BG said:
I have an HP Pavilion 523a Desktop PC (AP) which I purchased in NZ.
How long ago? Where are you in terms of the warranty period? Are you
still in NZ? If you aren't, this can complicate things.
You should be aware that the physical hard disk is also covered by a
manufacturer's warranty. If this is invoked, also be aware that there will
likely be *no* attempt made to respect the drive contents.
I never created a recovery or back-up disk because I thought that was what
the partition drive was for.
It is, and this is, of course, the fatal flaw in the recovery partition
scheme.
This scheme saves the vendor a dollar or two but is almost guaranteed to
cost the user quite a lot more.. .later. That this cost is shunted to
the consumer is generally not disclosed at time of purchase, nor is the need
to immediately create restore disks.. which has its own problem.
The problem there is that there's no real way for the user to tell if
restore disks the manufacturer suggests you create actually work, without
destroying any data that's already been written to the drive.
Are you expected to rebuild the system before using it? Is this
expectation made clear at time of purchase, if ever?
I lost my harddrive and when it went, it also killed the Recovery disk
(there was never a physical disk, there was only the partition drive)
Actually the problem is that it is the same physical disk.
I have contacted HP Support to try and get a set of recovery disks but
they
told me I had to buy a new set of programs because they couldn't provide
me
with any sort of recovery disk!
Ask for this position in writing if you follow my suggestion below.
HP *will* have an original image of the complete install, that's how they
reproduced the drives in the first place. You are probably just speaking
to the wrong people.
I have to say that I had a poor experience with HP/Compaq international
support for a laptop owned by a client, a US citizen who purchased the unit
in the US and then moved to Canada, where it failed twice. First the drive
failed, and it was impossible for HP/Compaq support to figure out how to
ship a replacement drive to Canada. We had to have them ship it to an
associate in the US, who then reshipped it to us.
Then the power circuit failed - on laptops, this means a new motherboard.
This time, I was finally able after hours of calls and talking to various
people, to have it serviced in Canada so we didn't have to deal with
Customs in two directions.
So if you are not now in the same country where you purchased the unit, you
may well have extra problems.
Is there anyone here who has the same type of computer with the same
programs who has a set of recovery disks they could copy for me? I lost
everything when the drive died and now I have nothing
Again, this is the flaw in this recovery scheme. It's of course your
responsibilty to back up your data, but you're supposed to have a way to
restore the system.
I am especially looking for the Arcsoft Suite (PhotoImpression4, Funhouse,
Greeting Card Creator), MusicMatch Jukebox, RecordNow, and probably others
but I don't remember much else, those were the ones I used most often.
If the old drive runs at all, even if it doesn't boot, attaching it to
another system and taking a "DIR /S" listing can help a lot with figuring
out what was on it. Look for directory names in the program files folder.
Help? HP has been completely useless to me and quite rude and I am very
unimpressed with how they have treated me over this.
There are two real problems here and I have three suggestions .
The two problems are that your drive died, and that the recovery partition
scheme is not sufficient.
First, to the immediate problem: There's a company called restoredisks.com
where you can possibly get a set of disks to rebuild the system - last time
I picked one at semi-random it was around $40. These disks may or may not
include the 3rd party applications. You'll have to ask.
http://www.restoredisks.com/
Of course, you also need a new physical disk since yours has failed.
Yes, hardware wears and fails, as it does on other goods, such as cars
(think brake pads and tires), and it's reasonable to expect the user to
accept at least part of the cost, after a reasonable period of time.
Also, you can find various drivers and updates at the HP Support site.
Choose your model from this page - I think AP stands for "asia pacific".
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/prodTopCategory?product=70988&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=
Second, you may be able to use data recovery software or a data recovery
service to recover data from the old drive. The software can be under $100
(free demos usually available), if you use a service expect over $1000. If
the drive has failed electrically or physically, software will not work.
Service bureaus will normally provide an estimate before beginning the
work, but these estimates are not always free.
Third, my view is that this "recovery partition" scheme victimizes
consumers and should be promptly discontinued and recovery CDs made
available for past purchasers, and it will take objections from consumers to
do this. Ultimately, I suggest it doesn't provide a valid OS recovery
method - if it's on the same media that fails *with* the OS, how can this
reasonably be said to have been provided?
So I suggest that you need to contact HP *in writing* on this, as high as
you can find. Use registered mail, and even better, have a lawyer draft the
letter. I would suggest that you also copy the CEO at the head office
addresses and other executives, in particular support directors.
Physical mail delivery is protected by laws that do not apply to emails or
phone calls. Having physical mail flatly ignored is less likely, and when
a person knows that his or her boss (and their boss) also signed for a copy
of it, they are less likely to fail to respond to you, since they have to
assume they will be asked about the issue. One way or another (or both),
it has to be dealt with.
You should be clear, polite and accurate but do not hesitate to say that you
have found support rude and unhelpful - that is an important secondary
point. Support is very expensive (this is actually why recovery disks are
used in the first place - it costs less to support) and if the support
staff poison the well the money is not regarded as well spent.
Yes, this may cost you a few dollars, but not really that many, and
ultimately, this should be part of the costs you seek to recoup. Keep
track.
HTH
-pk
