*HP dv8 Owners Lounge*

Hi,

I have dual 320GB HDDs and wanted to know if I can enable RAID? I haven't attempted RAID at all and wanted to know if it is possible on dv8t. If RAID is possible and not that difficult to setup, will it be equivalent to a single SSD speed? I'm thinking of getting a SSD on the Primary slot but wanted to know if RAID can be a alternative option.

Thanks.

 

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RAID is not available in Dv8 BIOS... Hoped to use RAID myself originally.

SSD is faster and is available for Dv8 so I went that route.

Regards,
- - Phil

 

Edit: I just realized I misread your original post and didn't answer your question. I'm not sure how to get Media Smart to stop automatically playing DVDs because I don't use it. It's way too basic for me. It has practically no configuration settings. My advice would be not to use Mediasmart at all and use the methods suggested below to change your default media player to a better player that allows more configuration options. There are several good free players. I suggested a few good ones below.

You need to change the windows file association for the kind of files you want to which media player you want to open the files. There are various ways to do this. You can use the start, default programs menu, or you could right click on the media file you want to open, and click "open with" and then browse to the .exe of the media player you want to use to open the file (e.g., mediaplayer.exe) usually found in program files (x86), and select the appropriate .exe and make sure the box that says use this program as the default to always open this kind of file is checked. This procedure would have to be repeated for each file type that you want to have opened by a particular media player instead of media smart (which does suck greatly, imo). Also, another way is sometimes provided within the media player you want to use. It may have a menu option that may allow you to change all the file associations to use that particular player but it doesn't always work if done from within a particular program.

Btw, I use the free KM Player (or Media Player Classic Home Cinema (MPCHC))for most video files. Also VLC just released a new final version yesterday that uses (finally) GPU acceleration (DXVA) to play most HD video files (assuming you have updated your video driver to one that supports DXVA and/or CUDA, (the 257.xx driver does). So VLC might be a good choice that is easy to work with, especially for those with less experience. All of the above are free programs.

 

I heartily recommend the VLC program for its ease of use but suggest that both be downloaded and tried out to find which best suits how they are to be used.

Regards,
- - Phil

 

I'm having the problem where the bass/treble screen keeps popping up and going crazy. Also, the wireless disable/enable button keeps disabling without me touching it. Any fixes for this? Also, how do you disable both buttons from working (the bass/treble slider AND the WiFi button).

Thanks in advance.

 

I suggest properly updating the drivers for nVidia video, HP Quickstart Buttons, and HP Wireless Assistant... see Drivers Thread for DV6, DV7, Dv8, for download URLs. Be sure to properly uninstall each one.

Regards,
- - Phil

 

Peter, I could swear my free version of VLC and MPCHC do not support Blu ray disk playback. Apparently Corel makes a fine blu ray player, but for around $100. So I keep my Mediasmart around just for blu ray disks (as opposed to downloaded files. Tell me if there is something I have to do to get the free ones to support blu ray disk playback. Thanks, Jeff

 

Phil,
Typically, I post at 11 pm, you respond by 11:08 and I don't go back on site until 26 hrs later! Didn't even have the strength to attack the MS Office problem on my wife's dv4. I will say that Open Office and Office 2010 beta play together well on my dv8. Anyway, I think chkdsk may do the trick.

New topic. I should have asked my brain trust before trying this, and I have seen you all are fans of Acronis and Ghost for drive mirroring, but I got a strong personal recommendation from someone I trust (and who is now in Europe traveling somewhere and not responding to my email!), so I got a product called Bounceback to mirror my C drive, never having done so before. I managed files between my 1 TB Toshiba eSATA and my 500GB Western external, and set to mirror my dv8 500 GB HDD onto the Western. The mirror process went fine and I tested bringing up files and software from the Western and all seemed to work fine, suggesting it was a true mirror and fully operational as an alternate boot drive. So much for the good news.

