DV5 1004NR - Sending back to HP for repair

HI Everyone,

This post will be detailed, and I'm hoping I can get some comments before I actually ship it back to them. I just spoke to HP tech support last night, and they're shipping an empty box for me to ship it back.

On 1/8/09, before Vista started up, I was getting this "imminent failure" message concerning my hard drive. I contacted HP on 1/12/09 and they had me running hard drive tests in BIOS. They then sent me a software patch to take care of the possibility of receiving these messages when there was nothing wrong with the hard drive. I tried the software patch, and it told me that it wasn't compatible to the hard drive. I contacted HP, and they told me I needed to replace my hard drive. They sent me a new drive, and I sent them the old one. YES, I backed up everything on my laptop onto an external hard drive and erased my personal stuff off the old drive.

On 1/13/09, I installed the new hard drive (yep, they overnighted the new one!). Using my created Recovery DVD's, I began to install the Windows software. I received the message that Recovery was successful and it began to install the software applications. While installing the software applications, it stalled, and then finally shut down my laptop. Figuring something might be wrong, I called back HP. I turned the laptop back on, and I received a message saying that I needed to complete the install of Windows. They determined that my Recovery DVD's were buggy (they didn't use this exact term). So, they went ahead and overnighted me a set of their own Recovery DVDs. On 1/14/09, I tried HP's Recovery DVD's, and I got the same message saying that I needed to complete the install of Windows.

On 1/15/09, I spoke to another HP tech person, and she asked me run the short and long hard drive tests. It came back with a positive result. Later that night, I called HP tech support again. After being put on hold several times and speaking to the senior tech person, they determined it might be something related to the mother board. Soooo, they just said that I have to ship it back for repair.

At this point...I can't be upset about this anymore. So, I'm hoping my very detailed post can generate some comments to see, if HP missed anything; if I missed anything. I'm really not looking forward to not having a laptop for at least another week. I've been without my laptop for 4 days now. I'll stop before I start rambling.

THANKS

 

Doesn't seem like you did. You & HP seemed to have gone over the right stuff so far. I could be the SATA port on the motherboard, so you might have to send it in.

Have you tried re-installing the "SATA" drivers (also called "Matrix" drivers). Maybe you could download all the drivers from HP's website and try doing a "fresh install" of Vista without using HP's recovery disk. Hopefully you have a Vista disc at hand. PM me if you don't.

But the thing is, the last thing you'd want to do is send it in for repairs as they usually physically damage your laptop from repairs, which is a pain in the because you end up having to send it back to get those damages repaired.

 

Thanks for the response. I'll have to try it.

 

I got my laptop back Friday. Upon inspection, just a few scratches underneath. Other than that, it looks good. The included work order said that the heat sink fan was replaced and the hard drive re-imaged. The overheating was causing the notebook to shut down while installing the operating software. Still under warranty fortunately. Anyways, I spent my Friday night and most of Saturday restoring everything back to the hard drive. I also had to re-install a few of the programs I previously had. Fortunately, I still had the original install programs and product codes. I spent a few hours searching my backup drive for the Outlook 2003 data file. Whew! Windows Update went through at least 60 different updates! Saturday, I backed up my laptop. I did it again Sunday night. Instead of monthly backups, I'll be performing weekly backups.

HP Technical Support
Overall, my experience with HP technical support was hit and miss because I dealt with chat and phone support. Sometimes I had good reps; sometimes not. I contacted chat support 3x; 2x on the phone. I did chat while at work, since I didn't have a working laptop. The phone support I did trying to fix the laptop at home. Although I do have to admit the turnaround times were phenomenal. When they sent me the recovery CD's, it took maybe about 2 business days. When they sent me the empty box to ship the defective laptop back, it did take about 4 calendar days because I called on a Thursday night. I did get the empty box on Monday, and I immediately shipped the defective laptop back the same day. On Tuesday, they received it. On Thursday, they repaired it and shipped it back overnight. I got it back Friday.

Whew...I'm just spending most of my time cleaning up files and reorganizing them.