• Robert (unregistered)

    On the note of killing systems (requiring a reinstall) I found that it is possible to remove enough of a Windows OS (doesn't matter which OS release.. pick one) while as a user (not an admin) and it will refused to boot back up complaining about missing files.

    Disclaimer: ABSOLUTELY DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME OR ON ANY OTHER WINDOWS COMPUTER FOR THAT MATTER!

  • (cs) in reply to ObiWayneKenobi
    ObiWayneKenobi:
    The customer is always right is one of the worst myths ever propagated in this industry, or any industry for that matter.
    In one of my first jobs I was told to never, ever say "the customer is always right." What happens then is when customer support is confronted with an idiot like this they think "the customer is always right; this guy is clearly not right; therefore, this guy is not a customer" and then they treat that guy like crap, the exact opposite of the effect "the customer is always right" is supposed to have.
  • (cs) in reply to Le Forgeron
    Le Forgeron:
    It's with customer like that that I dream of a state (or international ?) license with categories and points to use a computer, as for car, motocycle and truck.

    You want to remove inode 0/slice 0 from a root partition of a unix system: ok, please show me your license for unix, you need the guru level for that operation. If you call back for trouble due to our answer despite our warning, it will cost half the points of your license.

    ah... if only it could be a reality...

    Anyone with a guru level license shouldn't need to call Customer Support to find out how to use it. Indeed, with your system there would be no need for Customer Support. "I'm sorry, sir, you're not licensed to set the time on your VCR, which is why the display is flashing '12:00'."

  • Steve (unregistered)

    TRWTF is E.T. for answering the customer's question after a dozen people told him not to. He should have found some way to convince the customer it couldn't be done. If he couldn't do that, he should have passed the call on to his supervisor, who hopefully has enough experience to know how to do so.

  • (cs) in reply to PB
    PB:
    Classic example of the IT guy not recognizing the XY problem.

    It is beyond me why he didn't help the customer delete but without doi ng the rm /rf

    Yeah, the root problem is the guy worried about unnecessary files taking up space. So guide him through removing the countless gigs of adult material that are inevitably on the network, and he'll be happy.

  • (cs)

    I can believe one machine got erased, but all of them is too much far fetched.

  • swschrad (unregistered)

    or so it probably seemed.

    Unix is user friendly. if you are that stupid, it will no longer be your friend.

  • (cs) in reply to Jim the Tool
    Jim the Tool:
    So let me get this right. Customer rings up wanting to delete 'slice 0', and gets the run around. Finally support tells them how to do it, with warnings not to do it.

    Customer then does this command on every single machine in the company?

    If customer merely wants to delete it on one machine, then how did they manage to do it to every machine? How does one manage to be logged into every machine at once?

    My guess is a management script that performs the task on each machine to save the admin the work.

    How much you wanna bet E.T.'s company did support on a time and materials basis? Wonder how long it would take them to rebuild a customer's network after an... accident.

  • Steve H. (unregistered) in reply to ObiWayneKenobi

    A better phrase is "The Customer is king". Kings can be wrong, but it's best to be deferential. And when they get too annoying, it's time to break out the guillotine.

  • Leonardo Herrera (unregistered)

    "Sir, deleting slice 0 is going to destroy your system. Your system will not be pinin' anymore. It will pass on; it'll be no more; it'll cease to be; it'll expire and go meet its maker. It'll be a stiff, bereft of life, resting in peace, pushing the daisies. Its digital processes will be history, off of the twig, kick the bucked, shuffle off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and join the bleedin' choir invisible."

    That would be a fair warning.

  • (cs) in reply to Leonardo Herrera
    Leonardo Herrera:
    "Sir, deleting slice 0 is going to destroy your system. Your system will not be pinin' anymore. It will pass on; it'll be no more; it'll cease to be; it'll expire and go meet its maker. It'll be a stiff, bereft of life, resting in peace, pushing the daisies. Its digital processes will be history, off of the twig, kick the bucked, shuffle off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and join the bleedin' choir invisible."

    That would be a fair warning.

    So why don't we put four millions volts through it?

  • Martin (unregistered)

    When I am fired, I always do something like this to my ex-company.

    Sabotage! The right thing to do!

