Piston Honda

I just bought a new HP, because I wanted to try out a 64-bit processor and I didn't have the time to build one from scratch. It seems like a pretty nice system, with one major hang-up: They didn't give me an XP CD!

I am pretty pissed because there was no indication on their website that they only provided a "recovery partition", and I spent the extra money to get the XP Pro upgrade.

This completely blows. I wonder if the product key on my machine will work w/ another XP CD. Even if so, they didn't give me any of the other software or drivers. I'd like to be able to install the OS, the drivers, and a program or two w/o all of the hundreds of bullshit programs this thing came loaded w/.

I was able to burn some "Recovery CDs", but all these dois re-image the hard drive, so I'm shit out of luck if I want to try setting up a dual-boot w/ Linux.

I've been on the phone and emailed a bunch of donkeys on their support team, and I keep getting the same canned responses. Why don't these incomps realize that the "Recovery Partition" isn't going to solve all of my problems???

I even paid the extra money to get XP Pro instead of Home, and now I'm really fuckin' pissed. I can't find anywhere on their website that indicates that you are just getting a pre-installed image.

I'm seriously debating returning the thing and just getting my money back.

Any other ideas?

oblivion

do you mean the XP recovery CD?

u know, those things come with all computer packages. They dont just give away free OS CDs. They do that so u can only use the CD on the desktop you bought it with.

But....the CD-Key is still valid with any other computer

Piston Honda

No, they didn't give me any CDs. They made a separate partition on my hard drive with a disk image which I can use to "Recover" my system, but that's it.

Shauk

thats HP for ya, you can call them and request cd's instead of the partition I believe. I mean thats your hard drive space, not thiers.

be prepared to spend a while on the phone however

Sion

get on the phone with someone, anyone, at HP and tell them they will be getting the damned machine back if you dont have a full XP cd in your mailbox in 5 days. take no shit from them. demand the disk or return the machine. end of story.

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Silverbrain

I deal with that B.S. quite frequently. A customer comes in, the OS is toast and I need to rebuild so I ask for the recovery cds which they never made. Now when they get the comp back they get XP fresh, no applications of any sort other then what comes in XP and so I get the third degree of "how am I to open word files? how am I to burn cds? blah blah."

I love the Dell way, XP CD, and CD's for all the other applications that come with the computer, so you can pick and choose and not consume your hdd with junk apps.

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Lotronex

My toshiba laptop came with a set of 3 recovery CD's, which let you choose what programs you want to install in "advanced recovery". I just wiped the drive, installed a my copy of Pro, and then took the programs I wanted off the CD, works fine.

Pragma

While you have every right to get the CDs from HP, and lord knows I hate it when OEMS don't give you the OS CDs, another option is to simply chip up the 10$ or whatever to buy the "Media Kit" from MSFT for WinXP. You legally have a license for Windows XP Pro, so there shouldn't be any problems with ordering the CD media.

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punx1325

You have to call them and ask for the CD's. HP is really cheap about those sort of things. It will be problems like this which are just the beginning of your HP system. Just wait till the Adware kicks in! Sorry to be the barrer of bad news, but if you don't reformat that computer with a real Windows CD you are going to run into some major problems in the near future. Out of all the computers I do repairs on, half of them are HP's.

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westothemax

At the very least, keep a CD on hand of the drivers for you computer available on HP's website. If you reinstall Windows and realize your network and modem drivers are unsupported you might have trouble getting onto the Internet to download the drivers.

HP support hasn't been that bad in my experience. The quality of their computers has been pretty bad though.

billege

You own a license to XP. They don't get to tell you what format that'll be in, and they don't get to hold your HD hostage. What happens when the HD crashes, catastrophically? Recovery partition won't help much then...buggers.

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StormBerlin

We get a lot of returns from pissed off customers because HP doesn't include a recovery disk. Most places will make one for you for about eight to ten dollars. Or you could just call HP... but I wouldn't reccomend it.

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tropple

I hate HP. I will never ever purchase another computer from them.

I spent upwards of 30 hours on the phone with various people at their organziation and never did get an XP cd out of them.

They participate in the Microsoft "Vision" program. It's a fucking scam. They have one fucking image that they blow down to every damned machine. If you every have a problem, Pow! you're not only back at square one, you're at square one with all of the lame software they think you want.

HP SUCKS.

/end rant

My advice? Return the damned box to them.

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Piston Honda

Several people have mentioned that I can buy the XP media for about $10. Can anyone tell me where? I'd gladly pay $10 to get this fiasco over with.

HP's tech support could be upgraded by replacing them with a well written Perl script. They must get incentive bonuses for ignorance and stupididty.

theburner

HP sucks. Pure and simple, HP sucks. I had the same "hidden recovery partition" and no disks.
HP sends out an email asking me to run a disk utility because they have a recall on 40GB HDD that may have shipped with my system. I run the utility, it says I don't qualify for the recall because I have the wrong HDD.
Fast forward 2 months. My HDD goes bad. Real Bad. Like no boot bad. I open the system up, remove the HDD... GUESS WHAT. I did have the HDD that was on Recall. I call HP and the offer to send me a 60GB replacement. (That was actually a good thing!). I ask what I am supposed to do about the OS. Oh, sorry sir. We will cover the drive because it is on recall, but your system is out of warranty and not elegible for a recovery CD. Very sorry, please buy HP again!
That was the last PC I bought from an OEM. A little trial and error and tons of reading have brought me into the build your own arena.
BTW, the only company I would even consider buying a cookie cutter PC from is Dell.