The sorta bad news (I'm quite certain there are a number of fairly easy fixes (after which Bounceback may need to "bounceback" to it's maker!), is that upon my first reboot from the C: drive of the dv8 since the mirroring, I get an intermediary (black recovery-type) boot screen, asking if I want to use a recovery drive or boot right into Windows. If I choose the latter, it boots up fine. If I tell it to boot from my recovery drive, it says the file(s) are missing or corrupted. I have tried to restore the disk to just before I installed Bounceback, but it is endlessly caught in "Please wait while Windows files and settings are restored. System Restore is restoring the registry..."

I am pretty sure that I could stop the computer from trying to complete the restore (it got through all the pre-shutdown/restart processes, restarted, then got stuck for about 30 mins in a process with a slightly different screen narrative, commonly shown when a restoration is rebotting, except the previous step normally takes less than 1 minute when rebooting post-restore and it took 30, and this last step, screen narrative quoted above, normally also takes less than 2 minutes post-restore and I'm onto hour 2. The HDD light is blinking and flashing (making mince meat out of my Hd??!!), so under the theory that it is "working" on something, and that maybe, probably, Bounceback somehow removed some registry files (I have the mirror drive connected, for good measure, but I don't think it is doing anything) and it is an excruciatingly slow process to rebuild.

I'm probably going to shut down and try to get it to re-boot as it was before I did the restore, offering me the two ways of booting up, choosing going into Windows and hopefully booting up as normal, just as it did when I encountered the intermediary screen the first and second times. From there, fully booted into Windows with everything working (with the mirror drive unplugged), I will be ready to......DO WHAT?

I not only have the mirror drive, I have a full Windows backup on my other external drive and, of course, I have my recovery USB flash drive. I would like to get the dv8 back to the point where it boots up normally and, to do so, will have the registry restored to the way it was pre-mirroring procedure. With all these "safe" tools at my disposal, I'm not sure which to use, what to do to get everything on the C drive to be "normal" again. Oh, by the way, I did run a chkdsk prior to the restore, and it found only a few, apparently minor broken chains to restore, and reported no problem in doing them.

Sorry the problem description is so lengthy. My opportunities to get online are limited these days, so I wanted to anticipate as many questions as you may have. Many thanks in advance for your advice here. There doesn't seem to be a "crisis" here, but I think I might be left more vulnerable in the event of a true, unrelated "crisis," and besides, I just don't like to have this additional step to booting up.

Best,
Jeff

 

I don't know the first thing about Bluray disc playback as I've never tried to play one. But I think you are probably right about the free players not supporting playback of the discs as opposed to HD files (Bluray rips) and I guess that certainly is a good reason to keep Mediasmart on one's machine. But for HD video files and regular DVD playback, the other players mentioned in the other post are all significantly better than Mediasmart, imo. I believe I vaguely recall hearing somewhere that Quicktime is a free player that can play BR discs but am not 100% sure about that.

But make sure you check out the latest version of VLC just released the other day. Perhaps it now offers BR disc playback . . . although again, I don't know since I don't even have a BR disc player and also I personally don't use VLC so am not totally up on what the new version can and can't do. I just mentioned VLC because it is a totally self contained solution that is very popular and very easy to use for those that don't want to deal with configuring external codecs and such and also because the new version is supposed to have some significantly enhanced capabilities. But again, I don't know if that yet includes BR disc playback.

 

I guess that's the way it goes. If I post at 11:08pm and you don't respond for a day or two, I lose my focus and start over when I hear back. I work best when the issue is raised when you can focus on it for a few messages in an hour or two. I'll keep trying and respond when you do.

Regards,
- - Phil

 

Hi,

I got a replacement dv8t since the first one I got was defective. This time I have dual 320GB HDDs in the system. Does anybody know that the recovery partition is on the second hard drive or on the primary itself? I wanted to make use of the second HDD by saving the cloned image of the primary onto the second one. Please let me know if it is doable. I was reading about a free cloning software (Macrium Reflect - Macrium Reflect FREE Edition - Information and download) that works wonders and also can truly clone and restore non Windows OSes (Linux and variants). Has anybody tried this one?