  • (cs) in reply to Some Damn Yank
    Some Damn Yank:
    Anyone with a guru level license shouldn't need to call Customer Support to find out how to use it. Indeed, with your system there would be no need for Customer Support. "I'm sorry, sir, you're not licensed to set the time on your VCR, which is why the display is flashing '12:00'."
    NB4 "What's a VCR?"
  • validus (unregistered) in reply to Herr Otto Flick
    Herr Otto Flick:
    Zacrath:
    Sorry snoofle, the GNU OS does refuse to execute "rm -rf /".
    1. This isn't "the GNU OS" - it's a real OS.
    2. This is not about "rm -rf /"
    I'm not sure why Zacrath is sorry about it, but he's responding to the secret article that was in the HTML comments (but appears to have been removed) in which snoofle complains about OSes that happily allow "rm -rf /" or the equivalent.
  • (cs)

    Yes, you can delete slice 0. It will ruin your software. It won't be covered by warranty and will cost >$100/hr to fix (we will insist being paid in advance).

    So yes, you can drive the vehicle over a cliff, but I don't think you will like the outcome, as it will be expensive to repair.

  • gilhad (unregistered) in reply to Leonardo Herrera
    Leonardo Herrera:
    "Sir, deleting slice 0 is going to destroy your system. Your system will not be pinin' anymore. It will pass on; it'll be no more; it'll cease to be; it'll expire and go meet its maker. It'll be a stiff, bereft of life, resting in peace, pushing the daisies. Its digital processes will be history, off of the twig, kick the bucked, shuffle off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and join the bleedin' choir invisible."

    That would be a fair warning.

    Oh, that is OK, I do not need some fucking system, I just need more place for my porn collection...

  • Anonymous Bob (unregistered) in reply to Robert

    A program I used to help develop ran various Perl scripts. One of these Perl scripts (written by another developer) did a chdir to another directory (containing temporary files) then proceeded to delete all files from the directory. Well, the chdir command failed, the programmer didn't check that it succeeded before issuing the delete. And unfortunately the program started in c:\Windows\system32. This was back in the Windows NT 4.0 days where you had to run as Administrator for anything to work....

    Needless to say, the machine I was testing this on started acting strange... and refused to boot again.

  • Anon cow (unregistered) in reply to anonymous_coder()
    anonymous_coder():
    edgsousa:

    I have taken Snoofle behind the woodshed and taught him a lesson - Remy

    Oh myyyyy...

    Pic/Vid or it didn't happen. Especially if we are talking Remy Lacroix.

  • PC Amok (unregistered) in reply to Anon
    Anon:
    Steve The Cynic:
    ...And no, ET was NOT obligated to help the customer destroy his computers...

    Someone who never worked in a call centre.

    You do anything legal and in-scope the customer asks, or you get fired. Period. End of line.

    BS. What valid purpose could this customer have in performing an action that destroys the installation? If you want to blow away the OS and re-install, you do that by reformatting the drive/partition/slice, usually during installation.

    Imagine this attitude in some other industry.

    Customer: Hello, I would like to use my office chair as a ladder. Could you tell me how to stop the chair from rolling around while I stand on it. Agent: You don't want to do that. It's dangerous. Customer: Look, I bought your crappy chair and I will use it as I please. Agent: Alright, first get some duck tape. Then wrap it around each wheel several times...

  • (cs) in reply to edgsousa
    edgsousa:
    I have taken Snoofle behind the woodshed and taught him a lesson - Remy
    You taught him how to chop wood?
  • Reductio Ad Ridiculousum (unregistered) in reply to I forget
    I forget:
    The real WTF is that *nix exposes such useless technical stuff to the end user.
    "Useless technical stuff" is often the purpose of using Unix in the first place, per varying definitions of "useless".
  • Reductio Ad Ridiculousum (unregistered) in reply to foo AKA fooo
    foo AKA fooo:
    Ebbe K:
    IMNSHO the real WTF is that it seems no one told this customer what this would do to his computer (i.e. render it totally useless). They all just said "don't do it".
    "E. T. told him that he didn't want to do that because it would wipe out the entire file system."

    Indeed, he should have explained to him what a "file system" is. And what "wipe out" means. And "entire". And "the".

    ...and what the definition of "is" is.

