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    Do Not Buy Recovery Discs From Hp

    Discussion in 'HP' started by orev, Oct 8, 2007.

  1. orev

    orev Notebook Virtuoso

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    Do Not Buy Recovery Discs From Hp

    Enough people are having problems with recovery discs they bought from HP for $20, that I figured I'd post this to get the word out.

    1. Many people who have bought them and tried to use them are left with an unusable system. HP seems to have a bad batch, and installations using them are failing. Once the install fails, you have wiped out any ability to burn custom recovery discs, and also now have no OS on the computer.
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    2. Buying recovery discs is a waste of money. You can burn them yourself for the cost of 2 DVD+R discs, ~$1.
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    3. Recovery discs bought from HP are not specific to your computer. They are more generic, and because of this may not work on your system.
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    4. Recovery discs include bloatware. If you think you can recover to get rid of the bloatware, you are wrong. Recovery discs, purchased or burned, include all of the bloatware out of the box. If you want to avoid that, this is not the way to do it.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 8, 2015
    orev, Oct 8, 2007
    #1
  2. jonhapimp

    jonhapimp Notebook Virtuoso

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    yeah the recovery disc i burnt from my computer messed it up when i had to use them the costumer service saying "it didn''t install everything right"
     
    jonhapimp, Oct 8, 2007
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  3. orev

    orev Notebook Virtuoso

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    Good point. The ones you burn yourself are not always foolproof either, but they have a better chance for success I think.
     
    orev, Oct 8, 2007
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  4. TechStock

    TechStock Notebook Consultant

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    I agree with Orev. I had HP send me a second dvd and that didn't work on the 9500 either. Don't even try them without at least making recovery disks from your hd. Maybe the mods can make this sticky so stays visible at the top.
     
    TechStock, Oct 8, 2007
    #4
  5. kanehi

    kanehi Notebook Deity

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    Mine worked fine. The only difference between burned vs HP is that HP take a "very" long time to re-install while the burned one takes 3hours.
     
    kanehi, Oct 8, 2007
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  6. nateratm

    nateratm Notebook Geek

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    are they giving refunds for the disks if you bought them, if they're defective?
     
    nateratm, Oct 8, 2007
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  7. Crimsonman

    Crimsonman Ex NBR member :cry:

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    mine worked fine, except I did it wrong so i had to redo it. but i didn't waste 20 dollars either, i got it for free
     
    Crimsonman, Oct 8, 2007
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  8. mystery905

    mystery905 Notebook Deity

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    The recovery discs I burned myself did not work. They said something about them not being compatible with my notebook and then halted!

    Fortunately, I got a free set of recovery discs from HP when I explained my dilemma.

    These seem to work for me now.

    Another safety measure to take is to do a full image backup of your hard drive once you have it configured the way you like it. Since I have Windows Vista Ultimate, I was able to use the built-in backup tool. I'm sure other backup programs out there can accomplish the same thing.
     
    mystery905, Oct 9, 2007
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  9. mar2k

    mar2k Notebook Guru

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    If I have a retail Vista DVD (which supposedly includes all editions), can I use that to reinstall and then enter a product key and get the machine specific drivers from HP's website later?
     
    mar2k, Oct 9, 2007
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  10. orev

    orev Notebook Virtuoso

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    This is pretty off-topic for the thread. But yes. Check the clean install guide in my sig, and please post any follow-ups to that thread.
     
    orev, Oct 9, 2007
    #10