A thanx text at 3:00am from a presumably drunk company owner.
A little context a petrochemical company bought a chromatograph device (to analyze chemical mixtures) coupled with a server. It's a Dell R260. Thing is for some odd reason it didn't have an OS installed; it was supposed to be a turn key solution, but I guess someone messed up.
Anyway, I got a call from the company responsible for selling the system, I have dealt with this company for years and I would say I'm friends with the manager, they are good customers, well paying and very grateful, I've been invited to their christmas parties every once in a while, he also buys me lunch from time to time when I stay long hours. He tells me the server has no OS and they need to buy one ASAP and ask if I can help, its urgent, clock is ticking, should have been done by today (Thursday morning), I said if they are in a hurry, they can download the Windows Server 2025 LTSC trial (provided link) while I contacted my boss so we can provide the license.
At 6:00pm he calls, for some reason the IT guys at the petrochem company can't install the OS, I ask what's the problem and from what he tells me, I figure its missing storage drivers. So, a little later on a teams session I tell the IT guys they just need to download and install the drivers and even provide them the download link. For some reason that didn't work. The IT guys say they will figure it out, wrong drivers maybe, ok bye.
My boss calls me a few minutes later and asks me to go early next day to help as the manager doesn't have faith on the IT guys at the petrochem, I say sure, but thing is it's been like 10 years since I've gone to a petrochem facility and they have security policies just on security gear which I don't have, I contact my friend the manager and they provide everything I need, to be in their office at 7:30am. Next day I pick the gear and head to the petrochem facilities. I had to leave my phone at the lobby and was allowed to keep my laptop but wouldn't be able to connect to their network I was also told not to touch anything; I was NOT to use the server or anything at all just give instructions. Ok, so I head to the control room and this is where the fun begins.
So, we go step by step, boot from the USB and see what happens. It boots and immediately asks for storage drivers, they try put a 2nd usb drive with some drivers and it won't detect them. I ask if those are the ones I provided, they say no, so I say use those instead and now they are detected, but for some reason clicking install doesn't work. After hours downloading and testing drivers, no can do. We take a lunch break and when we return I figure I can slipstream the drivers into the OS. By the time they had already given me "carte blanch" to use the server and even have internet on my laptop. Also, I had suspicion they were not using the OS I provided so I downloaded it myself. I used rufus to put it on a USB and VOILA!!!
It took like 5 hrs to do something that took 30min tops. During all that time I had the owner on my neck, telling me if it wasn't done today, they would be penalized and forced to pay big bucks in fines. After I told him it was done at like 3pm, he was cheering and that my help was invaluable and couldn't thank me enough. At 3am I got a thankyou text, I assume the owner went to celebrate and sent the text. Today I went to the office to give back the gear, I talked to the manager who thanked me again, and said that they would be forever in debt... I didn't think he meant LITERALLY!!!
Sorry for the long rant. If something else happens, I'll let you know.
A little context a petrochemical company bought a chromatograph device (to analyze chemical mixtures) coupled with a server. It's a Dell R260. Thing is for some odd reason it didn't have an OS installed; it was supposed to be a turn key solution, but I guess someone messed up.
Anyway, I got a call from the company responsible for selling the system, I have dealt with this company for years and I would say I'm friends with the manager, they are good customers, well paying and very grateful, I've been invited to their christmas parties every once in a while, he also buys me lunch from time to time when I stay long hours. He tells me the server has no OS and they need to buy one ASAP and ask if I can help, its urgent, clock is ticking, should have been done by today (Thursday morning), I said if they are in a hurry, they can download the Windows Server 2025 LTSC trial (provided link) while I contacted my boss so we can provide the license.
At 6:00pm he calls, for some reason the IT guys at the petrochem company can't install the OS, I ask what's the problem and from what he tells me, I figure its missing storage drivers. So, a little later on a teams session I tell the IT guys they just need to download and install the drivers and even provide them the download link. For some reason that didn't work. The IT guys say they will figure it out, wrong drivers maybe, ok bye.
My boss calls me a few minutes later and asks me to go early next day to help as the manager doesn't have faith on the IT guys at the petrochem, I say sure, but thing is it's been like 10 years since I've gone to a petrochem facility and they have security policies just on security gear which I don't have, I contact my friend the manager and they provide everything I need, to be in their office at 7:30am. Next day I pick the gear and head to the petrochem facilities. I had to leave my phone at the lobby and was allowed to keep my laptop but wouldn't be able to connect to their network I was also told not to touch anything; I was NOT to use the server or anything at all just give instructions. Ok, so I head to the control room and this is where the fun begins.
So, we go step by step, boot from the USB and see what happens. It boots and immediately asks for storage drivers, they try put a 2nd usb drive with some drivers and it won't detect them. I ask if those are the ones I provided, they say no, so I say use those instead and now they are detected, but for some reason clicking install doesn't work. After hours downloading and testing drivers, no can do. We take a lunch break and when we return I figure I can slipstream the drivers into the OS. By the time they had already given me "carte blanch" to use the server and even have internet on my laptop. Also, I had suspicion they were not using the OS I provided so I downloaded it myself. I used rufus to put it on a USB and VOILA!!!
It took like 5 hrs to do something that took 30min tops. During all that time I had the owner on my neck, telling me if it wasn't done today, they would be penalized and forced to pay big bucks in fines. After I told him it was done at like 3pm, he was cheering and that my help was invaluable and couldn't thank me enough. At 3am I got a thankyou text, I assume the owner went to celebrate and sent the text. Today I went to the office to give back the gear, I talked to the manager who thanked me again, and said that they would be forever in debt... I didn't think he meant LITERALLY!!!
Sorry for the long rant. If something else happens, I'll let you know.