Also, since I already used the HP recovery manager to create 4 DVD-R discs with my first dv8t machine, will those recovery discs work with my replacement dv8t? I know I need to change the Windows 7 Home Premium product key after I restore. But, other than that, is there any other issue that I need to worry about? I don't want to go over the hassle of creating another set of 4 recovery discs.

Thanks.

 

I guess you are entertaining yourself, Jeff.

Egads! I'm sorry that this didn't turn out better for you! I'll make a couple of comments and then offer a couple of courses of acton.

I use Ghost primarily BECAUSE it operates from a CD and all HDDs or SSDs are dormant storage. I don't like cloning with any product that operates from the same drive it is cloning! As you now know, it's a principle to avoid these risks. Acronis appears to have a "handle" on doing successfully but I still don't trust that approach.

Obviously, you've tried Revo-ing the Bounceback program, right? If not, do so as it should get rid of the regstry entries, etc., that are embedded to "restore" stuff from the clone. I hope it hasn't modified your boot sector data.

Also, did you follow Phil's first rule? (always do a full clone wth Ghost before installing a new software app) If so, just use Ghost to put things back the way they were and don't dosuch things in the future....

Regards,
- - Phil

 

Your recovery partition is the third one on the primary drive on a "factory load".

I couldn't make it create a cloned image of the primary drive while booted from it. It performs a backup that is restorable.

It depends, at a minimum, on how close to identical is the replacement Dv8. If it were mine, I'd go ahead and make new recovery disks anyway.

What is your strategy for recovery after you install all your software, etc.? If you plan to rely on the original restore discs, you're headed toward eventual disappointment.

I'd create clone(s) with a free program like those on Hiren's BootCD - I rotate/cycle thru 3 cloned HDDs in my Sata NexStar Hard Drive Dock and don't ever expect to make or need "recovery discs".

Regards,
- - Phil

 

Thanks Phil.

My first goal is to do a complete clone of the primary hdd to the second one. The primary hdd (as you know) includes 4 partitions. I would like to know if there is any specific software that can do 100% cloning and restore (if I wanted to) later on with no errors.

Next, I would want to create 4 new DVD-R recovery discs which would I would do as you suggested.

Finally, I would like to install Linux (dual boot with Windows 7) and would like to completely clone and restore (later on) with no errors. Please suggest a solution.

Thanks.

 

As I suggested, download Hiren's BootCD (now at v. 10.5 or 10.6), boot up with it (select "mini-XP"), and use Ghost 11.5.1 on it to clone the primary drive. Easy and it takes less than 20 minutes to clone a 320gb. What is mfr of your drives?

Regards,
- - Phil

 

Toshiba on the first dv8t. Still waiting for the second one to be delivered.

 

I misunderstood "I got a replacement Dc8" to mean you had it in hand ... I guess it meant "I have a replacement on its way to me..."

Regards,
- - Phil

 

That is correct.

 

You can use Acronis or Ghost (or Macrium Reflect, I think) to clone the hard drive.

The recovery partition is on the primary hard drive in a partition aptly called "Recovery."

My understanding is that you wouldn't need to change the Windows product ID or key after doing a recovery with the recovery disks or partition. An HP OEM product ID that is the same for all DV8's is installed by the Recovery partition. BTW, this is not the same as the unique key that is on the COA printed label on the bottom of the DV8, although one could use that key instead if one wanted.

I would go ahead and burn new recovery disks though, as there may be other things that have changed and it's possible the new recovery disks will be more up to date.

Imo, you would be better off buying and hooking up to an external hard drive (preferably through the DV8's esata connection) and using that for backup purposes. Or you could buy an esata hard drive dock and just buy a bare hard drive to stick in it for backup purposes.

For one thing, if your machine gets lost or stolen, your backup is gone if it is also stored on the machine itself. Also, if malware happens to attack and spreads throughout the system, it could also get on your backup drive if it is constantly connected.

Imo, the 2nd internal drive is best used to separately store your user data files on and keep them separate from the OS and system files on the primary drive. There are tutorials on how to move your user files to another location such as the second hard drive. For example: User Folders - Change Default Location - Windows 7 Forums It's not very difficult.

