*HP dv8 Owners Lounge*

Not sure if this helps, but I fiddled around with the braodcasting on my Draytek router as the kids mid range Asus were connecting wireless @ 150mbps my DV8T only 48, the HP stayed @ the same level but both the kids Asus were getting BSOD at random but both at exactly the same time. Maybe try resetting your router? or downsizing to the minium broadcast?

 

I agree. The Intel site shows a great video on Turbo Boost Technology. It's hard to summarize, in a few words, the interaction between different types of softwares together with multiple foreground and background apps but the video mounts a stalwart effort. One can confirm most or all of what you wrote from the video.

I've given up on "beating a dead horse" for now and have uninstalled the superfluous TurboBoost Technology driver from my system and nothing was affected. At this point, I'm focused on resolving my only remaining issue - why HP 3G DriveGuard (in Control Panel) shows my factory-installed 500Gb Seagate drive and tags it as "unsupported."

 

I guess you are offering a tutorial on driver installation but what I asked (see quoted message at top) was what benefits could a non-gamer (who does video and photo editing) expect from the newer driver. Any comments on what I had asked?

 

Hi, all, here's an update on my recent DV8 adventures. Been working on getting some games working out of my extensive library of older games, as I need to occupy myself while I wait with baited breath for Starcraft II. I was unable to get the original Starcraft to run. Had a bit more luck and got Warcraft III working, but not to my satisfaction. Halo II also will not run, since Steam forced an update to v3.x of the Windows Live for Games (which I utterly hate, btw!!). That one was a disappointment. But I have the newest Warhammer working. This weekend, I got F.E.A.R. and Painkiller both working. They both start up a tad glitchy as they tend to bog during intro videos, for some reason, but escape from those lockups and they both run fine, and fully patched, both run in full rez, too. This should keep me busy on the gaming front for a bit, especially since I haven't played either game for a while. I like W7 and 64-bit, etc., it's progress. But I hate that so many of my favorite older games won't work. Oh, well, I guess that's the price of progress.

I've had no glitches or freezes at all so far (other than the continuing Windows Live crashes), though my video has crashed once. Once. So until it becomes an issue I won't fix it. My new second hard drive is working fine, so I transferred my mp3's over to it, and got a set of Sennheiser headphones to use for that and gaming, and tv or movies, which works out nicely.

Anybody else having the Windows Live crashing problem? Mine crashes on startup about 80% of the time. Other times it works fine. I think I'm gonna try shutting off some other services at startup and see if maybe one of them is causing the conflict. I'll report back if and when I figure it out.

Meanwhile, I love this machine, and I'm really enjoying it.

 

If you are talking about Windows Live Messenger then ditto. Crashes all the time during startup.

 

I uninstalled that software "that shows up in control panel" and also the extra turbo boost driver from device manager.. that leaves one driver that has no error and my turbo boost works fine.

The remaining driver is version 4.0.6.1 labeled "HP Mobile Data Protection Sensor" found under "system devices" in device manager.

I think your trying to install extra on top of whats already there.

if you have no driver at all there anymore you prob have an error somewhere I"m guessing.

To install it you can download "HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection v4.0.6.1 Mar 11 2010" and Expand the file first and must be installed using the Device Manager "highlight something, then go to Action, add legacy devices" - Update Driver wizard to browse to the "accelerometer.inf file.

 

Phil,

Re the benefits of updating video driver to 197.16, or any of the 197.xx drivers for that matter, the main benefit is that CUDA is supported and it is not supported on the 188.xx Forceware series.

CUDA is a GPU hardware acceleration/processing technology for certain types of video (mainly certain high def movies, I think) which offloads most or almost all of the video processing from the CPU to the GPU so the CPU is only using less than 10% or so of its capacity to play a video and the GPU is doing most of the heavy processing, which is the kind of processing it is optimized for anyway.

You have to also use a video codec to play your movies that supports and uses CUDA in order to get it to work and see the benefits. The main benefit is the CPU is not working so hard, uses less power, and stays cooler while watching a video and the GPU apparently is more efficient & better suited to doing this kind of video processing task in the first place.

The free media player MPC-HC has a built in DXVA codec one can enable (I don't think it's turned on by default) that uses the hardware acceleration on GPU's that support it. Since I'm currently not using that particular codec, I'm not sure if it's CUDA it's using or some other kind of GPU hardware acceleration, however.