  • Reductio Ad Ridiculousum (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous Bob
    Anonymous Bob:
    A program I used to help develop ran various Perl scripts. One of these Perl scripts (written by another developer) did a chdir to another directory (containing temporary files) then proceeded to delete all files from the directory. Well, the chdir command failed, the programmer didn't check that it succeeded before issuing the delete. And unfortunately the program started in c:\Windows\system32. This was back in the Windows NT 4.0 days where you had to run as Administrator for anything to work....

    Needless to say, the machine I was testing this on started acting strange... and refused to boot again.

    I had a manager delete from the root on a pre-unix system. Fortunately he realized his mistake and stopped before it crawled through user data, but most of the OS was gone. The box was still running, so I loaded up the backup tape and restored the OS. The users continued to work on it all day without problem. At night I finally bounced it to see what would happen, and it came up fine.
  • Andy (unregistered) in reply to Reductio Ad Ridiculousum
    Reductio Ad Ridiculousum:
    foo AKA fooo:
    Ebbe K:
    IMNSHO the real WTF is that it seems no one told this customer what this would do to his computer (i.e. render it totally useless). They all just said "don't do it".
    "E. T. told him that he didn't want to do that because it would wipe out the entire file system."

    Indeed, he should have explained to him what a "file system" is. And what "wipe out" means. And "entire". And "the".

    ...and what the definition of "is" is.

    ...and what the definition of "and" is.

  • yadayadayada (unregistered)
  • cat /dict/words | sort -R | head -n 1 (unregistered) in reply to ¯\(°_o)/¯ I DUNNO LOL
    ¯\(°_o)/¯ I DUNNO LOL:
    Bobby Tables:
    # ls -al /
-bash: /bin/ls: No such file or directory
    That's what "echo *" is for.

    Interestingly, I've actually USED that. I was dropped to a "repair" prompt in the boot sequence on a linux box. Root wasn't mounted, it was running out of the initrd. I knew the busybox binary was there (as I had a shell...) but the symlinks for it's various functions weren't there.

    I didn't figure out "busybox --install" at that time, but muddled through mounting root manually with what I had. Including "echo *".

  • Norman Diamond (unregistered)
    snoofle:
    Deleting slice 0 is the equivalent of deleting everything on the entire hard disk.
    Actually deleting slice 0 is the equivalent of
    dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1
    and there are tools that will guess what the partition table used to be. If you want to delete everything on the entire hard disk you need a simpler command:
    dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda
  • (cs) in reply to Anonymous Bob
    Anonymous Bob:
    This was back in the Windows NT 4.0 days where you had to run as Administrator for anything to work....
    As opposed to modern days, in which you only need to run as Administrator for about a quarter of your programs to work.
  • Norman Diamond (unregistered) in reply to Steve The Cynic
    Steve The Cynic:
    (*) This is just fine as a use of 's. When used as the name of an operating system, "Windows" is a singular noun - we say "Windows is an operating system"(**) and not "Windows are an operating system". And a singular word ending in "s" takes "'s", not just an apostrophe, if you follow that style.

    () Yes, Windows is an operating system. If you are trying to make some stupid fanboiish point by denying this, you can fuck off.

    No it's not. Windows 95 was an operating system(). Windows ME was an operating system(). Windows Vista is an operating system(). Windows 8 is an operating system(). Windows Server 2012 R2 is an operating system(). Now what were you saying about Windowses'(***) del commands?

    (***) Yes, Windowses are operating systems. If you are trying to make some grammatical fanboiish point by denying this, you can recurse yourself.

    (****) This is just fine as a use of '. "Windowses" is a plural noun.

    Class's over now.

  • Norman Diamond (unregistered) in reply to Andy
    Andy:
    Reductio Ad Ridiculousum:
    foo AKA fooo:
    "E. T. told him that he didn't want to do that because it would wipe out the entire file system."

    Indeed, he should have explained to him what a "file system" is. And what "wipe out" means. And "entire". And "the".

    ...and what the definition of "is" is.
    ...and what the definition of "and" is.
    Which "and"? There's two of them. & and && and the and between & and && and ... oops.

