Not A Graceful Recovery For HP Customers 434
An alert reader named michael pointed out this article running at Infoworld on the policy instated by HP of supplying actual Windows XP backup media for their Pavilion only if owners really, really need them. While HP and other vendors have been moving to recovery partitions for a little while, it seems like HP customers have to jump through particular hoops to demonstrate they really need physical media, and aren't very happy about it. The article makes a good point too regarding the installation of Linux partitions. The banner ad on the page is for --guess what? -- Windows XP.
this would tick me off (Score:2, Insightful)
Won't affect corporate customers much (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Won't affect corporate customers much (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Won't affect corporate customers much (Score:2)
Who's to say Linux would be any different? (Score:5, Insightful)
You can rest assured that, even if they were shipping Linux on these machines, they would probably still opt for providing as little actual installation media as they can get away with. Gateway has always tried to take advantage of consumer ignorance to push their below-average workmanship, which is why they're slowly slipping down the tubes. All the more reason to buy a decent system from Dell, or even better, Apple. You get what you pay for.
Re:Who's to say Linux would be any different? (Score:3, Insightful)
I personally hope more consumers get burned by this. Until the average joe computer buyer discovers the heart aches we have to deal with, nothing will change. How many times have you heard, "Why are they picking on poor Microsoft, they are just doing business?"
-
It is hard to be brave, when you're only a Very Small Animal. - Piglet, Pooh's Little Instruction Book, inspired by A. A. Milne
Re:Who's to say Linux would be any different? (Score:3, Insightful)
HP Claims Licensing Trouble (Score:2)
The claim made in the article reads:
Granted - I find myself questioning how accurate this claim is. Is it HP officials going in to CYA mode? But at the same time, we've seen some odd things surface from the secret world of OEM licensing deals before.
Re:I buy WhiteBox (Score:2)
Your mileage may vary. I bought a low-end Netfinity server from IBM, which is well supported by IBM. It had all of the features I wanted (SMP, SCSI, ECC), which were not available on any "consumer grade" box. I've built plenty of computers. Sometimes it's nice just to be able to pull it out of the box, plug it in, and start using it.
I wouldn't buy a Presario, Pavillion or similar low-end computer. I've heard too many horror stories about them.
Re:I buy WhiteBox (Score:2)
Not everyone is a computer hobbyist. The people buying Dells etc. don't know jack 'bout northbridge, southbridge, RAM latency, detonator drivers, heat sinks, etc. To part out a PC, you need a clue! Clues are in short supply.
If they don't KNOW anything -- if they don't even KNOW that they are ignorant -- buying name brand is the obvious outcome. When you are clueless, you go where the glossy brochures and TV commercials lead you.
Re:I buy WhiteBox (Score:2)
I gotta come to the defense of Coke here. I have tried many a cola, and nothing tastes quite the same.
It's more expensive, but it's worth it to me. I'm picky. It's not about branding, it's about taste. I can't even drink Pepsi, it's vile. Taste matters.
If anyone with a golden tongue can recommend a cheap brand that tastes as good as real Coke, I'd be happy to hear about it.
Re:Who's to say Linux would be any different? (Score:2)
The GPL says that they'd have to make source available if they provide binaries. This doesn't mean they would have to install the source; only make it available. So, they could simply provide a postal address where you could send away for copies of the source, and that would suffice.
Re:Who's to say Linux would be any different? (Score:2)
Why not CD's (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Why not CD's (Score:2)
-
Let's have some new cliches. - Samuel Goldwyn (1882 - 1974)
Re:price per megabyte, my friend (Score:3, Insightful)
Something about the ability to install the OS you paid for on a new machine after junking your current one without paying them?
HP Bites (Score:4, Interesting)
We took it to Best Buy and spent two months going back and forth with them over the problems. They'd send it out for repair and it would come back broken.
In January the decided to just give him another machine. They settled on a HP...can't remember the model...off the shelf.
I set it up for him, and booted it. And it hung. Tried everything I could think of. No good. I called tech support, and was told to restore the thing from the partition. No good.
Next day, I went with him to the store to get it fixed. The desk techs tried to boot it, restore it, etc. No good.
After an hour or two of futzing with it, they grabbed another one for him.
Wiser now, he asked them to check it to be sure it ran.
It didn't.
Hours later, they had pulled the entire stock (4 of that model, + the one we had returned) and tried to run them. Nothing. Defective shipment? Who knows.
They gave him a similar Compaq and sent us on our merry way.
Re:HP Bites (Score:2)
I, personally, wouldn't want an army of disgruntled people taking care of my expensive hardware.
views from an Ex-HP support technician (Score:5, Interesting)
Absolute bullshit - i worked on the HP Pavilion support line (thru an outsourcer - www.stream.com) for 3 years - the majority of calls were due to crappy inferior integrated hardware(onboard sound/shared video memory), dodgy OEM drivers, and general windows flakiness due to sub-standard componenets.
For example, the 88xx series had major DVD playback issues - software decoder was a HP customised OEM'd piece of shit.
Researching this issue, i got a 'warezed' copy of the decoder that was sold directly via the vendors web site - no problems...