I currently use the CoreAVC Pro 2.0 codec (costs about $15 iirc), (along with the free MPC-HC media player & the excellent free Shark's "Win 7 Codecs" pack). CoreAVC Pro supports and utilizes CUDA, if/when it's supported by the video driver and adapter (our adapter does support CUDA if enabled by the driver).

So to me so far the main benefit of moving to that driver is that it enables and supports CUDA (hardware (GPU) based video processing/acceleration). The Core AVC pro codec's tray icon turns green when it is using CUDA accleration. It normally is blue. When it's using CUDA, one can see that the CPU is doing much less work and staying cooler, while the GPU is running in 3D performance mode and doing most of the heavy lifting.

I haven't used the 197.16 driver long enough yet to determine if there are other advantages or disadvantages. Supposedly this newer driver has enhanced performance on certain graphics intensive games as well. I haven't noticed whether that is true or not yet. but it seems to game fairly well so far. I haven't yet experienced any lockups/reboots with it.

As I have mentioned before, however, the version available at nvidia's site did not downclock well for me. So I am currently using the version available at Laptopvideotogo with their modified .inf (see their site for instructions on how to use that) and it does seem to downclock and upclock between the three performance modes (low power 2d, standard 3d, & performance 3D (the latter used for gaming, some video, and graphic intensive tasks), correctly so far.

There are also some enhanced desktop color controls enabled in the newer LVTG version of the driver. I also think my system is running slightly cooler in the low power 2D mode with this driver. My idle temps now seem to be around CPU 50-57, GPU 48-50 which is pretty nice.

If, however, you don't care about CUDA and are not having any stability issues with the current driver you are using, there are no compelling reasons to upgrade to the newer driver, imo.

In general, all drivers seem to have certain advantages and disadvantages and the perfect video driver has yet to be found. So the best one can do is find a driver that offers the features, performance/stability that is important to each particular user. What is best for one user may not be ideal for another.

On the Realtec ethernet driver, btw: I'm using v. 7.17.304.2010 published 4/8/2010, that I got from the excellent latest driver's page (I think), that is located on this site. Can't say how it works since I haven't used the wired ethernet yet.

 

I've long ago (two days ago) uninstalled the TurboBoost Technology Driver and that eliminated my last "error" in Device Mangler.

In a previous post to you (at the top of this post), windstrings, I told you that I was left with the impression that your HP 3G DriveGuard (called software from now on) was version 4.0.6.1 and your HP Mobile Data Protection Sensor (called driver from now on) was ALSO version 4.0.6.1. You never confirmed that the software and driver were the same version.

I presume you are referring to your HP 3G DriveGuard software. I am baffled that you did that. Is it still uninstalled or have you installed it again later? It is this software that tells whether or not your HDD is "supported" or "unsupported". Without it, how do you confirm that your HDD is supported?

Yes, that is the DRIVER I have currently installed. It is version 4.0.6.1 and it appears to be functioning fine.

I have no idea where you got that idea. I have a 4.0.6.1 driver installed and a 4.0.3.1 software installed. Nothing extra AFAICT.

As I explained, the driver is installed and no problems with it are indicated.

I have already installed that - it installs the driver (version 4.0.6.1).

So, I still have the same issue I started with: How do I "fix" the situation where my HP-provided 500Gb HDD is "unsupported" when I try to configure its performance settings under the software provided by HP for that purpose in the Control Panel??

 

I have the same driver in device manager and app version in control panel as Phil, but my HP (Seagate) 500 GB HD is showing as "supported" om the control panel app.

Phew. . . , I'm glad we got these two different version numbers for the driver and the Control Panel app clearly explained, finally.

I didn't do anything to make my drive be "supported." It just came that way from the factory and has always remained that way, despite my updating the driver via device manager. I wonder if there is some special HP code in the drive's firmware that only allows HP drives to be supported by this driver and app. If so, that would be a shame. I am hoping that other non HP drives that I might install internally would be supported as well. This is the case on my Lenovo T61p. I do suspect (w/o having researched the issue) that this type of protection is likely superfluous and unnecessary for SSD type drives, so I wouldn't worry if that type of drive shows up as unsupported in the Control Panel drive guard app.