A big advantage of having the user data files on a separate drive or partition from the partition containing the OS is that it is very convenient to be able to restore one's OS (and this is the part that is most likely to need restoring) w/o having to restore or mess with one's data at the same time. Not only is the recovery of just the OS partition faster but it also doesn't mess with your data. For example, if your last back up is a week old (or for some reason, you have to go back and restore from a backup that is a week or more old) and includes your data and OS all on one partition, when you restore it, all your data from the last week (stuff like emails, documents, downloaded files, videos, etc., is gone and is now a week old which to me is a bit of an inconvenience. But if you can separately restore just the OS, then your recent data remains untouched, even though you restored the OS from a backup that is a week old. To me this is somewhat of a major advantage of keeping one's user data on a separate drive or partition from the OS.

And this (putting the user data files on the second internal drive) is something that would usually have to be done anyway if/when one ever wants to upgrade to an SSD for the primary drive. So getting it set up properly for eventual upgrade to an SSD from the get go is yet another advantage.

Anyway, good luck with the new DV8!

 

Peter, you said some of it differently but I guess you agree with all I wrote and I agree with most of yours ... Ha! ha!

Regards,
- - Phil

 

Hopefully the previous responses will help you after you have received it ... When do you expect to receive it? Maybe you get started with downloading Hiren's BootCD in the meantime?

Regards,
- - Phil

 

While the recovery disks are not as useful for recovery purposes as having clones or backup images of your setup, they are useful if when you ever need to send your machine in for service and don't want to let your confidential data out of your possession. In that situation, it's a good idea to back up one's system to an external drive, securely wipe the drive(s) on the machine and use the recovery disks to put the factory load back on before sending the machine in for service or when possibly eventually selling it. So I always make the recovery disks for those uses, if nothing else, even though I use my own backups (and not the recovery disks) if I need to recover from some problem. That way I don't have to reinstall all my apps and data, and reconfigure everything from scratch as I would if I used the recovery disks to recover from some problem.

 

You can do the same thing with the factory-provided recovery disks if you have them ... I would prefer to use the factory HP ones than the ones I made for myself that may have some of my info on them.

Regards,
- - Phil

 

I totally agree, Peter! That's how I set mine up last December at the beginning (when I had dual 500gb Seagates) and it made moving to my Samsung SSD a 15 minute job after it arrived.

One thing I'll add... the vast majority of hard drive crashes occur on the boot drive and trash most of it. By installing all software to the second drive and keeping all data (including user folders) there, a crash will not be likely (<5%) to damage or wipe my "data" drive. Also, I put my paging file on the secondary drive so it can operate independently of the primary drive and not slow down system operation as much when the system performs writes to it.

Regards,
- - Phil

 

I notice that several User folders will not move, e.g. AppData. Peter, do you have any idea how to move them (their Properties page doesn't have any "location" tab)?

Regards,
- - Phil

 

I believe the reason for that is that it is not considered advisable to move those folders from their original default locations. So I wouldn't move appdata and don't know of any method.

One other thing I noticed was that Office 2010 now wants to put its user data files by default in a folder located within Documents (or "My Documents"). In previous versions, by default it put those folders in one of the subfolders in Appdata. The advantage of having those files in Documents or My Documents (I rename all those folders to get rid of the "my" prefix and that hasn't caused any problems) is that the Outlook data files now get backed up with all the other user data instead of with the OS files and when one restores the OS partition or drive, one doesn't over write the Outlook data files, assuming the user files as a whole have been separated from the OS files as we have been discussing. But in the old location (i.e., a subfolder under appdata) those data files would get over written when recovering the OS partition even if the user data files had been separated out, unless one had previously made a special effort to relocate the Outlook data files as well. But now they are conveniently located within other user data files by default. I'm sure that change was made to preclude those data files from being over written when restoring the OS partition when one has set things up as we have been recommending.

 

I figured that was a Microsoft decision but I would much prefer to have it on my secondary drive. Que sera.

Regards,
- - Phil

 

2D Quality has been improved dramatically since the introduction of new driver.