And the 31xx series (3 years ago)had a WD hard drive that was "guaranteed" to fail after 8 months of use. And would WD take them back? Would they fuck.... we had to let them fail, then replace them. Of course when the new hdd failed, you were SOL as they were outta warranty.
And for the rumor that returned Pavilions were cannibalized for new and/or repaired Pavilions.....
Re:views from an Ex-HP support technician (Score:3, Interesting)
You're absolutely right. I can't count the number of WD hard drives I've seen fail in the past few years. Pieces of shit, no doubt about it. But this is just in line with the general crappiness of hardware in the last few years. I got a monitor in 1995 that had dark spots on the screen. Returned it for a good one. Got another monitor in late 1999 that had its convergence shot to hell, replaced it with another one where half the screen was a lovely shade of purple. And don't even get me started on shitty modems. God, I've had to try to support those things. How anyone expects to get a stable connection out of something they paid $10 for is beyond me. And once these pieces of shit get to consumers, who has to support them? The modem makers? Yeah, right. You're lucky to find any kind of support phone number for many of the low-end vendors. Nope, the ISPs get to take these calls. Ditto for Internet Explorer and Windows's network components. MS makes the cash off these programs, yet when they start flaking out, the providers get the calls, not MS. And to return to hardware for a minute, has anyone actually had a successful tech support call with a motherboard maker? I have a friend who was only able to get someone to speak with him after calling the board maker's office in Taiwan. Luckily, he speaks Chinese.
I really must say that the state of computer support these days just plain sucks. And speaking of HP, a friend's mom bought one of those things a few weeks ago. She was having modem problems so my friend called HP. The tech had her open the case and find the modem. He had her pull it out, then told her to...and I'm not making this up...plug it back into the big green thing that everything is plugged into. When she replied, "You mean the motherboard?" he said, "Is that what it's called? Oh cool!"
Long overdue (Score:3, Interesting)
The first thing I did with my new computer, fortunately, was try out my new CD burner and burn the folder they had on there with all the Packard Bell drivers on it. I reformatted my machine (I hate default installs), then installed with an original Win98 CD. The drivers weren't there! So, I pulled out my trusty CDR which I'd just burned and found the drivers in there after some searching.
To make a long story short, not providing the original CDs is hardly a solution for most customers. Many questions are left unanswered:
- What if the hard disk crashes?
- What if I decide to install another OS on my machine and then want to put back the OS which came with my system?
- What if my partition table gets corrupted?
- What if I want to configure the hard disk into a RAID?
- If Windows really comes bundled with the computer, why don't I get the original retail CDs? Almost gives an illegal or unjust feel to the whole deal.
Anyway, '98 is long gone on that computer and I'm happily running Linux on it today. I'll never buy from Packard Bell again (for the CD issue, and for the absolutely poor tech support), and the chance of my buying from HP is pretty slim as well, at least till they get this mess straightened out.
Actually, I'm more of a Dell fan, but they've been getting under my skin, too. When configuring the options for your new computer (online store), you don't get to pick "I DO NOT want Windows or MS Office/Works bundled with this computer" as an option. I am forced to pay for something I probably won't use. This practice has got to stop. Hopefully the DOJ can give us a hand on that one.
Re:Long overdue (Score:4, Funny)
I would never admit that.
Re:Long overdue (Score:2)
Re:Long overdue (Score:4, Funny)
Anything as long as it's not a Packard Bell.
I actually work for HP... (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, I do work for HP Pavilion support. I lost my job at a Linux based router company, moved, and took the first job I could find. anyway...
HP's policy is that we included a copy, on a hidden partition with the computer, the specs state the fact, and so does an insert in the manual. The software (including hp learning adventure, which the recovery cds that are now available for purchase DO NOT include) would be 17 cds long (why the didnt use a dvd, i dont know). 7 of those cds are available now, and the only thign you have to do is call 208.323.2551 option 1 and give your info on the computer, get it registered and tell them that you deleted the recovery partition and need some recovery cds. They will charge tho though (which is the kicker) $9.95 for standard shipping (overnight is only 16) for the CDs.
All in all it sucks.. and I know a lot of the customers hate the policy, but most of them dont mind paying for them because they did get a copy when they bought the computer, and most of the realize that they did agree to the license in the manual, and they did have 14 days to return the pc if they wernt happy.
Please dont hate me because i work for hp, i dont like it any more than you do... *sighs*
Anyone know of any good IT jobs in the lexington, KY area ?? Email me [mailto] if you do.
And ONE more note about the CDs (Score:2, Informative)
They're still imaging the CDs, they didnt actually start offering them until this january 18th. We just don't have enough CDs to send to everyone.
I still dont agree with the charge for them. But all you have to do is call in and say you deleted the recovery partition.
Re:And ONE more note about the CDs (Score:2)
Why not DVDs? Why not all the software? Why did the engineers think the drive could not fail?
17 CDs??? (Score:2)
Re:17 CDs??? (Score:2)
It's a valuable software package which increases stockholder value of hard drive manufacturers.
Re:17 CD's not on my Compaq... (Score:2)
Incidentally, my Compaq didn't come with a Win98 CD either although I do have the Win98 license in the form of a sticker stuck to the bottom of my laptop. I honestly didn't worry about the lack of Win98 CD since I never needed to upgrade drivers and in that one even when I *really* broke things, the recovery partition worked well.