  • (cs) in reply to Andy
    Andy:
    Reductio Ad Ridiculousum:
    foo AKA fooo:
    Ebbe K:
    IMNSHO the real WTF is that it seems no one told this customer what this would do to his computer (i.e. render it totally useless). They all just said "don't do it".
    "E. T. told him that he didn't want to do that because it would wipe out the entire file system."

    Indeed, he should have explained to him what a "file system" is. And what "wipe out" means. And "entire". And "the".

    ...and what the definition of "is" is.

    ...and what the definition of "and" is.

    Can you define the word "definition" without using the word "definition" in the definition?

  • Norman Diamond (unregistered) in reply to yadayadayada
    yadayadayada:
    Thank you for posting that. It's a good WTF story. You need to test your backups. That's an important lesson. Not testing a backup is like not making a backup. (Testing backups was how I discovered how fucked up Windows 95 was, http://www.geocities.jp/hitotsubishi/w95_fdisk_format/.)

    But this part of the story makes me sick:

    Jacob:
    Some other person happened to work at an emergency shelter and brought in blankets.
    People who were evacuated from Fukushima died because there weren't enough blankets. There are lots of retail stores with blankets waiting to be sold and, if I were in charge, those blankets would have been commandeered. Well, the Japanese government is the Japanese government so it didn't happen.

    Now, back to the US. Raiding an emergency shelter because Pixar was having an emergency recovering a corrupted Disney cartoon? WTF?

  • Meep (unregistered) in reply to da Doctah
    da Doctah:
    Andy:
    Reductio Ad Ridiculousum:
    foo AKA fooo:
    Ebbe K:
    IMNSHO the real WTF is that it seems no one told this customer what this would do to his computer (i.e. render it totally useless). They all just said "don't do it".
    "E. T. told him that he didn't want to do that because it would wipe out the entire file system."

    Indeed, he should have explained to him what a "file system" is. And what "wipe out" means. And "entire". And "the".

    ...and what the definition of "is" is.

    ...and what the definition of "and" is.

    Can you define the word "definition" without using the word "definition" in the definition?

    definition: [def-uh-nish-uhn]

    noun

    1. fuck you
  • alegr (unregistered)

    Such dangerous requests need to be vetted by the upper management, if only for the support's CYA.

  • Jibble (unregistered) in reply to Black Bart
    Black Bart:
    In the frist place, why did they give F.P. Dingbat the rights to "to SU on every machine in the company"?

    He's probably a manager... and would WTF you if you didn't give him access.

  • Jibble (unregistered) in reply to alegr
    alegr:
    Such dangerous requests need to be vetted by the upper management, if only for the support's CYA.

    It probably was upper management. Nobody who knows anything would have done it.

  • moz (unregistered) in reply to da Doctah
    da Doctah:
    Andy:
    ...and what the definition of "and" is.
    Can you define the word "definition" without using the word "definition" in the definition?
    Not in a meaningful way.
  • Capitalist (unregistered) in reply to Norman Diamond
    Norman Diamond:
    But this part of the story makes me sick:
    Jacob:
    Some other person happened to work at an emergency shelter and brought in blankets.
    People who were evacuated from Fukushima died because there weren't enough blankets. There are lots of retail stores with blankets waiting to be sold and, if I were in charge, those blankets would have been commandeered. Well, the Japanese government is the Japanese government so it didn't happen.

    Now, back to the US. Raiding an emergency shelter because Pixar was having an emergency recovering a corrupted Disney cartoon? WTF?

    You mean they put the interest of big corporations above (potential) danger to ordinary people? In the US, of all countries? You don't say!

  • (cs) in reply to moz
    moz:
    da Doctah:
    Andy:
    ...and what the definition of "and" is.
    Can you define the word "definition" without using the word "definition" in the definition?
    Not in a meaningful way.
    "description of the meaning of a word or phrase"
  • NoAstronomer (unregistered) in reply to Robert
    Robert:
    On the note of killing systems (requiring a reinstall) I found that it is possible to remove enough of a Windows OS (doesn't matter which OS release.. pick one) while as a user (not an admin) and it will refused to boot back up complaining about missing files.

    Well, to be fair, Windows has a tendency to refuse to boot up and complain about missing files even if you don't mess with the file system.