 

You never confirmed that the software and driver were the same version.

I don't know phil..... when I go into device manager I have 4.0.6.1 version and have nothing to roll back to implying thats my first and only driver... but remember I'm coming from a new install too.


I presume you are referring to your HP 3G DriveGuard software. I am baffled that you did that. Is it still uninstalled or have you installed it again later? It is this software that tells whether or not your HDD is "supported" or "unsupported". Without it, how do you confirm that your HDD is supported?

Yes, its still uninstalled .... I"m told the driveguard is now part of the drive without need for extra drivers to be installed.......
I don't really know and I have no good tool to confirm its working or not, but I have no errors anywhere and the drivers is installed, so I assume all is well.


I have no idea where you got that idea. I have a 4.0.6.1 driver installed and a 4.0.3.1 software installed. Nothing extra AFAICT.

As I explained, the driver is installed and no problems with it are indicated.


So, I still have the same issue I started with: How do I "fix" the situation where my HP-provided 500Gb HDD is "unsupported" when I try to configure its performance settings under the software provided by HP for that purpose in the Control Panel??

Don't know, In the section of latests drivers for the dv8t it warns to not put anything in thats not an HP hardrive.
And while HP did preinstall this, my confidence is not too high.

My 500gb is a Hitachi drive.... who knows what they put in there?... but if you have th OEM software installed and the OEM drives and it says its unrecognized, that sure seems like something they could troubleshoot!....

Oh yea.. sorry.... good luck!

 

pae77: You have no idea how much I ENVY you that!

Where and when did all of that get explained?

Sorry to repeat myself, but you have no idea how much I ENVY you that!

I don't think so. My speculation - which is no better than yours - but worth considering since it fits my situation better. I suspect that HP writes a code of some sort to one of the partitions that they install on drives they provide in new laptops. Since I formatted my original HP (Seagate-made) 500Gb drive to use it for data and softwares, I think I may have removed the "key" that is used by the HP 3G DriveGuard s/w to determine whether it's supported or not.

I think you have no prospect of that outcome since HP says on its website that only drives it provides at retail with its laptops are supported.

I agree - I see no way that it would improve any aspect of an SSD drive. In my case the SSD doesn't show up at all in the HP 3D DriveGuard so it wasn't worthy of even being rated "unsupported"...

Was your supported Seagate drive provided with your laptop and was it ever reformatted?

 

Right! They never have been the same. I got the question from being unable to understand something you posted on the subject (pae77 had the same degree of confusion on your post).

Soooo????

Then you're in the same shape as I am ... REMEMBER my question is what must I do to make my HP-provided 500Gb drive appear as supported under HP 3D DriveGuard!

That's my understanding as well - the driver and software only support an HP-installed HDD delivered with one of their laptops.

You've clarified a lot of what I've not fully understood in your posts on this topic. As you may gather from my post to pae77 below this one, I've pretty much given up on this issue as one I can't fix on my Dv8t. THANKS!!!

 

My sole internal drive (until I obtain an extra drive caddy after I'm 100% certain I'm keeping this machine) is the one that came installed by HP and I have not reformatted it. I still have the factory HP load on it. The only thing I've done to it so far, aside from remove a bunch of stuff and update the rest, was to do the "anytime upgrade" to W7 Ultimate which only took about 5 to 10 minutes and left all data, programs and settings intact.

If you haven't already tried and found it not to work, perhaps you should try to reinstall the Control Panel app (which I think you can download from the HP support site) and see if your drive will perhaps now show up as supported again. If not, probably the only way to get it back would be to do a recovery to the original factory state and then remove all the bloatware and stuff you don't want. It's pretty easy to clean it up using a program like Revo Uninstaller or Your Uninstaller (which has a free trial). These apps first run the MSI uninstaller routine and then clean the registry and drive of any remaining remnants that may be left over from the uninstall process. And then you can do an anytime upgrade using your W7 Pro (or whichever version you have) key to get W7 upgraded. Imo, getting it set up this way is the best way to arrive at a laptop that has everything working properly. (Of course one still needs to manually update a ton of the HP stuff from the driver support page here on NBR.)

