Would you like the extended warranty?

[Frenchy]

I just know there is a chip in every electronic device that says Ok today is the day this sucker gets to pay for not buying that extended warranty.

Last year, one year and a week ago, we bought a HP laptop, what happens this week, Hard drive crashes, I mean bug time, there is absolutely nothing on the hard drive to recover. Think they would have a backup CD so you could re-install Vista… Nope it was on the hard drive…
Tried to install XP Pro on it, the computer and XP will not recognize the wireless on it, So tomorrow I will call HP and ask if they would kindly send me the Vista backup CD that normally should have been with this Brand new product they sold, or at least send us the driver CD so we don’t have to guess what drivers are needed.

Any one know of anything that would completely wipe out a hard drive? I mean there is nothing left but a few small programs, pics and space… I bet I could re-format it and use it again, its not like the Hard drive is not working, I plugged it to an adaptor to my desktop and was able to get and add info to it, works just fine, just no OS left on it at all.


So I saved $72 for a 3 year Warranty... let's see what it costs me to get it working again appart from a week or more of losing the puter.

[MrBi11]

Download the drivers to a thumb drive, transfer and install on laptops new OS.
You'll need video/sound/wifi drivers @ least

http://welcome.hp.com/country/us/en/support.html

[larry0071]

Frenchy,

When you buy a computer now'a days... they expect you to take it home and use the supplied software to creat your own backup DVD. You will find yourself paying for a copy of of thier recovery CD with a new Microsoft liscence to get it re-loaded.

If your hard drive just dumped on you, I suggest doing a "disk check" and look for bad sectors. If you find any, the hard drive is on the way out. Don't waste time on it....remove it and deposit in a trash can. Laptop hard drives can be purchased for a decent cost online. Just put a new one in. They are all pretty much the same. Form factor is consistant in laptop drives... only size, speed, and buffer memory varies from one to the next.

I had to do similar a couple years ago on a Dell. I loved and yet at the same time hated that thing.

[40twist]

You know I had to reload an HP laptop and I couldnt get the drivers for the model I had ..... HP/Compaq didnt have all the necessary drivers for XP on their website. I did the same went from vista to XP Pro. I dug around for a while and finally found the drivers. If you can download the chipset identifier you can go here and get your chipset driver and install that first , here is the link it is actaully for my chipset but you can dig around

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Deta...ional&lang=eng

Once the chipset driver is installed reboot and then install the wireless drivers again I will post a link to the drivers for mine but you should be able to go back and find yours. Unless you have the same version laptop I fixed or at least the same chipset.

Hers is the Intel/pro wireless driver

ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp36001-36500/sp36414.exe


and here is the broadcom wireless driver

ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp34001-34500/sp34152.exe




Mine has the 945 chipset dont even know if any of this will help you or if you even want to go any further or just wait for the cd , but thought Ide chime in since I had the same problem.

edit to add here is the chipset identifier too.

http://www.intel.com/support/chipset.../cs-009266.htm

[Frenchy]

Well turns out the recovery CD is around $10 but the shipping was more, so for $28 I got the CD the day after I ordered it, actually before 24 hrs was up!

No tot reinstall this Vista... Some how I would have prefered the XP Pro version, but the puter says its vista...

[dman]

Back when I bought my new Silverado,I bought the 7 year,70,000 mile extended warrenty ! Hauling my trailor around the country,has been tuff on my drive train.I was getting some vibration in the floor board,universals ?
Down here in sunny Fla.,it's first come ,first serve .I'm there one hour before it even opens to make sure I get in that day,I've got another appointment in Rodchester in two days,big job !Well,they tell me that because it's warrenty work,they can't get me in for two weeks,gee thanks GMAC.I find a machanic and have him fix it.I make my appointment and life goes on.
The extended thing has not worked for me !! Oh,and it's a big Chevy dealer,Bob Taylor.Thanks Bob !!!!!!!!

[phillyd2]

Frenchy, do yourself a favor and buy a program such as Acronis*True*Image. The little women here has a habit of crashing her Thinkpad quarterly without fail.

[Burnsie]

Frenchy, do yourself a favor and buy a program such as Acronis*True*Image. The little women here has a habit of crashing her Thinkpad quarterly without fail.

I was going to ask if you had tried to use a Data Recovery program. Alot of times you can get a lot more data that by just accessing it normally.

-Burnsie

[Frenchy]

I was going to ask if you had tried to use a Data Recovery program. Alot of times you can get a lot more data that by just accessing it normally.

-Burnsie

Problem is, HP bundles the recovery prog in the Hard drive, so hard drive crashes, you get nothing, I got the CD now, it formated and installed the vista, now I just need to partition with partition majic so i get more then 17 gig out of 320G