I have to admit that I wasn’t paying close attention and one of the choices was “Restore”. In the windows world sometime when it crashes it asks to go back to a “restore point” or things like the way it was on the last good boot and such and I sad yes and it began formatting my drive without any working.
So – I’m REALLY PISSED at HP for having a utility that formats your drive without giving you any warning. So I had to install everything from scratch. They had a partition that had the OS on it to reinstall itself and it took over 2 hours to just get back to the point of the way it was when I bought it. In fact the first attempt at it failed and it actually took 4 hours.
So I had to wait hours because HP had added scripts to install all this CRAP and I decided that for $130 at Walmart I can get a virgin copy of Windows 7 without all the HP crap, and I’m glad I did.
No HP utility that’s going to format my drives. No adware. No HP monitoring utility. Not 30 trial version of Norton Utilities. No Quickbooks trial. No adding their suggested bookmarks, none of that.
I know Windows 7 comes “free” with a laptop but quite frankly it is worth $130 to me to get an OS that doesn’t take me weeks to delete all the extra crap they add in. It’s absolutely clear to me from not just what I saw but the phone call with their tech support that they don’t test their add-on in the real world. You certainly don’t format a drive without telling the user that you’re going to do that. My opinion of HP just dropped dramatically. I used to say, “Get an HP laptop.” Now I think not.
#32, Mr. Fusion,
What I suggested is perfectly legal. Since you fail at reading comprehension I will say it again.
By purchasing a HP laptop in this case you received a Win7 license key for that system. This is usually printed on a sticker on the bottom of the laptop. If your OS fails and you want a fresh copy of Win 7 on your computer simply borrow a Win 7 disk, any legit disk will do, install Win 7 as normal, and when activating input the Win 7 key on the back of your computer NOT THE KEY ON THE BORROWED DISK.
I’ve had an HP Pavillion for years and was aware of the dreaded “restore” utility. When I upgraded the HDD I set the cloning software to ignore (not copy) the evil “restore” partition. Then I just periodically image that HDD. Viola!
Surprised to see something here about HP laptops considering my HP Tablet just recently died and so did my friends and another of my friends. Are the HP laptops committing mass suicides?
I used to recommend HP to everyone over stupid ugly Dells and gayish Sony Laptops. But not anymore. To put the icing on the cake, the recent Laptop reliability survey which put the HP in the least reliable brand sealed the deal that HP laptops suck.
Each and every HP laptop that I have seen over the past 5 or so years has failed within a year or two. The culprit is the power circuit on the motherboard. Being the hardware guy for over 20 years, there are only three makes of laptop I would recommend. They are Apple, Lenovo/IBM, and Toshiba (though not the cheap Toshibas).
HP, Dell, and others often put teaserware on their machines, due to the low cost. They get a kickback from the software developer.
I don’t know why these companies make it so hard to do a clean install of Windows. Users who are smart enough to do a clean install aren’t going to use the crapware that comes with the system anyway.
@#44 Some smaller brands can surprise too. My ultra-compact Fujitsus are glitch free for years of heavy use and abuse. Older one still beats any netbook in performance, and practicality (at 10.5″ size 2.4 lbs with all “bells and whistles” like optical drive, card readers, extension slots and innumerable interfaces)
Marc I know that HP recovery program well. There is a warning that tells you if you proceed that ALL of your data will be erased. Face it, you didn’t pay attention and clicked through the warning and now you want to blame HP for your own laziness.
Face it, you didn’t pay attention and clicked through the warning and now you want to blame HP for your own laziness.
This is standard behavior for Marc Perkel. He makes a post about how someone else is wrong and he’s mad about it, then people prove that he is actually the one that is wrong, and he never admits he was wrong. It happened when he posted about the post office’s Forever stamps http://dvorak.org/blog/2009/02/01/forever-stamp-not-forever-at-san-francisco-post-office/ and when he posted about php http://dvorak.org/blog/2009/11/12/php-example-of-why-open-source-is-a-problem/
… The squirrel hasn’t checked in yet so we are dubious of the long-term results.
#48, jc,
In fairness to Marc, he doesn’t post bullshit topics along the lines of “Cherman” or even Dvorak. So far this blog has gotten 50 hits, many with worthwhile comments.
As with any of the other editors, if you don’t like the topic, don’t post.
OK,
Im only going to STATE something..If your opinion is different..go away.
THE COMMON USER. 80-90% of those in the world.
READS the warnings AND…
Calls a NERD
Pushes the button anyway
NON-common USER, ones that have done it before, a few nerds…
READ the bottom line, as there isnt Much above it that makes sense..And push the button.
The Computer knowledgeable..
have done this at LEAST 10 times..
KNOW what it says..(unless something changed, opps.)
PUSH the button.
# 14 I hate f* idiots like you. During those years you didn’t even touch a Mac, so why were you defending PCs then? Most people defending Mac are switchers, so they knew the pain. You are not welcome.
Steve
Lol. sorry to hear that. I dont trust HP anymore i Had 2 laptops. one back in 2001 and another one in 2005. Both had major hardware problems within the first 2 years of life. off course by then the warranty was off and they wanted to charge me a lot to fix them. I said fuck hp, they are absolute garbage. Not to mention the bloatware. Any way next time dont buy another copy of windows, if you have the origanl key. just donwload a copy from torrent of your version of windows and just type in your original key. that way youll have a clean windows install without the crap. good luck.
Someone mentioned you could use any Win7 Disk and use your HP serial number from the bottom of the machine. Doesn’t the user need an OEM version of Win7? That is what WinXP requires. Or has the retail/oem difference vanished?
no reason to go out an purchase a full new copy of Windows 7, the ISOs dont matter between OEM/Retail/VL. Could have downloaded a legit ISO from the links in this article…
http://www.mydigitallife.info/2009/11/10/windows-7-iso-x86-and-x64-official-direct-download-links-ultimate-professional-and-home-premium/
and at the end there is a link to creating a universal ISO that can install an version be it Home/Pro/Ultimate
how about a working link
http://mydigitallife.info/2009/11/10/windows-7-iso-x86-and-x64-official-direct-download-links-ultimate-professional-and-home-premium/
I’ll jump in to vouch for Toshiba also. Their laptops seem far more substantial than either HP (friends) or Apple laptops (ex wife has an Apple).
My first Toshiba laptop lasted 4 years until a hard disk died.
My second has been around 2 years. Only problem has been because of pilot error (me), and that was fixed quickly.
#32: Yes. I bought a Toshiba laptop and there was a copy of the owner’s manual in .pdf format. I printed out the pages on what to do in a case just like Mr. Perkel’s, and saved the entire .pdf manual to at least two other PCs and burnt them to DVD. I also made a full set of restore discs before anything else, courtesy of the instructions.
#33: If the manual was not in .pdf format somewhere on the laptop’s hard drive and provided by HP, then HP’s website should have it.
I don’t know about you, but I take the time to RTFM. I have no sympathy for someone who doesn’t, and if they don’t understand what they are reading or if the instructions given are unclear, they should ASK someone who DOES and can explain it clearly before they go and f*ck something up beyond repair.
The writer of this article is an idiot. I don’t know who he is, but it sounds like he thinks he knows more about tech than he actually does. Any techie knows what a restore disk from HP/Dell/etc.. does. I’m tempted to point out other statements he made in his story that annoyed me but I’m too lazy right now so I’m not going to. Bottom line, the author needs to quickly come to terms with the fact that he’s not a very bright tech dude and simply needs to keep his tech complaints to himself if he can’t come across like he knows what he’s talking about. K, I’m done moaning.