DV5130ca - system restore time

I recently purchased an HP DV5130CA. It does not come with windows disks but it allows you to make one copy of the operating system (and junkware). This copy is 4 DVD's and takes a verrrrry long time to generate. Since I only do that once, it never really registered on my radar.

I installed Linux and later on I decided to go back to windoze because of some driver issues under Debian. To restore the original state of the laptop took some 6 hours (give or take) which really shocked me. Again, I decided that maybe things aren't all that bad since this restore came from DVD's which are kinda slow. I installed a few programs, plugged in a USB2 external drive and generated an image using Arconis True Image. When it came time to restore this image, the program reported an estimated time to completion of one day and 9 hours !!! This backup was in the area of 13 gigs - nothing outrageous.
I brought this done to around 22 or so hours by eliminating the data verify on the restore. I figured that this has got to be a mistake on the part of the restore program and there is no way this could take so long. I started the backup and went to bed - next morning, after doing a bunch of other things, I get back to a screen saying that there are 9 hours left in the operation.

I figure this is nuts, packed up the unit and returned it to Staples for an exchange or a fix of some sort. There, after close to two hours of hanging around, I was told that it is not unusual to see these kinds of restore times on HP laptops because they implemented some new data verify features.
Long story made short, I got my money back.
Alas, the features in this laptop were really good and anything close will probably end up well over $2k (Can) vs the $1200 (Can) I paid for that unit.

I am trying to determine how long it should take to do a 13 gig restore or a 4 DVD system recover operation ? Did I have a dud laptop or is it really that bad ?

I am tempted to buy another unit from Staples but need to clarify this issue first.

Jens

 

When I installed Vista from DVD (only 1 so not really the same) it took about 4 hours. Far longer than the ISO took to download (about 1 1/2). It's a good thing I had baseball to watch.

There was, of course, no bloatware or data validation that goes along with a system restore. I could see it taking 7-8 hours. Over a day gets to be pretty long. It does depend on hard drive speed as well. Good luck with your new machine (when you get that).