257.21_notebook_winvista_win7_64bit_international_whql

Now you can download this driver directly from Nvidia website.

 

Yes it's a very good driver. Many of us have already been using it since it was released about a week or two ago. 3D performance is improved greatly as well. CODMW2 looks and plays better than ever with this driver

 

Thanks to all of you guys. This forum is very informative and helpful. I'll be ordering a SSD tomorrow and wanted to get some information. What steps do I need follow for SSD to function top-notch? I read that that I need to move the paging file to another drive and also other temp files (browser etc) and also disable prefetch...and also change the location for the user folders.

Can somebody point me to a link or give me a list of items that I need to do once I get my SSD?

Also, how do I check if my new dv8t has any dead pixels? Will PixelBuddy help?

Thanks.

 

Wanted to check in and brag about my new dv8 on its way from Houston to NC. Found a factory refurb deal on a MAXED out system. Every concievable feature available on the HP cto website. It'll be here on Thursday as opposed to 3 weeks through HP direct. Bought the HP factory 4 yr ADP plan.

i7-820QM, 8gb, 256 ssd, 500 gb sata, the works. Looking forward to starting the once again and never last, configuring, loading and unloading routine.

 

I guess I have to wonder what SSD you're ordering - make, model, firmware, size, etc.

At this point, I can hope you get a good one and will find it suitable for enjoying in your laptop.

When do you expect to receive your Dv8 replacement?

BTW, it would help if you "quote" previous posts you are referring to when you ask questions relating to them so we all start from the same information you are relying on and from the place you are, when we try to reply to your posts.

Regards,
- - Phil

 

Congrats on your acquisition! Sounds like a winner! I harbor just a bit of envy at yours coming with 8gb DDR3. Otherwise, it sounds like we have very similar machines.

Hope it arrives okay and matches your expectations!

Enjoy!

Regards,
- - Phil

 

Thanks Phil and point taken.
I'm getting my replacement on Wednesday and I'm getting Corsair P128 which has got excellent reviews (here: Corsair P128 SSD review. It also has 128MB onboard DRAM. I don't know the firmware version. But, I know that it comes with a Samsung controller firmware which have got astounding reviews from people on various forums.

What do you think?

 

@Phil, About that ram, I suspect HP is using marketing rather than sound electronic principles in there option choices. I've heard that the dimm modules should be balanced with identical ram chips. Wondering if the first 4 gb systems had 2-2gb chips and later HP decided to pull a 2 and insert a 4 to get the 6gb. And obviously the later 8gb setups have the
2-4s. I'd be interested to know how your ssd performs. What did you upgrade from and what speed increases did you note? I'll still be running a dv7t with dual 500 - 7200s. It's a fast i7-720QM system, very responsive.

 

Certainly likely to be some truth there. My 4gb and 2gb are different mfrs. I have no idea whether the pair of 4gb HP provides in a setup like yours are identical... you can tell us when you receive it.

I started with 2 500gb Seagate HDDs and upgraded one 500gb HDD to a Samsung 256gb SSD from HP. I noted that performance jumped about 2-3 times. A month or so later, I noticed that performance began to slip. I researched it a found some SSDs slow down due to issues addressed by TRIM in Win 7 but my SSD didn't support TRIM and HP was not (and still doesn't) providing a firmware upgrade package to allow support of that Win 7 function. I upgraded my firmware myself using the Samsung firmware package and my performance returned to normal and has not declined since.

Regards,
- - Phil

 

Well, I didn't recall the rule and, ironically, Bounceback is a competitor to Ghost. It got great reviews but something obviously glitched.
Suffice to say, I have never had to deal with these kinds of failures, so I would be very grateful I could get thoughts on whether it is really necessary to restore the computer to day-one state and whether perhaps its easier to get it back to present day space than I imagine it to be.

***Very important: as the computer works fine now, I can make copies of files, even use Ghost now to make an image of the drive onto my eSATA drive. So, unlike someone who has crashed a drive, I only have a bad boot sector and apparently a fried D recovery partition and bad recovery disks (soon to be remedied in tomorrow's Fedex), so the barn door may be open, but all the horses are in the stable, securely tied to their posts. So perhaps the best advice you could give me now is exactly what one should do if one wants to be prepared for a disk crash. In essence, the HP advice involves intentionally "crashing" my programs and data, so the restoration is similar, yes?