But I would certainly understand if, after having gone to the trouble of doing a clean install and getting it mostly working correctly except for one or two little things, you wouldn't want to bother doing all the above just to re-enable the drive guard functionality.

 

Based on my 'theory", that explains why your HDD is "supported" under HP 3D DriveGuard.

I've done the reinstall of HP 3D DriveGuard (v.4.0.3.1) and had no luck getting my HP-provided 500Gb drive to appear as "supported".

I've already done essentially everything you described: I started with the original HP installation and have done all the removals of teaseware, etc. I'm the one that's been preaching that approach to others like windstrings for over a month, remember! I still have my original installation (less the teaseware, etc.) on my SSD but I reformatted my second drive (500Gb HP-provided drive) so I could use it differently than was the case when it was received in my Dv8t. I have no intention of going through that much work as you described just to get my secondary drive recognized by DriveGuard as "supported".

You may have forgotten but I only did my clean install to assess the improvement in speed performance that it would provide (none!) and I used non-HP Seagate 500Gb drives. I like the end result of removing the teaseware from the original HP install and I'm sticking with it.

 

It would be cool if we could figure out what, specifically, is on the HP drive (unformatted after receipt) that enables it to show up as "supported." If it was a specific file, it would be a simple matter to put the file in the appropriate place on the drive and restore the functionality. But I have no idea what to look for. Perhaps someone, somewhere knows. . .

 

Exactly... Mine is a Hitachi drives while it sounds like you guys have Seagates, true HP says they only support their drives but what do they do to "their" drives.. put a magic chip inside?

It may just be a matter of what drive or chipset is used or combination... I can't see getting bent about it until I see someone that shows "supported" with higher numbers than I have.

Not sure what this means but I see nothing pertaining to this in services, yet I have a driver loaded in device manager with no errors?
Does that mean its running from the hardrive itself without the need of services or software?

I have no errors, I need someone to prove to me I 'm missing something before I worry about it.

Hp seems to leave off tons of needed software from their download sites.... what should make me think they are staying on top of this issue either?

 

I think you're barking up the right tree! Most likely it's on the HP Tools partition.

 

@Windstrings: Nothing should make you think they are on top of this issue because they aren't. Their driver support site is pathetic. Thankfully, the person here at this site who maintains the great driver support page here somewhat makes up for HP's deficiencies, imo.

All the Drive Guard app and driver do is use a sensor to detect if your hard drive is about to be subject to being knocked and, if so, put the drive into a parked state so damage or data loss will be less likely to occur. As they describe it, it's an "airbag" for your hard drive. But it does nothing for performance. It just protects your data and drive from being damaged by sudden impacts or from movement while you are moving your laptop around while it is still operating. To be perfectly clear, it does not make the drive run any faster. It does enhance reliability to some extent, obviously.

 

I'm in agreement:

 

Speaking of that Tools partition, I find it very annoying to have a small partition devoted to whatever it is that the Tools partition does. I don't see why they just couldn't have included whatever is on the Tools partition in the SW setup folder in the C: partition. I wonder if anyone has successfully moved the contents of the Tools partition over to another existing partition and eliminated the Tools partition w/o screwing up any functionality? If so, I would love to know exactly how it was done.

 

Since pae77 says his is supported under HP 3D DriveGuard and mine is not. We both have HP-provided Seagate 500Gb drives of about the same age (last Nov) and both were delivered with our Dv8t laptops. I made two observations in a prior post here: 1) it probably is not in the firmware since his drive and mine have the same firmware. 2) it probably is a file or entry on the HP Tools partition since his still has that partition and I removed mine when I reformatted it.

pae77 may be able to help there since he's a gamer and I'm not. While my numbers are marginally better than yours, I have nothing game-specific that relates.

That's easy! The driver is successfully loading and has as its only purpose to identify whether the hard drives are supported or not. Since its purpose is to make that determination, it doesn't produce an error in Device Mangler even if the drive is "unsupported".

It is, most likely, just putting a "0" or "1" in a memory address that can be queried by the HP 3D DriveGuard software to determine if it can adjust its performance, etc.

As long as your drive would show "unsupported" under HP 3D DriveGuard software, it is moot for you!

I don't know that there IS any issue at this point. I believe all is as it should be, if you've formatted your HP HDD as I have and probably removed whatever would've told the HP 3D DriveGuard software to control your HP HDD.