Now, one day, my HD died completetly and I had it replaced. Of course, now I ended up without OS. What did I do? Installed Mandrake Linux on it. Duh!
Re:I actually work for HP... (Score:2)
Re:I actually work for HP... (Score:2)
Ha ha, very funny. The "license" is not relevant to the discussion, since it is not a valid or binding document (much less ethical).
If you want to call it a replacement media cost, then fine. $9.95 is quite reasonable for seven CDs (although, it must be asked, what the heck are you loading on to the machine that requires seven CDs worth of data?). And yes, HP should consider switching to DVD-ROM if they're really tossing around that much data.
Schwab
Re:I actually work for HP... (Score:2, Informative)
If you do a "destructive recovery" ie, Format and Recover, you lose the other 10 cds which are on the user partition. (The HP Learning Adventure Crap, tis demo Sw from The Learning Center)
Tony
Re:I actually work for HP... (Score:2, Informative)
so yeah, yet gettin screwed.
WTF is wrong with www.imagestream.com? (Score:2)
WTF is wrong with www.imagestream.com? On Netscape 4.7, the page just blinks back and forth between all white and all gray. I switched off the proxy thinking that was the cause, and started a new browser process to be sure, and it's still doing the same thing. I looked at the HTML and I found:
That's really smart. Expire the page before it even finishes loading. Maybe you should be glad you work for HP's contractor ... unless you were their web programmer, in which case I see probable cause for letting you go.
HCF (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not a big fan of "recovery cd"s (Score:2, Informative)
Right now I'm running a 350MHz Compaq Presario. When I first got it, it had all sorts of pre-install crap-ola. Stuff like AOL, Prodigy, and a bunch of trial software I could care less about. And it didn't come with a OS cd, just a "recovery disk", so If I wanted to re-install the OS, I had to use the Recovery CD which would re-load the pre-installed software I worked hard to get rid of in the first place. Later on the disk mysteriously stopped working and my little brother got some virus on it that caused Windows not to work. I ended up borrowing a friend's OS CD he got with his computer and I've had no problems since then.
When I get enough money for a new PC, I'm gonna ask to make sure it comes with an full-install OS CD.
Bloody hell, 4G worth of recovery data (Score:2)
Oh wait, this is about saving the couple bucks it would take to include recovery disks. Most call centers cost the vendor a couple bucks every time you call. I understand a recovery disk that is tuned to the hardware from the store - not that a hardware junky like me cares for that, but whatever... the cost metrics will usually correct these issues.
Damn recovery CDs (Score:2)
It was my understanding that we bought a machine INCLUDING an (albeith inferior) OS and a wild variety of software (we specifically needed the FireWire stuff). Well, apparently not so.
The pre-installed Win2K was installed on two partitions using FAT32. It was impossible to get a clean single NTFS partition with the recovery CD's. They simply created the same C: & D: FAT32 partitions. I mean WTF?! Why do they think we ordered the Win2K version for an extra $150??
Even better,- if you installed 2K from a full CD, allowing you to create an NTFS partition, the bundled Sony Viao utilities/programs wouldn't install anymore, claiming a corrupted configuration (and being so nice as to recommend to recover from the provided recovery CDs). So for example, the special utilities needed to get certain keys to work couldn't be installed. So here you bought a $4K piece of crap that you can't use the way you want it to.
I finally hacked my way around it, but I ain't touching a Viao with a ten feet pole anymore.
Re:Damn recovery CDs (Score:2)
BTW, the vario is a good laptop. One of the best out.
-
USA Today has come out with a new survey - apparently, three out of every four people make up 75% of the population. - David Letterman
HP is feeeding them a line of...... (Score:2)
This is why I would probably buy from the Powerspec line of PC's at Micro Center. AFAIK, they have and will continue to ship standard OEM CD's and they don't have restore CD's to begin with either. I was also told by a sales guy at Micro Center when I bought my last whole PC that I could upgrade anything I wanted during the warantee period. I didn't end up doing that but when I decided to upgrade a bunch of stuff and move to a new case, they had used hotglue on the IDE cables right where they go into the drives. No big deal but it did kind of suprise me a little. Micro Center also seems to have some decent hardware in their new machines. Not the lastest stuff, but not econo 15 dollar graphics cards either. They models I saw in the paper included Geforce 2 MX based cards, and some even had TV out. Their whole packages and even their external devices and acessories are decently priced, but I find their build it yerself stuff seems to be a bit higher then it should be.
Re:HP is feeeding them a line of...... (Score:2)
Gluing the IDE cables is pretty common really. When boxes get tossed about, they can come out. As a side note, it usually prevents the Vendor from returning defective drives when the customer RMA's a box. A (little) nod to the customer anyhow...
Re:HP is feeeding them a line of...... (Score:2)
And you're RECOMMENDING these guys??????
Re:HP is feeeding them a line of...... (Score:2)
In any case, I said yes I would reccomend them. They even included a manual for the mainboard they used. How many companies do that? Actually, there was documentation for every piece of hardware that came with the system, mainboard, zip drive, network card, dvd drive, modem, soundcard....documentation all there as well as standard OEM install CD's for all apps preinstalled on the machine. Granted, this could have change since I bought the machine, but I doubt it. In fact, I even mentioned Linux when I was buying it and he said oh yeah lots of folks are doing that....and really, the only few problems I had with Linux on this machine was the winmodem (lucent chip) and the soundcard (aureal and not their fault that aureal went out of business). Everything else pretty much worked. Sure, not as nice if you had built it yourself, (like what I have now) but nice all the same.