Thanks for any and all help. I know this is a lot of content, but, well, those who know me know it is my stock in trade, and it's made worse by the fact that I am in unknown territory.

Best,

Jeff

Sorry, I'm pretty freaked, given all I've got to deal with between now and my back surgery in a week and a half.

Much obliged for any help,

Jeff

 

Glad your replacement Dv8 will be arriving so soon.

I've read only good reviews of Corsair 128gb SSD. I'm sure any SSD will perform much better than a HDD at the outset. If you are okay with 128gb capacity, it should be fine. Just be sure it supports TRIM under Win 7 as its performance will degrade more rapidly if it doesn't. The P128 was offered by Corsair with Samsung version VBM19C1Q to support TRIM beginning in January. I hope you will receive one with that version, If you don't already have it, install free CrystalInfo s/w from Crystal Dew, as it will allow you to identify the firmware and whether your P128 supports TRIM.

Regards,
- - Phil

 

Originally Posted by PMorgan View Post
I guess you are entertaining yourself, Jeff.

More like wanting to shoot myself - fast death vs. slow! I understand your frustration.

Egads! I'm sorry that this didn't turn out better for you! I'll make a couple of comments and then offer a couple of courses of action.

Thank you. I really need help. I didn't even recall "Phil's rule," much less apply it. That's really too bad.... preventing a problem is SO much easier than trying to figure out how to fix it.

I use Ghost primarily BECAUSE it operates from a CD and all HDDs or SSDs are dormant storage. I don't like cloning with any product that operates from the same drive it is cloning! As you now know, it's a principle to avoid these risks. Acronis appears to have a "handle" on doing successfully but I still don't trust that approach.

Makes perfect sense. I'll order it for overnight delivery. Is there only one version, or more? If more, which do you recommend? Just download free Hiren's BootCD file (as I suggested a months ago when we had a similar discussion offline) and write it to a CD using ImgBurn.
Obviously, you've tried Revo-ing the Bounceback program, right? If not, do so as it should get rid of the registry entries, etc., that are embedded to "restore" stuff from the clone. I hope it hasn't modified your boot sector data.

I have not tried Revo-ing anything, as I have been unsure what to do and am afraid of making things worse. Is there any harm caused by leaving it there? I was thinking as a last resort, if no one has advice short of what I will describe below that HP has recommended, I would call the Bounceback maker, CMS Software, to ask if they have encountered this before and have a brilliant rabbit to pull out of a hat, lol. But tell me if you think I must Revo it out immediately.)
I would've just Revo-d it. But if you have access to the support for this product, it can't hurt to solicit their advice.

The rotten news is: It HAS affected my boot sector, and now when I boot, just after the windows turns colored balls into a flag, it shows a splash screen that asks if I want to boot from a recovery DVD or from "Windows." When I tried my recovery CD, which I burned when it was new, it would not boot up. (I have ordered a new set of recovery disks from HP, should be delivered tomorrow.) The only good news is at least I can presently boot up (except that it takes 2.5-3 mins. vs. 55 secs. before the disaster!) when I choose "Windows" from that splash screen. Once booted up, it seems to perform pretty much unchanged.
But the boot sector is definitely damaged, and two HP techs, who were clearly trying to be helpful and went through a number of things via remote access and by directing me to try things while they waited, ended up concluding that the D: partitioned got corrupted during the Bounceback mirroring, or lets just say they concluded it is corrupted, and they say the only thing left for me to do is to use the recovery disks to restore the dv8 to its factory delivered state and bring everything (programs, data, etc) over from backups and copies. Do you (all) feel from what I have described (on this and the previous post) that they are right and I will have to use the recovery disks to start from scratch? If you had a clone of this entire setup, I'd say just dump the present mess and "copy" the clone over it and it would restore everything to the way it was ... You have several alternative options to pursue and each is likely to succeed after a lot of effort. I already told you what I would do but that's not an option now. I guess I'd just get advice from the program author and report back here. If you can't go back to a previous Restore Point, then try Revo-ing the program and running a Boot Sector repair program (several come on the Hiren's disk). I guess I can give you details (which would be a waste of time beforehand on each option) once you get info from the program author and decide what course you want to pursue.