 

I can only tell you that I tried booting up without that irritating FAT32 partition (I imaged a drive and then deleted that partition) and the disk became unbootable. So, if you screw around with such an effort, be careful! Work only with a HDD image.

 

I was afraid of something like that. That really sucks. It's very irritating to me to have that useless (but apparently required) partition staring me in the face every time I click on Computer. One would think HP could have come up with a more elegant way to implement whatever functionality that partition provides.

 

Oh yes!

Also noteworthy: HP puts 4 primary partitions on its boot HDDs. With no extended partition and no way to install one without deleting one of theirs!

That alone is the big advantage of a clean install!!!

 

Yeah, that's part of the reason I'm not happy about it.

I'm thinking of nuking the recovery partition eventually. I've made the recovery disks and I may also put them on an SDHC card when I come across a great deal on a 4 GB one. (Btw, there's a fairly simple procedure that enables one to make more than one copy of the recovery disks.) And I mainly rely on Acronis backup images for recovery purposes anyway.

 

I am sure that HP does it that way on purpose to prevent the less technical of us from tinkering with their grand master plan!

Be careful deleting any partition as bootability may be dependent on location and size of partition boundaries.

Why do you use Acronis? What does it cost? Is it faster or easier to use than Ghost, for example?

 

Ah... that triggered something in my memory.. my brain is too fried after working on my taxes all day to remember the specifics but there was something I remember trying to install and it wanted to create a new partition to finish the install and I wouldn't allow it to do it.....

Without going back and trying to reinstall the ones that gave me trouble I won't remember which it was.

Humm.. maybe tomorrow when I'm less fried, I"ll make a system restore point and play with that.

 

Acronis True Image Home 2010 is simply the best, imo only of course, backup and recovery application available for the home user. I've used all the versions going back at least 5 years and 2010 is the best yet. With the optional (at additional cost) "Plus Pack," one can even restore an image created from Machine A to completely different hardware (i.e., Machine B), although, to be honest, I haven't personally tested how well that feature actually works.

But Acronis does sector by sector "cloning" as well as making compressed image backups and it is highly configurable. I find it very easy to use and very reliable. In fact, it has never let me down yet. It also has some extra tools and utilities that come in handy, such as secure erase, to name one. It's useful for when one has to return a computer one has been using to any third party and one doesn't want to run the risk, however remote, of one's private data being "recovered" by someone who knows what they are doing.

It's not very difficult to recover files and folders even from a disk that has been formatted, if one has the proper software and knowledge of how to use it. Hence the need for a utility that can securely erase by writing 0's to every sector on the disk several times over. This is the only way to really get rid of data on a drive so it can't be recovered. But I digress . . .

Acronis is great and I love it, but there are also several other good apps that are way better than Ghost, imo, and some of them are even free. For example, I've heard good things about the free versions of Macrium Reflect and Paragon's backup software (can't recall the exact name right now). Some people on other forum I participate in like those apps even more than Acronis. But I'm very happy with Acronis.

I've seen Acronis going for as little as $29 or so at New Egg from time to time. Also, anyone who has a Seagate drive in their system (i.e., us) can get an older but still fairly decent OEM version of Acronis (called "Disk Wizard" by Seagate) that lacks some of the latest features but still does the essentials. I think anyone can download the free "Disk Wizard" application (which as I mentioned is an OEM version of a previous version of Acronis lacking some of the bells and whistles of the paid newer version) from Seagate's website. As long as one has one Seagate drive anywhere in the system (even external), I believe it will work on all the drives in the system. If you want to know more about Acronis, I suggest cruising over to their site and reading some of their promotional materials about it.

Anyway, suffice to say that it is not only a back up application but also a recovery app that can completely replace HP's recovery manager and load your own custom image at boot or even if you can't boot into Windows or your hard drive has self destructed and you need to restore to a new hard drive.

I use Acronis both to "clone" my laptop's entire hard drive to another 2.5 inch laptop drive in an external enclosure (so I could just remove the original HD and replace it with the clone, if necessary, w/o having to even restore anything; and I also use Acronis to also make compressed backup images to a 1.5 TB 3.5 inch external hard drive on an automatic schedule. Once set up, I don't have to do anything. So I have Acronis making fast incremental compressed and password protected image backups every two days automatically. And after x number of incremental backups have been made, a new full backup is automatically made and the incremental backups are automatically deleted and then Acronis continues making incremental backups as per how I set it up to do.