Re:HP is feeeding them a line of...... (Score:2)
Powerspec is recovery CDs (Score:2)
You get a Win98 or WinME recovery CD.
Other than that, the hardware is relatively standard stuff. Good luck getting drivers, you need to figure out what each piece is, as the docs suck. Additionally, they stop "supporting" the model every few weeks when a faster processor comes out, and they don't put updated drivers.
However, when I need a Linux/BSD box quickly, they work great. I'd never put a production system on them, but for development and toy testing, they are cheap and easy to come by.
Alex
Re:Powerspec is recovery CDs (Score:2)
Um, on the finding out what stuff part, I think it's usually pretty easy to find that out especially since they use standard stuff. Right click on my computer and pick properties bud!
I wouldn't have a problem with this IF.... (Score:2, Insightful)
BYOB (buld your own box).
Re:I wouldn't have a problem with this IF.... (Score:2)
(-;
Nice try (Score:2)
So they are giving up 4 GB of diskspace for a recovery partition. I really wonder if the marketing material mentions that when they list the size of the harddisk.
IBM do it too... (Score:2, Informative)
Guess what? It shipped to us pre-built, but with no recovery CD or Windoze media at all. IBM wouldn't even sell me one. They told me I had to go to M$ and
buy direct.
I don't geddit. Anyone know why this is? I mean, I can't believe that on a $10k machine, they'd try a save the single buck (or less) that the CD cost....
You got the software... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:You got the software... (Score:3, Informative)
Hardly. Burning the recovery partition to CD-R, segmenting it god-knows-how onto 17 discs does not a bootable recovery disk make. For one thing, the recovery programs have no way of knowing which of the other 16 CDs the myriad files it needs are on, but that's just for starters.
In short it's like segmenting your car with a chainsaw so you can fit it in your friends 17 cars, and wondering why it won't run when you turn the key in the chunk with the steering wheel.
Re:You got the software... (Score:2)
Re:You got the software... (Score:3, Insightful)
0) burn a bootable CD which includes the most basic OS the recovery tools can run on, and the tools themselves.
1) burn the 17 CDs from the recovery partition (one would presumably have to unhide it first), keeping the directory structure intact (beyond that it doesn't matter which file is on which CD)
2) When your system needs restoring, create a partition of the same size as the old "recovery" partition, boot up to DOS, and copy all those 17 CDs to the recovery partition. (Hope you have a fast CDROM!
3) run whatever you'd do for a recovery.
I'm sure there are details I don't know about, and some config files might need tweaking or whatever, but surely something like this could work? Would offer an alternative for people who HP won't provide media to, who won't pirate a real installable copy of the OS, and who don't feel they should have to pay for a 2nd copy at retail.
I know people have done similar schemes to get around "recovery partition, no media" problems on similarly set up machines, back in the olden days when an installed OS would actually FIT on one or two CDs.
Step 1: Buy a Mac. (Score:5, Informative)
It comes pre-loaded with everything you need, and *gasp* Apple includes ALL the software on CD's!
They include your standard "Click one icon to reload your whole disk back to its original configuration", AND standalone CD's of all the OS's and apps on the system! And gee, they don't seem to be going bankrupt from included $.60 worth of CD's.....
Software Included [apple.com]
Everything is easier on a Mac. [apple.com]
(This from a Sun admin... who woulda thunk it.. Apple in the Unix business?)
Re:Step 1: Buy a Mac. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Step 1: Buy a Mac. (Score:2)
Macs have PCI slots.
Macs have IDE support.
Macs have places to put those memory chip thingies, and ports to plug in gadgets.
OK, so you can't overclock a modern Mac without getting our your soldering iron -- but it's not like they are sealed systems.
Hardware availability is an issue, I can't deny that... there aren't as many goodies, and there are a lot of $50 1-button mice for clueless Mac shoppers who don't understand the magic of USB. But it ain't as bad as "can't touch the hardware."
Re:Step 1: Buy a Mac. (Score:2)
I don't feel "locked in" at all... I can upgrade just about anything in my PowerMac, including the CPU.... And real, working USB and FireWire are a major bonus.
And not for anything, but there is NOTHING on the market even in the same ballpark as the Cinema Display.... 22" of digital LCD-y goodness! I was always a CRT guy, shunning the LCD's, till I saw this thing. Now I have one on my desk, and the Sun 21" CRT is in the closet. No comparison.
People who buy HP Pavillions won't buy a Mac. (Score:2)
Look at the price of a HP Pavillion.
Look at the price of a Mac.
See my point? People that buy HP Pavillions won't buy a Mac.
HP Pavillion Cheap, Mac Expensive.
I know someone who got a HP Pavillion, it's been back about 5 times too.
I think about everything that could break has broke down on the damn thing.
You get what you pay for.
