HP Hard Drive

Hello,

My HP DV9700t laptop that I purchased from HP's website last June stopped working recently. Unfortunately it is no longer under warranty. HP tells me that I need to purchase a Hard Drive from them (it's a 120GB, 7,200 RPM Seagate 2.5 laptop HDD) because on the windows vista recovery disk, that the hard drive serial number is inside and that it won't install onto a hard drive bought from Newegg (for example). I'm wondering if this is true. They sell their hard drives for $121 bucks while Newegg sells them for half that. HP Support told me that if I bought a HDD from someplace else I would then have to buy a retail version of Windows Vista.

BTW my HP did not come with a Windows Disk or Restoration Disk, only a Restoration partition, so they would be sending the 'Restoration Disk'.

 

They would probably be sending a new hard drive with vista already on it.

 

Got a response from their Tech Support, and it sounds like they lied to me. In their response they told me that the new drive they are sending as a replacement, will not have windows vista installed, and I would have to pay $25.00 for a restoration disk. This is on top of the $121 they are charging for the new hard drive. So it seems there is no 'tattoo' on the drive that would make the Windows Restoration CD not work. In other words I could have spent $67 bucks and gotten a new drive from Newegg or some other seller, installed that and used a Windows Restoration CD.

 

The Windows recovery kit is actually slightly cheaper if you look at the dv9700t driver pages.

Select your OS and recovery kits should be available - http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...en&cc=us&dlc=en&lang=en&cc=us&submit=Go%20%BB

Yes, it is not true that a recovery disc set will only work with the hard drives that they supply. You can use the recovery disc as long as it detects that the recovery is being done on your particular HP model. You may want to try and request (or demand) a free recovery disc set if possible instead of purchasing it.

 

Thank you. I found it and ordered it. I talked to HP Support on Wednesday I see the drive still has not been shipped. I'm not impressed with the company's service. Have the same experience with Lenovo though, ordered a additional power adapter for the office about 2 1/2 weeks ago, they're not shipping it till August 3rd for some reason (which is tomorrow, but I've been waiting since July 15).

 

I wouldn't buy a hard drive directly from HP. You can probably get a better one cheaper if you buy from any online retailer (Newegg, Tiger Direct etc...) Just make sure it's the right interface.

As for the Vista, you might have to shell out money for the recovery disc.