I have had occasion to use my clones several times, which worked perfectly, as well as to restore from various image backups and that went quickly and perfectly well every time also. So I feel very comfortable relying on this particular application for backup and recovery, as well as for secure data destruction when needed.

 

Interesting ... that's what I spent all day on - taxes! I've been doing people's taxes since 1983. It's never been more complex that it has been this year.

 

I'll be curious to see what you come up with. You seem quite creative and who knows what you may find. Good luck.

 

Certainly a ringing endorsement from a very satisfied customer!!

My loyalty was to PowerQuest's DriveImage until Symantec bought PowerQuest in the '90s. I still use my last version (5.51) on a 1.44Mb FDD to do quick simple sector-by-sector cloned images of my desktop Win7 NTFS partitions. NTFS hasn't changed in a decade. Since I now do so much with laptops that no longer support bootable floppy disks, I had to find an imaging product that worked from CD or DVD. I fiddle around with Hirens BootCD (now at v 10.2) and found it has Ghost 11.5 and a bootable XP environment that makes an easy job of making full images that are bootable. So, while I have an external eSata/FireWire/USB2 "drop-in" enclosure for 2.5" and 3.5" Sata drives to use for cloning, I haven't done much to pursue any improvements in the software. Parenthetically, it is worth mentioning that eSata is an awesome improvement in speed over USB2!!!!

I will explore the Acronis and other options you described. Thanks very much for the tips.

Are any of the programs you mentioned, particularly that you've tried, noticeably faster "end-to-end" cloning than the rest?

 

^ I agree with this, prob some sort of file that points the HP Driveguard software to the hdd. My 500gb hdd also is 'supported' in control panel, but I have not altered the partitions/structure of the drive - it is the same straight from HP - again making me agree that there is some common file among all of this. I'll try to look more into it....

Those that are having the drive show up as 'unsupported' can you try and download this file:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=321957&prodSeriesId=3357377&prodNameId=3357378&swEnvOID=4053&swLang=13&taskId=135&swItem=ob-81492-1&mode=3

Before you install that file, maybe try and completely remove everything associated with 'HP Driveguard' and then install the new version. IDK that this is going to help, but it can't hurt to try.

 

Thanks, the more people that are looking to identify the "environment' needed to make DriveGuard work, the greater the chance it will be identified and characterized.

I have done the download, uninstalled HP 3D DriveGuard 4.0.4.1, and installed this new version 4.0.5.1 (2/22/10) of HP 3D DriveGuard. My HP 500Gb drive is still unsupported but new version of DriveGuard seems to load and display fine. BTW, the RN don't list Pavilion laptops as a "supported model" ... go figure!

 

I was gonna play with that one too but realized it was an older version of what I already have "v4.0.6.1" so I didn't.

The files on the HP site "+Intel Matrix Storage Technology driver v8.9.2.1002 A 9-2009" I'm not using, but rather the later files which are now called "Intel Rapid Storage Technology (SATA AHCI) v9.6.0.1014 Mar 26 2010" (iata96cd.exe).

I don't know how all these files inter-relate to each other but its obviously a rubics cube of sorts.

 

No! No! No!

You're confusing the driver (4.0.6.1) with the software (new version 4.0.5.1). Only the software (that you had uninstalled - HP 3D DriveGuard) is being updated with the link to download sp47282.exe - OK?

 

Ok, I'm gonna try installing it.. I believe it has the accelerometer.inf file in it same as the 4.0.6.1 driver update as when I was watching it expand I think I saw that file.... but I'll reboot and see whats up.

 

ok, its installed, I still have my 4.0.6.1 driver in device manager and I have no errors.

However the 3D Driveguard software shows my drive as unsupported and "disabled" for driveguard protection.

How do we know its not looking at the SSD drive?

Nothing is labeled here, but if it was seeing the SSD drive you would think it would also see the HDD drive too.

 

This is something I'm looking into, but I won't have access to my cpu until tomm. I think I know what's up, but I'll know for sure when I can access my machine....

