Not A Graceful Recovery For HP Customers

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.

Won't affect corporate customers much

Any large corporation builds a standard image and ghosts it down to workstations anyway. Most places don't want the end-user to get their hands on the original install media due to the support issues that arise.

Who's to say Linux would be any different?

The hardware companies are eager to cut corners wherever possible to save a buck in producing their increasingly shotty, slipshod products. In the end, the removal of recovery media in favour of "recovery partitions" conveniently eating away at the consumer's free hard drive space is just another way of putting more cash into the company's greedy coffers. This has nothing to do with Microsoft's licencing or Windows XP or anything like that.

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.

Why not CD's

I don't see their problem with shipping half a dozen or more CDs. When I got my computer it came with 6 cds just for MS worksuite (none of which I use since I got staroffice;). Cds are much cheaper than hard drive space and i'd rather just have them give me a bunch of image files and rip the cds off that. I wonder if the recovery cds could be used to pirate windows XP, if so I suspect that is the real reason for their reluctance.

HP Bites

This past November, my father's computer crashed with multiple hardware failures.
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.

views from an Ex-HP support technician

"For many years, one of the primary reasons for support calls have been people who have lost their recovery CDs," says Bruce Greenwood, North American marketing manager for HP's Pavilion line.

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.....

Long overdue

Unfortunately, I have a Packard Bell computer. It's the same old tune in this story, except with HP. I didn't get an original Windows 98 CD with my machine which really ticked me off, but fortunately I had access to a real Win98 CD so I didn't bother making a huge fuss.

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

"I have a Packard Bell computer"

I would never admit that.

Re:Long overdue

Actually, you won't buy another Packard Bell because they're out of business. NEC bought them and then killed the name. Packard Bell was always a joke but I have to admit, they made the best first computer possible. Everyone who bought a second computer knew exactly what they wanted:
Anything as long as it's not a Packard Bell.

I actually work for HP...

and I really dont like their policy on this topic at all.

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.

HCF

If you're a vendor it makes sense not to package installation media along with your product. While two slashdotters shit themselves at the suggestion just now it is true. Selling a low margin product doesn't make you a whole lot of money thus you need to sell the extras like a support contract, you know the thing a saleman tries to forcibly ram up your ass? If you give a customer the ability to fix their computer qualms with little hassle you are asking to be put in operational red. There's a percentage of people who can fix a computer at least marginally, statistically people who don't know how to fix their computer know at least one person they can bother because their "printer got a virus and the power light doesn't come on anymore", the sort of people who inspire ever so funny Tech Support from Hell banter. These people often work for free or at least for much less than it costs to pay a "professional" (sic) to fix their problem. This ain't no good for suppliers of service contracts like OEMs. If Grandma decides the pie chart of her disk space has too much blue on it she is going to start hitting the delete key, nevermind she just deleted all the DLL files her favourite program needed to run. The purple wedge got bigger. If she can call up grandson/daughter to come over to fix her now useless program that comes up with twenty missing file errors who merely inserts an install disk and is done with the whole mess the OEMs just lost out on some lucrative nickel and diming. A recovery partition or special recovery disk can at least obfuscate things just enough to garner a couple extra support contracts from people. OEMs also want to get software back on systems they spent a pretty penny for to put there in the first place. This might be useless crap but they just want some eyeball time on it.

You got the software...

Most systems ship with a CD-R now (and if you don't get one, that's just silliness anymore), so why not just burn the recovery partition to CDs?Voila, instant recovery disks. Me personally, all I want is the OS and any hardware-specific software on CD. Screw the rest of it...it's mostly marketing crap anyway that just cruds up the drive. I hate these companies that want to tell me I need all their "go to this site, they paid us" links and software. Sell me a computer with an OS, and that's it. Can't do that, then you don't get my money.

Step 1: Buy a Mac.

To solve the problem, buy a Mac.

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?)

Brand-name PCs? Phooee!

Anyone who buys a brand-name PC needs their head read and deserves everything (every problem) they get.

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!

your best bet for recovery

Your best bet for recovery is to image the drive yourself, over Ethernet, to some other disk. If you gzip it, it usually won't be that bad. That has worked better for me than even the recovery CDs, which usually are laborious and nosy.

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.)

How about the EULA

I buy an HP, HP techs (and I use the term loosely) agreed to the click thorough license, (legally binding in MD). I never agreed to it, I never saw it. So I now have a copy of Windows which I can do whatever I want with. Somehow I doubt I could get away with cpying it and re-distibuting it, but now legally even with UCITA, I can reverse engineer it or whatever.