  • Neil (unregistered) in reply to Bobby Tables
    Bobby Tables:
    Zacrath:
    Sorry snoofle, the GNU OS does refuse to execute "rm -rf /".
    Interestingly - that is correct: I tried rm -rf / - it complained and asked for --no-preserve-root to work. However rm -rf /* ran happily without the switch. Well, it didn't delete everything (some files were locked) but seems to have deleted enough.
    # ls -al /
-bash: /bin/ls: No such file or directory
    Oh, well - goodbye VM - you served me faithfully during the whole 2 minutes we were together.
    Why waste time cloning a VM when you can set up a chroot jail?
  • Neil (unregistered) in reply to Norman Diamond
    Norman Diamond:
    Testing backups was how I discovered how fucked up Windows 95 was, http://www.geocities.jp/hitotsubishi/w95_fdisk_format/.
    If I've understood you correctly, FDISK was incorrectly calculating the partition's offset using modulo 1GB/8GB arithmetic?
  • Neil (unregistered) in reply to ObiWayneKenobi
    ObiWayneKenobi:
    The customer is always right is one of the worst myths ever propagated in this industry, or any industry for that matter.
    You could say that the customer is not always right.
  • (cs) in reply to Robert
    Robert:
    On the note of killing systems (requiring a reinstall) I found that it is possible to remove enough of a Windows OS (doesn't matter which OS release.. pick one) while as a user (not an admin) and it will refused to boot back up complaining about missing files.

    Disclaimer: ABSOLUTELY DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME OR ON ANY OTHER WINDOWS COMPUTER FOR THAT MATTER!

    That's BS. Or you're running Windows on FAT? Are you a member of Power Users (which is an admin lite)? "Users" cannot damage OS files.

  • (cs) in reply to NoAstronomer
    NoAstronomer:
    Robert:
    On the note of killing systems (requiring a reinstall) I found that it is possible to remove enough of a Windows OS (doesn't matter which OS release.. pick one) while as a user (not an admin) and it will refused to boot back up complaining about missing files.

    Well, to be fair, Windows has a tendency to refuse to boot up and complain about missing files even if you don't mess with the file system.

    Only if you run it on a flaky crappy box with all fans stopped.

  • Norman Diamond's cat (unregistered) in reply to Neil
    Neil:
    Norman Diamond:
    Testing backups was how I discovered how fucked up Windows 95 was, http://www.geocities.jp/hitotsubishi/w95_fdisk_format/.
    If I've understood you correctly, FDISK was incorrectly calculating the partition's offset using modulo 1GB/8GB arithmetic?
    For many years I thought Windows 95 fdisk was fucked and didn't know that the blame was actually on the combination of fdisk and format (and didn't know that Windows 98 was equally fucked). My experiments in 2009 revealed that some fucked modulo arithmetic in the format command was part of the problem. I think the modulus (divisor) in Windows 95 is equal to 1024*64*32*512 (yeah that is the 1GB point) and in Windows 98 is equal to 1024*255*63*512 (near but not exactly the 8GB point). If those operating systems are downloadable from MSDN you can probably reproduce the bugs today, if you have a VM with a virtual SCSI controller that doesn't have a virtual SCSI BIOS.
  • Norman Diamond (unregistered) in reply to Norman Diamond's cat
    Norman Diamond's cat:
    {...}
    Sorry, I didn't notice that my cat had last used this PC to call Erwin Schrödinger a bastard. I'm the one who calls Microsoft a bastard.
  • eak (unregistered) in reply to Ebbe K
    Ebbe K:
    IMNSHO the real WTF is that it seems no one told this customer what this would do to his computer (i.e. render it totally useless). They all just said "don't do it".

    "E. T. told him that he didn't want to do that because it would wipe out the entire file system."

  • (cs)

    Tell the customer, "there's no way to delete slice 0 to save space."

    Technically, you're accurate.

  • Ablongator (unregistered) in reply to Bobby Tables
    Bobby Tables:
    ¯\(°_o)/¯ I DUNNO LOL:
    Bobby Tables:
    # ls -al /
-bash: /bin/ls: No such file or directory
    That's what "echo *" is for.

    It was more to point out that /bin was gone than to show what was left.

    All you have is a running bash shell, and nothing in the filesystem. How much of the stuff in /bin could you rewrite with just the bash shell?

    Might make a fun time-waster...

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