OSNews

As a technician, you should be at least vaguely familiar with the tech support and warranty policies of most major computer manufacturers, none of whom will officially support a third party drive or device in their system. To do so absolves them of responsibility for failure / unforseen incompatibility of hardware that they did not supply you with in the first place. If another company wants to sell you a drive and tell you that it's compatible with, say, a G4 somethingorother running OS X.x, the onus should be on them to support you on it and its compatibility with the machine and the software you want to use it with. Why should anyone be required to spend the time and money on helping you operate a product that you didn't even purchase from them?

Also, using Microsoft as an example regarding software / hardware interaction support is an absolute farce and I hope you were joking when you put it in there. Microsoft isn't in the business of selling personal computers; they're selling an OS that needs to run on all kinds of different PCs with different hardware configurations. It's in their best interest to offer support on various manufacturers' hardware - it's an inherent part of their business. Apple, however, determines exactly what hardware their OS and other software is supposed to run on, and can easily limit their support to those predetermined configurations. As previously stated: why would they want to support an LG drive when they sold you a Pioneer to begin with?

That being said, it's too bad that they couldn't sell you the part on their own, surely a kink in their supply chain and ordering process - and hopefully they can correct that. Your situation was probably not anticipated when they set it all up. Believe it or not they're not required to help you upgrade your computer. You might just be SOL, but as others have pointed out, I'm sure you can find a solution elsewhere.

Simmer down and think of the logistics of the situation, and maybe you'll see how unreasonable so many aspects of your reaction are, save for what I've stated in the last paragraph. This angry consumer crap is a little to knee-jerk in this situation, or at least seeming far to all-consuming. Sometimes you need to do a bit of research and problem-solving on your own. Jesus, you're a technician, aren't you?