Brand-name PCs? Phooee! (Score:3, Informative)
I swore off buying "big name" PCs back in 1989 when I spent a huge amount of $ on an IBM PS/2 model 70. (20MHZ 386 CPU, 4MB RAM, 120MB HD)
Within 11 months the PSU failed but was replaced under warranty.
At 14 months the 120 MB HDD died (stiction) and IBM wanted an extortionate amount for one of their proprietory replacements. In the end I simply junked the PS/2 and, for less than they were going to charge me to replace the drive, I bought a no-name clone with twice the processing power, four times the memory and a 220MB HD.
Then there was a friend of mine who bought a DEC laptop and ended up having to pay nearly ten times as much for RAM as I paid for the same amount of extra memory on my no-name clone laptop. And when his LCD display crapped out, they took eight weeks to fix it and wouldn't even give him a loaner!
At the risk of generalizing, I have to say that a lot of the money you hand over when you buy a "big name" PC goes into advertising the brand and not into providing you with better quality or service.
These days I buy good, reliable no-name clones and I know that they are:
1. easily upgradable
2. easily repaired with readily available parts
3. great value for money
4. compatible with just about every OS/app I try
The shop I buy my machines from will even sell me a PC sans Windows -- and without bitching about it! But if I do buy a machine with Windows, I get a legit copy of the disk and certificate.
Caveat emptor folks!
Re:Brand-name PCs? Phooee! (Score:2)
They were hassled about license problems once, but I don't know why. My company has bought over 100 machines from them, and every one has the hologram thingy. (If memory serves, they got some bogus '95 licenses from their supplier, so they wound up with only a few grand in legal bills).
But besides the convenience, there is one big factor in their favor: something breaks, a part is available to fix it. Everything is off the shelf, no custom BS. And by the time you figure S&H, the sales tax is a wash. Not to mention that I get certain perks available only to large HP, Dell, etc. customers: I can custom configure OS settings and so forth prior to delivery. Makes it much easier to install our apps and the latest service packs on a single machine before the drive is ghosted (and then the legit serial number is put in. Relax, I've got a massive box of WinNT CD's).
Agreed. Except... (Score:2)
In fact.. I only HAVE laptops.
on that note..
My Vaio z505le... I should have thought harder before buying this 18 months ago.
It takes non-standard ram.
BIOS will only boot of a particular brand of external pcmcia cdrom (not scsi, either).
Thankfully my godlike powers let me rig up a convoluted process of partitioning, network booting, etc.
Laptops.. I'm really starting to wonder. Some officemates just picked up the latest Toshiba Satellites. Wow. 2 grand...
Beautiful display, dvd, smartmedia reader, SD, big hard drive, 512MB, firewire/usb/etc. The works, basically.
All I could really want in a PC.. even being the PC nut that I am.
ANd when I have to go travelling.. I can take my army of PC's with me.
Buy a Mac... (Score:2, Informative)
Restore to full "factory functionality," or start from scratch and customize with a brand spanking fresh retail copy of the OS? It's your choice... not the manufacturer's.
Think about it.
Ha Ha (Score:2, Informative)
1 - OS 9.2.2 install for installing just OS 9.
1 - OS X install for installing just OS X.
the 4 restore CDs to make the computer like new.
1 - applications cd with individual application installers for the third party bundles.
plus two blank CD-Rs
Want a real Windows CD? (Score:2, Informative)
They also provide a floppy disk that you can use to recover your system to its as-shipped configuration. What they do is put a hidden file containing the original C drive image in the D drive. In my case it only takes 1.5 GB out of my drive, which is much better than taking 10+GB. They also give you instructions for creating additional C drive images using the ghost utility.
Unfortunately, online ordering from them isn't the best, but still, for what you get, it's probably worth the annoyance.
BTW: If you want Linux, or even Solaris (!), they do that too.
a broader issue (Score:2)
One of the reasons it's getting to be such a hassle to maintain a PC is that the capacity of hard disks has greatly outstripped the capacity of affordable backup media. I'm finally getting a DVD burner, but even so, the cost of the media is going to keep me from making backups of my whole system more than once in a blue moon.
Since I'm using a fairly new and buggy os (Mac OS X), I've ended up having to clean install my system several times. Even though I had install disks, it was an all-day project each time, and that was a day during which I couldn't get any work done on my computer. But now manufacturers are going to expect us to stop working for a week while we wait for install disks???? Argh...
Maybe the future lies with automatic overnight internet backup services. Every night your machine would dial up the modem, and do an incremental backup onto a server. This month's Scientific American has an interesting article about this kind of internet-wide distributed computing/storage application. They suggest that backup services could be offered in return for the use of your CPU cycles overnight, for projects like SETI@home.
Certain Compaqs are not much better (Score:2)
My brother had a Compaq laptop which started to have hard drive problems. After a complete reformat, we found that the "Recovery CD" would not recover, and was spitting out random error messages.
A support call into Compaq told us that the recovery CD supplied with the laptop did not have all the information. It relied on a secondary partition (which is visable, virus infectable, etc.) in order to complete a restore.
Fortunately, they were willing to send out a two-CD repair set. A week later and several hours worth of things installing/backing up in seemingly the most awkward way possible, my brother's system was working again.
And while doing some support tech work, I did indeed setup some IBM computers that came with no visable restore functionality at all.