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hrdwareguy

Welcome to the world of big business computing.

Most big computer manufacturers don't get individual Windows CD's to ship with their product.

What they do get is a single special CD from Microsoft, and a shit load of license keys. They can make copies of the Cd if they want to, but are not required to if they provide a means of recovery. So what they do is install the OS once to a machine with a specific hardware configuration, then image it to all the other machines of the same configuration.

The reason places like Dell and Gateway don't do this, is because you can customize your machine so they would have to make hundreds of these images to satisfy each combination of hardware, that's just not practical. Do these places have someone sitting at each machine running the Windows install from the CD, no. The create a base machine. Then they run a utility called sysprep and then image that machine.

Sysprep rips out all the hardware info and forces the machine to go through a mini setup the next time it is rebooted. This setup detects all the hardware and installs the appropriate drivers. HP doesn't do this, because they don't allow you to customize your system.

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mikec

I agree with the general consensus here that HP sucks donkey dick, their policies and their machines. Send that mother back!

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rocinante2003

I guess thats where my little shop wins out.

I remember a few years ago buying some dell laptops with office pro, and Win 3.11. When they where delivered, I had so many HUGE boxes of software, full manuals etc, i could have built a small house lol. Now your lucky if the only reading material you get is the EULA.

Polyphobic

I couldn't have said it better myself. return that piece of garbage. I have been working on an older hp with that same issue. Piece of shit!
hp is the new packard bell

Buy a dell or better yet build your own. It's not that difficule anymore. IMHO

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Dragonlich

Actually... I'm gonna play the devil's advocate for a bit.

Microsoft doesn't like to supply CDs - they're too easy to copy and abuse. They encourage their position by giving a discount to companies that use "recovery partitions" or other non-standard install media. They've been doing this for a couple of years now, since Windows ME, but people still expect to get the damn original cd. What people don't seem to understand is that when you buy the Windows OS with a computer, you buy the *right to use the Windows OS with that specific computer*. You don't buy the media it's distributed on, just the right to use Windows. Therefore, there's no reason for MS or HP or anyone else to give you those discs, no matter how upset you are. As long as they provide you with the OS and a valid license, they've done their legal duty.

Why the hell does every John Doe need a friggin Windows install cd when there's a perfectly good way of re-installing the OS *without* it? Does this original cd have some sort of magical properties that allow the average computer user (note use of average!) to install it better or something? The answer, of course: No, it does not. Most people buying a HP don't *want* a Windows cd; they want to be able to re-install Windows if needed, and have been told by their local computer nerd that they need an original disc. HP uses a recovery partition with all the software (Works suite, etc) pre-loaded, which allows the average user to get back to a working computer in the least amount of time. With an original Windows disc, and all the seperate discs of the programs HP supplies, the average user would have to do much more work to get his computer back to working conditions, if they are able to do it at all.

See where this goes? <b>You</b> might need the Windows disc, but most people shouldn't get the disc at all, because it'll only confuse them. In other words, supplying the windows disc (instead of using a recovery partition) will actually reduce the service HP supplies to it's users. You are not an average HP buyer, so their service isn't going to be of much use to you!

...but luckily, there's a solution to your "problem". First of all, HP allows you to make a bunch of recovery cd's, which will allow you to re-install windows in case of a harddrive failure. Furthermore, your Windows license and key are usable with every (similar) Windows installation medium available. That means you can use your Windows XP Pro US key with any official Windows XP Pro US install cd. It is even legal to copy one from your friends, or even to get it somewhere else (download it), as long as you use your own license and key. And finally, HP allows you to buy a set of recovery discs from them for a reasonable fee.

As for the drivers and such: you can probably download these from HP's website. Besides, most of the hardware is just standard, with standard chipsets, regular video chips, etc. You can probably use the drivers from the original producers (Intel, Ati, etc).

FYI, I work at a computer shop, and we sell both the recovery version *and* the OEM cd version. The first costs 100 Euros, the latter 129 Euros. Technically, you can buy the former, and ask us to make a copy of an OEM cd for a reasonable fee (We'd do that for free). But at the end of the day, the recovery version is the most user-friendly, simplest and fastest method of re-installing Windows, even if doesn't come with a CD.

in short: stop blaming HP, start blaming MS if need to blame anyone at all.

nothingx

You're right about the recovery option being simpler and not everyone needing a CD, but here's where I take issue... He called and asked for CD copy of the software he purchased. They should, without question, honor his request. Seriously, it's just bad business to not give the customer what they want. How much does it cost to send out a CD? $5.00? Whatever it is, it's pennies compared to the hundreds of dollars he paid for the machine.

HP should give him the CDs or take their piece of shit machine back. End of story.

