didn't want me to do(the wireless router install)." Unquote
This is just a remark after the latest problem as an excuse to not pay you. He's ****** and trying to take it out on you. Most clients want you to fix the problem when the cost is minimal, not to just leave the problem as it is. He is just venting his natural frustration with the loss of his data. Eat the cost for the moment and visit it at another time if you like.

 

[sys-eng]

Though you did not say specifically, it appears you changed the boot device type. That should not have done anything to the data. Just about every RAID controller is setup to look like a SCSI device to the system board.

If the RAID was really a software based emulation, then perhaps something was damaged but that was a design flaw to use a pseudo RAID for a business server.

The business side of this has been well covered.

 

[Glacier10]

Though you did not say specifically, it appears you changed the boot device type. That should not have done anything to the data. Just about every RAID controller is setup to look like a SCSI device to the system board.

If the RAID was really a software based emulation, then perhaps something was damaged but that was a design flaw to use a pseudo RAID for a business server.

The business side of this has been well covered.

Yes, that is exactly what we did. The boot device was set to SCSI then we set it back to RAID mode in the bios. Now I'm not experienced with this enough so I can't tell you if it is a pseudo RAID. Its an old server, I believe he told me it is about 10 years old so it might have been pseudo RAID, I don't really know. But the other guy that built the server, took a look at it and told us that the data was lost because I set it to SCSI. And the owner believes what he says because hes the one that built it.

I even told the owner that he probably would have to get data recovery specialists (drivesavers) or some other company look to see if they could recover the data when I first saw the server, I left this part out of my first post. I told him this right before he started calling his other guy.