(Aren't cost cutting measures grand?)
your best bet for recovery (Score:3, Informative)
How do you do this? Well, here is what has worked for me in th epast. Boot from a Linux recovery CD, NFS mount a remote directory, and use something like: "gzip /nfs/hp-backup-hda.gz".
Or, you can do it partition by partition with something like "dd if=/dev/hda of=/nfs/hp-partition-info bs=1024 count=100", then "gzip /nfs/hp-backup-hda1.gz", etc. To restore, first restore the partition info, then the individual partitions.
I haven't found a bootable CD with USB support yet, but once that comes out, you can also image to a USB disk. There are lots of really cheap and small USB disks out there now that you can use for this kind of backup.
(Use this at your own risk and understand what you are doing. If it doesn't work for you, well, too bad.)
correction (Score:2)
Whole disk:
Partition by partition:
If you can't figure out how to restore it, you probably shouldn't be using this method, and you use it at your own risk anyway. There are also commercial disk imagers that work over the network that you can use.
Re:your best bet for recovery? Doubtful (Score:2)
How about the EULA (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:How about the EULA (Score:2)
Anyway, did you assign agency to the HP tech? Almost definately not. They SOLD you a device. They did not license it. If the HP tech agreed to the license, that is their problem, not yours.
As far as MD goes, fuck 'em in the ass. Quite honestly, I'm so freakin' bored, I wouldn't mind testing out the legality of the UCITA. Goddamn assholes. We're getting ripped like this with that prick Glendenning in Annapolis, I can't even imagine how bad things would be with the Republicans there.
Anyway, I doubt that the license is binding on you. Just the tech.
I'm sick of HP's crap. (Score:2, Interesting)
I borrowed my parent's digital camera last week to take a few pictures, I didn't have the driver CD and I'm using windows xp, so required drivers aren't on that cd anyway. I go to HP's site and it proceeds to give me instructions on ordering a CD from them for replacement drivers. As near as I can figure, digital camera drivers are analogous to scanner drivers and should be about 2 megs at most, TWAIN crap and all. As long as I have photoshop I have no need for whatever crap they shovel onto the CD. I would have been a happy camper if I could have just taken the 30 seconds to download the drivers. Instead I am supposed to jump through hoops and shell out for a CD for software for a piece of hardware I already own.
Earlier in the week, I was at work, dealing with one of their combination printer/fax/copier machines, the laserjet 3100. I couldn't find the driver cd initially, and didn't care to try to install standard postscript drivers since they usually don't work on lower end printers anyway. I try to download the drivers off of their website, once again, I'm instructed to order a CD. For something as simple as printer drivers. 30 seconds of my time turned into 30 minutes as I had to hunt down the driver CD in the woman's office and get the drivers installed.
As a result I sent a nastygram to HP asking why drivers for some of their more obscure products (anything not supported by built in windows drivers anyway) aren't available on their site. The response I got basically amounted to "you need to order a CD because we don't have the drivers up, so you need to order a CD and you can find the instructions for ordering a CD on our site."
Last week we also had a 2 month old laserjet 4100N fail with a "fuser error", a 1200 die with a "printer tray mispick" error, the 8100s seem to have a massive issue where the third tray jams constantly. and our 8500C(or 8550, forget which) was slower than all hell. HPs tech support gave us a song and dance about how the engine speed only related to multiple copies of the same page... blah blah blah. They finally got a marketroid in there to say that it wasn't right, he called tech support and we spent half a day working on this crap, only to use older drivers that let it work at a reasonable speed.
Last week I had to set up another printer in another department, using one of their external JetDirect print servers. Apparently the things do not like it if you dont have a DHCP server. When setting them up manually, for some stupid reason they will only take one change to their network settings at a time. Change ip address, ok, go back in, change subnet mask, ok, go back in, change gateway, ok...
Don't even get me started about the inkjets.
So, yeah, long story short I'm sick of HP and will do anything to avoid buying/touching them in the future. Their tech support is lousy and flat out lies, they won't give proper driver support for their lousy products, and their products are shoddy to begin with.
They are truly an evil company who is going to take Compaq down with them, not that compaq was that spectacular to begin with.
Re:I'm sick of HP's crap. (Score:3, Insightful)
HP used to be the *best* electronic products around. I guess they spun their talent off into something called Agilent and are now producing marginally functional mass market garbage, living off their declining good name (and presumably not forever).
I understand that Folger's used to be a renowned coffee shop. (in SF I think?) Procter & Gamble decided to get market share of low end coffee so they bought the coffee shop for the name. Then they canned dreadful low end robusta beans that taste like last week's newspaper under that name. They apparently got a leg up in the lousy coffee market because people had some vague memory of some coffee lover saying nice things about something called "Folger's".
I fell for it. I have an HP printer whose feed mechanism died after three months of light use, and I'm typing this on a Pavilion which I had to ship back to Oregon to replace the installed hard drive, because no one could replace it under warrantee within 1500 miles of here.
Meanwhile my HP RPN calculator from 1983 is still working fine. Wierd, huh? It's just a name now, what we are seeing is not the real HP.