 

Well I just wasted over an hour trying to resolve this mess.

I'm right back where I started.... 4.0.6.1 drivers installed in device manager with no errors and the 3D data protection software won't see the drives so its now uninstalled completely.

For anyone interested, the 4.0.6.1 drivers must be installed using the Device Manager "highlight something, then go to Action, add legacy devices, search for and install the hardware automatically, if you know the specific hardware location, click next, go to system devices, and browse to the "accelerometer.inf file. click next, you will then see the HD data protection, highlight it and next and follow the prompts.

5. It also appears that these 4.0.6.1 drives will not load properly with 3D data protection software installed first.

And vice versa, if the 4.0.6.1 is installed first, the 3D software will not see the drive... but if no drivers are installed at all, the 3D Driveguard software will show nothing at all.

What a piggy mess!

I wonder the the 3D software expects to see the Hdd as primary?

Is everyone thats having troubles have a SSD as primary and a HDD as secondary?.. thats the boat I'm in.

 

No, the actual cloning process, once it is initiated and started, seems always to take about the same time depending on the size of the drive.

The cool thing about cloning with Acronis is that it can be initiated in several different ways depending on what is convenient under the circumstances, e.g.:

1) From within Windows in the Acronis app;
2) From Acronis' linux (I think) based pre boot environment, which incidentally can easily (with one or two clicks from w/i the Acronis app) be added to one's machine as an additional boot option so that thereafter one can enter the Acronis pre boot environment, which contains the whole Acronis app as well as optionally, their Disk Director partitioning app if one has that, simply by restarting the computer and pressing F11 before windows starts to load;
3) From Acronis' rescue media, which one can create from within the application after it has been installed (e.g., CD, USB flash card or drive, etc.) which also contains the entire Acronis (and optionally the Disk Director) application.

A couple of other advantages to Acronis I forgot to mention that I find useful occasionally are that from within the Acronis app, one can load, open and browse one's compressed back up images (not talking about the clones, which are different kinds of backups that don't need anything special to be able to view them), to, for example, find and restore an individual folder and file from a complete image backup. One can also convert compressed image backups made with Acronis TIH 2010 to Windows 7 Backups format and vice versa. So one can use Acronis to browse and restore image backups made with Windows 7 backup utility.

I just think it can't be beat for easy of use, versatility, and reliability, although there are people who feel the same way about the other two applications I mentioned in my previous post on this subject.

 

The result of installing it should be HP 3D DriveGuard at v.4.0.5.1 and the Sensor driver will remain at 4.0.6.1 (since this update shouldn't affect it).

 

No surprises there.

I believe that, since the SSD is not shock-sensitive, the sensor driver and driveguard software will only look at mechanical drives.

 

I installed the Drive Guard 4.0.5.1 update as well and in Control Panel it's still showing as Drive Guard enabled and my notebook drive = supported.

Thanks for posting the update. I find it quite irritating and disappointing that HP hasn't seen fit to update their DV8 driver support/download page with this (as well as many other available) updates. Very negligent support, imo, unless the update simply adds support for additional models but does not improve performance, fix bugs or add features.

 

Sorry to hear that....

I guess that's about all you could expect until you have an HP HDD installed that hasn't been formatted since you bought it.

As I previously explained here, that's exactly what you SHOULD expect! Name any other software that uses a hardware driver that WILL work when the driver is not installed!

That is my hypothesis as well (if the drive hasn't been formatted since purchase from HP!).

Not if they didn't do a clean install, etc., in which they FORMATTED the HDD!

 

Good! Nothing lost!

The HP site indicate a couple of display fixes (proper sized icons, etc.)...

 

I didn't expect that there would be, given that transfer speeds are limited by HDD speeds or by link connection speed.

You must know I'm easily seduced by flexibility!

requiring a reboot to launch and image, right?

This is very interesting. If HP uses all the primary partitions for its own installations, where is the pre-boot environment stored? Also, does it copy its pre-boot environment as part of the imaging copy?

Can it be put on a 1.44 Floppy?

I love flexibility!!!

I doubt I would use this but it's another "arrow in the quiver" of flexibility.

I hear you! Certainly worth looking into and comparing Acronis to the others you mentioned.

 

News Flash!


