Vista Corrupted To Near Unusability -- No Recovery Disks

  • Thread starter Thread starter Vista User
  • Start date Start date
V

Vista User

My Vista Home Premium (SP2) is corrupted to near unusability. Proof?

1. I click the Firewall control panel and I get an error "Error loading
firewall.cpl. Firewall.cpl is not a valid win32 application" It sure is
not valid: when I go to C:\Windows\System32\Firewall.cpl, it shows a file
of ZERO bytes!

2. I try to click the Windows program installation/repair/removal control
panel, and the window blinks in and out.

It's been 28 months since this Vista installation has been in use, and
often rescued in ways that avoided a clean install entirely.

I think it is now time to do the clean install. For one thing, the 100 GB
Seagate drive (the one with the bootable Vista partition) after about two
years revealed 432 read errors with a region of the hard disk (discovered
by 'ddrescue' while using Ubuntu Linux), probably because the HP Pavilion
dv9500t like all HP notebooks is notorious for overheating, and this
failure to cool damages CPUs and shorten hard disk life.

MY PROBLEM: I am now living on the other side of the world. I made
recovery disks using HP's recovery manager, and I think the recovery
partition is deleted (not sure), but they were left with relatives on the
other side of the world (mistakenly). HP does not answer requests for how
to get recovery disks.

QUESTION: I have recovered the product key for the Vista installation
using product key recovery software (the Microsoft label on the bottom of
the computer is smudged beyond readability, not so for HP's label). Is
there a way to download Vista installation somehow and use my product key
to autheneticate the installation?
 
Only my opinion but it will probably work out easier to buy W7 and a new
hard drive.




Please post back if you find the solution, it helps others. Thanks.

Charlie Tame
 
The key that you recovered is for the version of Vista supplied by HP.
The key will not work with any retail version of Vista.

Guess you didn't go far enough into the HP web site for I found this
in a few seconds:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c00810334&lc=en&dlc
=en&cc=us&lang=en&product=3369393
Click to expand...

Please re-read my post again. There was a reason that I was careful to
mention that I purchased my machine in the USA (and it was shipped to a USA
location), but that after 28 months of ownership, I am now resident of a
country a half a world away.

The link you give is for ordering recovery CDs that are to be shipped to
USA or Canadian addresses, not outside of them.

If you find a link that ships U.S. English-language 32-bit Vista Home
Premium recovery CDs to addresses outside of the United States/Canada, then
you will have truly found what I have not been able to find. If that takes
you a "few seconds" as well, I'd like to know that too.
 
Only my opinion but it will probably work out easier to buy W7 and a
new hard drive.
Click to expand...

It's interesting you bring that up, for I had considered making changes on
this order.

First, on the point of buying a new hard drive: it's very unlikely I am
going to put a new hard drive in a notebook that has a notorious
reputation for having a poor cooling system (and which usually requires a
supplemental cooling underplatform). It will just damage that replacement
drive quickly as well.

I would probably instead just go all-out and get a new notebook, although
I need to do some homework on who is really building "portable desktops,"
not just notebooks. I don't care how heavy they are (5, 6, 7, 8 kg; 12,
15, 20 lbs). I want a portable that:

1. doesn't overheat at all and does not need supplemental cooling in order
not to do so

2. has a user-serviceable fan for when it gets gummed up and noisy: I use
this portable in places that accumulates that greasy dust covering and we
have a Pekingese in the house, who are notorious for shedding fur...dog
hairs have been pulled from my fan. I don't want a machine that has to be
completely dismantled

3. The power cord connector must be sturdy and not flaky. In fact,
peripheral connections probably have to

4. I figure if a machine is made in which a quality hard drive has a
30,000-40,000 hour life---I have not done an extensive search of
engineering journals---it would be the machine that people with my
preferences should own.

I have web page in which I plead for computer makers to make something
like that.


What I am likely to do is to let this hard drive fail and continue to use
the Pavilion notebook, running Ubuntu (I may switch to Kubuntu) Linux off
my 1 TB WD USB-external drive. I am a scientist who does some web
programmer. I can't think of any more reason for clinging to Windows any
longer, especially if it forces me to run back to OEMs to get my OS
support. And if OEMs like HP chase their customers away, it's my opinion
that they will drag Microsoft's name through the mud with it. My next
portable will likely NOT be an HP and not come with any Microsoft OS pre-
installed (I will insist on it!) and I will just get Linux running on it.

I have been pleased with Vista HomePrem: unlike any previous Win
installation I used (XP, Win9x), it ran for more than 2 years without any
need for a clean install. There was one point when it had been bashed
around by malware and the system became unbootable, but I got something
off the Internet that rescued it and it ran well after that. I suppose if
I ran some disk image backup utility like Genie or Acronis I could get it
to keep going without a clean install for another 2 years. I have
absolutely NO INTEREST in paying for an upgrade to Win7, which is just
Vista (Win6) with the UAC guts pulled out and maybe some "optimization" to
get the user working within the first 2 minutes of power-up rather than
making the user waiting until all the speed-dragging start ups load.

MS should actually be incorporating algorithms into its Windows line that
ask what the user is doing...is the machine keeping keyboard/mouse
interrupt input waiting to do something of low priority, or is it really
trying to keep the user busy with what the user wants to do. This seems
pretty fracking obvious even going back to Windows 3.1.

As for when HP and other makers get around to making the real portable
desktop (they can call it a notebook if they want) that is also a laptop
(without causing 3rd degree burns on the lap), we may have to wait another
10-15 years.

Please post back if you find the solution, it helps others. Thanks.
Click to expand...

No solution found at this time, but I may likely post what I eventually
do, and that may not involve HP sending me the recovery CDs which I want
because of what appears to be a flawed business model.
 
I like Ubuntu and in fact use it on this machine at work because to use
my MVP award (Free copy) of Windows at work would IMHO be illegal.

However I have tried W 7 and it is much leaner and cleaner than Vista
(My machines have 4GB mostly) so I can't quite agree that is is simply a
trimmed down Vista, I believe there have been significant coding changes.

And yes, I did not realize we were talking notebooks, I totally agree
about trying to take one apart unless you have done one of the same
model before :)

I don't have a laptop but do have an Acer Netbook, which of course would
be no use to you, however it does run very cool and battery life is good
for such a small battery. Maybe the kind of technology in that will do
the same for the more recent notebooks. Hopefully you will find exactly
what you need.
 
Back
Top