If Carly succeeds in getting Compaq after they succeeded in getting DEC, three former quality brands will go down in one ugly mess of goodwill mining. Are there any reliable brands left, or have they all been sucked of their value by the ineffable brilliance of day traders and quarterly profit reports?
This has been a thorn for years... (Score:2, Informative)
Heres the situation. They give you one or more of the following.
- recovery partition and NO CDS (not even windows)
- CDs for OEM software and a Recovery CD. Now, the recovery CD would be all well and good, but, they usually have NO repair/reinstall on a different partition option. So you HAVE to format your HD to use this CD (who the HELL thought of this, i want to maim them).
Basically, either way your screwed. If you lose a windows system file to corruption (this seems to happen WAY too often), most of these poor customers end up reformatting their HD. And with a 'recovery partition', your still ****** most of the time .
The point is, do the increase of tech support calls and returns make up for the short sited cost savings on not putting in CDs of the system and all the OEM software you were supposedly getting (you dont really 'have' it unless you have a way to install it IMHO). No.
And for the record, when you buy an apple machine, you get restore Cd's, and you can count on their usefullness. It only takes a few CDs, but EVERYONE who has a mac has them. It helps in tech support SO much to know that everyone has at LEAST the base on CD. You get the OS, basic utilities, and Apple software. It should be a standard in the PC world, not an exception.
Original disks are only part of the problem (Score:2, Interesting)
ON a related note Microsoft also encourages the practice of restore media, over the original disks. As a member of the OEM system builder program I have received requests to not include the original CD when selling an OEM Windows version on new systems.
Any companies selling computer at either Wal-Mart or Radio Shack have since stopped selling computers. The Wal-mart/Radio Shack kiss of death. Good riddance I say. Fare well proprietary Compaq, farewell sub-standard HP!
This is a good thing. (Score:2)
Later I had to help a neighbor with her 95 system (I forget what kind it was), after she had some completely trivial problem with her screen resolution or wallpaper or something. She was told by tech support to use her recovery CD, which was really old by then. I had to talk her over the phone through getting a new browser from Netscape's FTP site using ftp through a DOS command prompt window. That sucked.
If HP's new recovery partition were burnable to CD-R, then this would be a win-win situation for everybody. Burn the CD, then when you call tech support, just say you don't have one because they never gave you one! If the easiest way to get you off the phone is no longer the recovery CD, they'll actually have to use their brains to help you out, or at least transfer you to someone who has any brains at all.
Unfortunately they've effectively prevented this by bloating the recovery partition with 4 GB of crap. You can't tell me that's all code. At least 99% of it has to be ads and bitmaps.
only affects newbies or the un-educated (Score:2)
Yes, you pay more, but you get far more in return.
This would only suprise someone that hasn't a clue... as all us seasoned pro's knew this for the past 3 years... and ALL the companies do it.
Cutting costs. (Score:2)
There are problems when you start to pre-load software. I bought a HP PC which came with a recovery CD. After using the PC for a few months I 'recovered' it a few times. It was an open-box buy, and I think the previous owner returned it because of a virus. Fixed that, recovered and broke it again over and over. All the times my fault.
But later on down the road I started to install other OS's and even different Windows versions. The problem was while I was under warrantee I couldn't select which software I wanted to restore. Basically I had Windows which I couldn't install, McAfee AV... couldn't install, numerous apps which I couldn't install.
So, they need to have a better recovery system. Take hint from the on-line install options made available from linux vendors[install via FTP today?]. Do something to ensure that users [lamers] can re-install the base and licensed software.
Re:straight from the factory to you... (Score:2)
Re:straight from the factory to you... (Score:2)
Capability to build a computer != capability to install OS
Clean OS != reinstall OS
Of course, it's an empty statement from me since I can build a computer from scratch, install an OS of many sorts.
Re:straight from the factory to you... (Score:2)
Re:straight from the factory to you... (Score:2)
Re:straight from the factory to you... (Score:2)
Re:Is this really news? (Score:2)
MS ain't waiters, we don't tip 'em
Treat XPs like Windows take 'em hope and rip 'em
Scan the back cover, do the quality inspection
Put an ad in the paper in the classified section
Re:Is this really news? (Score:2)
(Of course it's not like we ever needed any help. The only competition ever was when Universal released the "Women" cassette and reasonably priced it at $2.)
Think about it for a minute - Kiev has five CD factories. We produce polycarbonates (CD-Rs are nowhere to be found - this is the real thing) 24/7. The process is highly streamlined. We sell XP for $2.50 and make an immense profit. If Microsoft did this, they would too, and they would be competeting directly against US.
Re:*yawn (Score:3, Informative)
Unfortunately, a nuke and reinstall is about the only option in most cases. Typically a user calls and says "My computer is locking up..."
Oh boy, good luck figuring that out Mr. phone tech support guy. Even if you can trace it down to a single program over the phone, you're probably just fixing a symptom caused by another problem.
The truth of the matter is, a lot of problems can be solved eventually, but -very few- of them can be solved with less than having an on site tech working for a few hours, and that sort of support simply isn't reasonable to expect from consumer level equipment. If you want that sort of service then go to your local computer repair place and pay for it.
And I'll be honest here, I work in a computer repair shop, and more and more often we are seeing machines come in that simply can't be fixed short of a reinstall. It's gone from maybe 10% to i'd say around 40% in the past 3 years. Windows is just getting worse and worse all the time.
