Kennidi Beatie made her third frustrating trip this week to a California Department of Motor Vehicles office on Wednesday, only to be told again that the DMV's computers were still down and her life was still in limbo.
Her purse containing her driver's license and checkbook was stolen from her burglarized vehicle on Saturday, and her bank accounts remain frozen because she had no driver's license to prove her identity.
Others told similar stories as they waited out what officials called a "perfect storm" of simultaneous hard-drive failures that caused a computer outage crippling two-thirds of DMV offices this week.
The department's disaster recovery systems were not designed to handle such severe failures over a short period of time, DMV spokesman Jaime Garza said in an email.
"I thought I'd just give it a whirl every day. Sooner or later they'll have to work, I guess," Beatie said as she waited in line outside the DMV office in Roseville, 20 miles northeast of Sacramento. "I'm at, like, a standstill, so that's frustrating of course."
Garza said experts were working to repair the system and get office functions back online. But he did not provide an estimate for completing the work.
The DMV said Thursday morning that most of its 188 offices are now offering full services. As of 4:30 p.m., field offices in San Jose and Inglewood are still unable to process driver's license or vehicle registration matters. Another six, including Concord, can deal with driver's licenses but not registrations.
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Online services remain functional.
DMV officials have said the computers were not hacked or targeted.
"Our staff has been working around the clock to correct this computer hardware failure, which was caused by the loss of several hard [disks] in a primary and backup system," DMV officials said in a statement. "The DMV system was not compromised by any outside entity."
It was not immediately clear what caused the disks to fail.
"Industry experts would characterize the events experienced in the DMV system, over the past few days, as 'the perfect storm,' and this is a series of events that the department has not previously witnessed," Garza said.
The offices were able to provide road tests for drivers and scheduled appointments for people unable to accomplish their DMV business.
People lined up outside Bay Area DMV offices Wednesday because officials said things would be back to normal. Many were upset that systems were not working when the doors opened.
Anand Sudhini of Santa Clara has showed up to his neighborhood's office every day since the beginning of the week, but hasn't been able to successfully complete his paperwork.
"Super frustrating," he said. "It's been three straight days at the DMV and you know how the DMV is. It's not a pleasant experience for anyone."
Matthew Knoll told a similar story. The Mountain View resident visited a DMV office in Santa Clara Tuesday only to be told that he would have to return the following day. That second trip turned into another bout of frustration.
"The DMV said that the computers would be back up this morning and they're not so another wasted trip," he said Wednesday morning.
While the latest outage began Monday, some offices also had trouble Friday because of a scheduled security upgrade, Garza said.
Lisa Harris' husband attempted to update the couple's vehicle registration twice, on Friday and Monday, without success as the family tries to avoid a steeper penalty that they expect will top $100.
They recently moved, and the registration due in August went to their old address. Lisa Harris left the Roseville DMV office Wednesday after failing a third time.
"Very, very frustrating," she said, criticizing the DMV's lack of communication about when the computers would be working again. "It's a guessing game, and then they're not telling anyone and you're standing in line, so it's just frustrating."
Customers facing late fees as a result of the outage can fill out a form or write a letter requesting that the fee be waived, Garza said.
In a statement, DMV officials promised to review protocol so that "events of this magnitude" do not reoccur.
The DMV asked those with problems to call its technical support services at 877-563-5213. To find out if a local field office is up and running, customers can visit the DMV website for the complete list or call 1-800-777-0133.