HP has a new $200 stackable coupon (HP Coupon STACKABLE $200 off HP Pavilion Laptops $1099+ Coupon Code: NBT56981) that can be applied to the DV8, plus there is a $250 instant rebate, plus they are giving a free upgrade to 6 GB ram. (Also there is another $50 stackable coupon for Pavilion laptops but I couldn't figure out how to apply two coupons to my order.)

Anyway, since I can still return my unit to Costco for any reason for another 80 days (one of the great benefits of Costco membership), I couldn't resist snapping up this new deal direct from HP. I was able to configure and buy a fully loaded DV8 with 6 GB ram, two 500 GB 7.2k hard drives, lightscribe optical DVD 8x RW drive, Wireless N with Bluetooth , hybrid TV Tuner, and got it all for a grand total of $1,240 (before tax) with free shipping.

So for only about $40 more than what I paid originally, I got an extra 500 GB drive with the mounting caddy (and, hopefully, Drive Guard support ), Hybrid TV Tuner, Bluetooth, and Lightscribe optical drive. Otherwise, the new configuration is the same as the DV8 I had before. So I'm pretty stoked to get all that extra stuff for only an extra $40, plus unfortunately giving up the Costco two year warranty and the 90 day return period in exchange for the standard HP one year warranty. At least it's extended by 1 extra year by making the purchase with an Amex card, although I've never tried to get any service under the extra credit card warranty so I don't know how well that actually works. Also, I must make do with HP's short, but still generous, 21 day return period.

I guess I'll probably just purchase the discounted 2 year accidental damage total care package from Costco which I think I can do within a certain time period after I get the new machine.

At the same time as I ordered the above, I also ordered the really powerful Logitech 2.1 Z2300 external speakers which with all the discounts they applied came to about $110 shipped which I think is a pretty decent price for those speakers which are supposed to be quite good for the money. I would rather have gotten Bose but these are less than half the price and are supposed to be somewhat comparable to the powerful Bose model I was considering.

 

Great buy! Blows my mind! I would submit that it's very unlikely that HP will deliver on the two500Gb 72k HDDs - 72k = 72,000 rpm. I expect that they may deliver the 7k ones instead...

I'll be curious to hear back if both 500Gb drives show as "supported' under HP 3D DriveGuard.

 

I'm not sure I understand what you mean about the drive speed. But my future intention is, after the price of SSD comes down some more, I'll swap out one of the 500 GB drives for an SSD one. I'm also getting a Thermaltake esata/usb 2.0 drive dock that can take both 2.5 inch and 3.5 inch sata drives, so after I eventually remove it from the DV8, I'll be able to use the extra 500 GB drive in that dock hooked up to the estata port which should be pretty neat.

Here's a better summary of the new config:
dv8t quad edition
• Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
• Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-720QM Quad Core processor (1.6GHz, 6MB L3 Cache) with Turbo Boost up to 2.8 GHz
• FREE Upgrade to 6GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm) from 4GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)
• 1TB 7200RPM SATA Dual Hard Drive (500GB x 2) with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection
• 1GB Nvidia GeForce GT 230M
• 18.4" diagonal High Definition HP Ultra BrightView Infinity Display (1920x1080p)
• LightScribe SuperMulti 8X DVD+/-RW with Double Layer Support
• Webcam + Fingerprint Reader with HP Imprint Finish (Espresso Black)
• Intel Wireless-N Card with Bluetooth
• HP Integrated HDTV Hybrid Tuner
• HP Color Matching Keyboard
• 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (standard)
• Microsoft(R) Works 9.0
• HP Home & Home Office Store in-box envelope

Total Cost: $1,239.99 (before tax) w. free standard shipping.

Looking forward to seeing how the TV tuner actually works. Never tried one on a computer before. I don't watch much regular TV though cause I get most of my TV shows online.

 

You referred to a 72k 500Gb drive when it's actually a 7.2k 500Gb. Just making a bit of fun over the error. BTW, your signature has the same error.

Basically, I've done what you're planning and it works really well! The 256Gb SSD is at least 4 times as fast as the moderately fast 7.2k 500Gb HDD.

Mine came with the TV tuner and I haven't ever gotten around to trying it out. I'm going camping in a month and plan to put it through its paces then.