Re:*yawn (Score:2)
That is a cop-out.
I am a tech support guy at an ISP. If we could rely on a recovery CD instead of real troubleshooting, life would sure be easier. It is very, very rarely that we have to tell a customer to go to his computer vendor.
The vast majority of issues that come our way, even those that seem at first rather complex, are resolvable over the phone by a good tech (granted, most people who call us can at least boot their OS, so that is some advantage for us).
Of course, on those rare occasions when we do make a referral to the vendor, we know exactly what will happen. Within 60 seconds, the question will be asked "Do you have your recovery cd?"
Re:*yawn (Score:2)
Funny you should mention that, since this computer repair shop where I work is also a computer store and an ISP. I started as the computer repair guy but now I'm the Network Administrator and I spent my time as ISP phone support as well.
Trust me, ISP calls are far, far easier than computer repair center calls.
Re:*yawn (Score:2)
We do restore the registry for some issues, troubleshoot third party conflicts, resolve gpf's and ipf's. We do see systems that seem to be on their last legs, and often enough are able to help these people over the phone. Users aren't very good at distinguishing OS and TCP/IP issues; and there aren't many OS issues that we can't try to fix, with some success.
If we can't resolve an issue and it's OS-related, we do refer, but that's rarely. Anybody that gets referred to an OEM, generally are going to get their system restored. Even when we know that issue can be resolved with new drivers or a registry rollback.
Excuse me for thinking that it's a cop-out, maybe I'm wrong. But why even bother offering "OS Support" if that support begins and ends with a restore?
Re:*yawn (Score:2)
Microsoft Window's recovery: guaranteed destruction of all customer's data.
Linux recovery: I've used it to recover 3 gig of data from my boss's hosed new XP laptop. (needs NTFS read-only module).
Windows is just getting worse and worse all the time.
I think you're right.
Re:WOW, manufacturers don't make it easy for users (Score:2)
Pretty much, anyone smart enough to do the job really well is smart enough to work in a better position.
Re:WOW, manufacturers don't make it easy for users (Score:2)
Re:Easy. (Score:2)
Now I just tell them to buy a Dell and if it breaks, Dell sends someone to their house to fix it. No fuss, no muss.
Re:HA.. Looks like HP is adopting Compaq's evil wa (Score:2)
The Recovery CD reads the extended partition on the hard drive.
The Quick Restore CD set, which contains all the preinstalled software, is $10 plus shipping (there is a free option).
If the hard drive had any bad blocks then you should have called tech support, they would have replaced the drive for you.
Yes the BIOS is lame but what do you expect? If you overclock the system and fried the mobo you wouldn't expect compaq or anyone else to replace the board under warranty would you? And of course you would tell tech support that you overclocked right?
Re:What do you expect? (Score:2)
I didn't buy it - my employer did. Like most companies they feel some crazy need to kowtow to MS. Personally I find I can do everything I need to without paying a fee to MS. Except perhaps buy a computer without MS installed on it - and if this digital content protection stuff goes any farther, it may well become illegal to buy and run a computer without MS Windows installed on it.
As far as the Microsoft Presario, it might as well be. Microsoft is the one that sets the licensing terms - they won't even let the OEM change the layout of icons on the desktop. Compaq and so on are stuck with whatever MS demands of them.
I really am amazed by the level of Microsoft Love that is surfacing on
All Microsoft did was stamp out all their competition from the early days of the PC. Now the are trying to rewrite history - 'Microsoft invented the internet' (yes there are people who believe that) and 'Microsoft invented the GUI'. Makes me feel like upchucking.
Now that Microsoft has all their desktop competition stamped out, and the DOJ put to bed they are turning the screws with XP. Soon Hailstorm will kick in and you won't be able to pay for anything on the Internet without MS getting a percentage.
I'm glad my kids are the ages they are now. I can see a future where every baby born is immediately signed up for Passport from which an annual MS Windows license fee is automatically deducted.
George Orwell may have been a few years early, and he didn't anticipate that it would be a corporation that would be watching.
Re:What do you expect? (Score:2)
A quick look-see through old patents shows that Xerox is the true inventor of the GUI. Is this correct? And DARPA created the internet to connect universities; accurate?
Re:What do you expect? (Score:2)
Hmmm... Microsoft did not have an exclusive ownership to "DOS" at that time. They bought a license to something called QDOS from Seattle Computing, and resold it to IBM in one of the greatest coups in history. IBM then customized it, and supplied it with their PC's as IBM PC-DOS. One of the burning questions at the time was whether you were better off running PC-DOS or MS-DOS on your clone system. Many people I knew preferred PC-DOS.
Seattle Computing still held a license to QDOS, so it would have been quite possible for Compaq to go to Seattle Computing as well.
The fact of the matter is that without the deal with IBM to supply DOS for the PC, Microsoft would probably have been a low-end language shop that petered out around 1984 or so. IBM made Microsoft, but unfortunately did not have the corporate vision to keep the evil genie in the bottle.
The day Gary Kildall went flying is the saddest day in the history of the computer industry.
Re:HP: the corporate software pirates (Score:2)
In every country where they have a distribution agreement with Microsoft?