Piston Honda

Not entirely true. I can burn a set of CD's (only once, mind you), which will use the same image to restore my computer to it's original shipped state. This isn't the same thing as reinstalling Windows.

Secondly, the recovery CDs they are offering me are the same thing that I burnt myself.

Lastly, this computer came filled with all sorts of shit, 90% of which I don't want. Nowhere on their retail website did they make it clear that:

1) I'd be getting a computer filled with shit, and not be given any way to reinstall the OS w/o said shit.

2) They would be using a significant portion of the HD space I paid for to house this "recovery partition" farce.

3) That I would not be getting any OS media.

While you might argue that they never told me I would be getting any media, either, I think it's fairly disingenuous to "sell" me an OS and leave me with no options as to how I want to use it. On top of that, giving me 3+ days of runaround when I try to obtain the disks from them is completely unacceptable.




As an aside, I've downloaded the free 360 day trial of 64-bit Windows from MS, so in the meantime I should at least be able to use that. While my problem might not be as terrible as I initially thought, I'm still pissed off just on principle and might return the machine anyway.

Cryptie

To the question as to whether your product key will work with another XP Install the answer is yes if you purchase/get a copy of a OEM install, if you just copy a friends XP Pro Retail CD the key isn't going to work. But yeah, you can usually buy just the OEM cd for cheaper then pro but I've never seen it as low as 10 bucks

souzafone

I'll play devils advocate as well. I've got a 3 yr old HP so I've had some experience with what you're going through. Mine has a 40 gig HD with over 4 going to the recovery partition. I also have the recovery CD set, all 8 discs.The OS does not appear to be on any 1 disc, but all 8 must be installed sequentially. After using the comp for a couple of weeks and uninstalling more crap software than I knew existed, I looked into doing a recovery. It's much easier on an HP to do a recovery by using F10 while booting than using the CD's. Note all the BS software before doing this and uninstall it immediately after recovery. I know someone who was able to obtain the recovery discs for HP for free- their system came with none, like yours. With a third party application you could eliminate the offending partition. I bet you got yours cheap too, right.

bacon_masta

i wouldn't have bought an hp before now due to problems TONS of people i know have had, but not including a copy of the OS is bullshit. it's a cost-cutting technique, an image on another partition/disk is no good to someone that's trying to start from a fresh boot of an os

hrdwareguy

1) Did their site say they wouldn't preload software, just like all major computer manufacturers?

2) Gotta have some way to get the system back when somebody screws it up....gotta build it to the lowest common denominator.

3) Like you said, did they ever say you would get media?

BTW, they did not sell you an OS. They sold you a license to use an OS. Keep in mind that no one ownes a copy of Windows. You, me and every other Windows user ownes a license to use the OS but that's it.

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mikec

I still think HP machines are pieces of crap

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hrdwareguy

I don't think anyone here is arguing that point. Just the business decisions they make.

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Dragonlich

HP sold him a machine for a relatively low price (which includes the price of the extra "crap" software, by the way). They have to buy their hardware *and* software from someone else. Microsoft offers them a discount for "recovery versions" of Windows, and this discount is represented in the price of the computer.

Therefore, technically, if Piston Honda wants an OEM version of Windows XP, he'll have to pay for an OEM version of Windows XP, minus the costs of this recovery version. Otherwise, HP would be forced to give him a discount just because he wants one. Why the hell would any company do that? He may have paid a lot for his machine, but it wasn't *expensive* at all - it was worth every penny. And now you want HP to make less of a profit (or even to lose money) just because?

Long story short: Piston Honda shouldn't have bought a HP. Not because they're crap (I won't go into that), but because they're simply not selling what he needs. He should have gone to a shop like mine (I assume they have medium-sized good-quality computer shops in the USA), where he could have selected the components that he wanted; they would have build his machine, and would have been able to supply him with an OEM CD version of Windows. All of that would probably have saved him some cash too.

Final note on brand-name PC's in general: They're not that bad. Sure, you may not be able to select each and every component, and some components might not be top-notch, but generally speaking, they're simply using standard components from standard manufacturers. For example, many brands buy their motherboards from MSI, and then put their name on them. They buy their videocards from Sapphire (which makes Ati's reference boards!), and put their name on them. Under all the HP logos, you still have a good kit.

(Note: this does not include Dell, by the way. After having seen two of their POS machines, I would never ever buy one. Imagine having bought a Dell, and wanting to install an AGP videocard... The machines would probably be some 6 months old now, but they didn't even have a friggin' AGP port! We had to replace the motherboards with ASUS P4P800-VM boards just so that the customers could play a computer game!)

kutulu

You should just return the shit on principle. Fuck them.

theburner

The catch is you have to look at the target market. Here is how I break it down..

How do I use this compewter? E-Machines
I just want to do email / Casual User - HP, Compaq
Small Business / Some Knowledge - Dell
Gamer - Average Knowledge - Alienware (custom built rig)
Mid to High End Knowledge - Build Your Own

Bottom line, when you know EXACTLY what you want and what you want to accomplish, there is no substitute for building your own (or having one built for you). It's like buying a house.. If you want to get everything you want/need.. Build your own.

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