To make a long and expletive-filled story short, I ate some chocolate to calm myself as advised by my brilliant editor David, and was eventually able to recover the file because a temp file had been left behind. However, I couldn't bring myself to use the netbook again, too afraid of a repeat of the near-disaster.

That night, and all weekend, my software developer husband ran various macros and tests on the device, and determined that if it saved too quickly into a directory being scanned by the anti-virus software's real-time scanner, my error happened. With the real-time scanner off, he was able to regularly recreate small "save to a new filename" errors but never my catastrophic one.

Still uncomfortable, I checked Acer's Web site to look into technical support and possible repair/replacement of the device, largely for the hard drive but also for the sticky key (which at that time I hadn't attempted to repair) and Internet issues.

I have never been so unimpressed with a company.

Acer's troubling reliability and service
My email to support was answered in two days, which I did feel was reasonable. The recommendation was to return the device to Acer for repair. I could do this either by visiting the special Web site set up to facilitate repairs or by calling their tech support number. The form email says, "Currently we are experiencing high call volume, so please expect your hold time to be longer than normal." Concerned by the idea of a default of "longer than normal" hold time, I went to the Web site.

The online form permits the selection of only one issue, and none of the options matched my hard drive problems. I picked the best option I could find and filled out the comment field with the rest of my concerns, then moved on to the next page. The next page consisted of a form for creating a shipping label for sending the device (at my cost) to Acer. While I dithered over this, I received an email listing the information I'd submitted in the earlier form, along with a note stating that the Canadian depot accepted drop-off units. Wanting to avoid the cost of shipping, I decided to find out where this depot was located.

This information is nowhere in the email. It is nowhere on the Web site where I entered the request. It is nowhere on the http://www.acer.ca site. (There is an address there, but it appears to be a main corporate address and not the depot.) At http://www.acer.com, I found a link for service inquiries. Picking Canada, I was met with a page that read "the resource you requested is no more available."

I could have called to find out where the depot was, but at this point I had had enough. I have now disabled the anti-virus real-time scanning and am back to using the netbook, saving each file to multiple places each time I save to reduce the risk of failure. No failures in the last week, which does comfort me somewhat.

[Editor's note: we, here at ZATZ, are intimately familiar with Acer's return policy. We own quite a few Acer devices, including monitors and laptops. Every single device we've ever bought from Acer has had to be returned for service no less than twice over its life (actually, it'd be more, but the warranty ran out first). In fact, we're boxing up two more failed 24" monitors that'll go back to Acer this week (the third repair for each monitor).