Also, did you follow Phil's first rule? (always do a full clone wth Ghost before installing a new software app) If so, just use Ghost to put things back the way they were and don't do such things in the future....

Too bad, Jeff ... nothing more I can say now except we tried for a long time to clearly describe proper backup techniques to use before installing ANY update or ANY new software (I'm sorry you figured that they only applied to upgrading to SSD). I could respond to a lot more that you wrote but I'm not up to it. The productive thing to do now has been described above and all the rest can wait till after the course of action is determined (even if you decide to do nothing and just use it the way it is till after you recover form your surgery).

Take care!

Regards,
- - Phil

 

Thanks Phil. Duly scolded, and suffering for it. One last question: do you think, using the approaches you suggested, I can avoid having to recover my machine to its "native" state? I'm not asking you to say how or why, I just want to know if, should I employ the approaches you have suggested, which I will do, might it be possible to repair my boot sector, boot up like normal, and never have to do the recovery process? Your answer will tell me to try other things first. It is tempting to recovery to original state, if only to perhaps "cleanse" this machine of the BSOD issues it developed somehow.

Thanks,

Jeff

 

I don't have time to give you detailed advice but if the problem is that the machine is not starting up properly now, you could try running the windows startup repair. See Startup Repair - Windows 7 Forums for more info on that, but usually it will repair most start up problems. It may have to be run several times to completely effectuate a repair.

I'm assuming you already tried system restore and it didn't fix things. If not, you could give that a try, but I haven't been having much luck with system restore myself lately.

You could also try to do a repair install of windows which leaves your installed programs, most settings and data intact. See Repair Install - Windows 7 Forums for more info about that.

Otherwise, if that doesn't solve the problems, what I would do is back up to an external hard drive any data that you need or want to preserve, and then do a complete recovery to factory defaults and start updating drivers and Windows and reinstalling apps and then copying back your data. A long laborious process which I have had to do on one occasion (long ago) and which is why I am now so obsessive about always maintaining several different complete recent backups (as well as clones on spare laptop drives) of my entire configuration so that I can, if and whenever necessary, easily do a bare metal (i.e., non bootable) recovery from any disaster in less than an hour, (usually less than 30 minutes). For me Acronis is the all in one solution for this for both manually making clones and scheduled automatic backup images that don't require active user intervention (at least very often). But I make a fresh back up of my OS drive every single day, and just had occasion to use one of those backups to recover my C drive just a few days ago. I wouldn't and don't compute without having such backups. It completely eliminates the stress and hassle of these kinds of situations.

 

Wondering if ALL the DV8s are equipped with bluetooth? The specs on my system did not say. If so wonder if a bluetooth mouse has any benefits over a wireless laser mouse?

 

I'd recommend wireless laser mice. Logitech's nano receiver is top notch.

Problem with bluetooth mice is that you get the occasional pairing delay. Plus they aren't the best for gaming, if you game.

 

In looking for a mouse online, what ya can't see is the size compared to a hand. I have a large hand and would like a beefier mouse. Is the nano smallish?

 

What I should have said is that I was referring to the nano as the receiver size, not the mouse itself. The receiver is now called a unifying receiver. Sticks out of the USB port by less than a centimeter.

As for mouse size, the Logitech performance mouse would be good for a large hand. But it's pricey though.

If you're in the US and have a Staples or Best Buy near you, they usually have a good assortment of mice to see first hand. If not, there's always Amazon which has a liberal return policy in case you don't like the mouse.

 

Hi guys, Sorry if im jumping in on a thread here but was hoping one of you experts can answer a simple question on my new Dv8-1110ea lappy

It was deliverd 2 days ago and on the website it states that this comes with 2x 320gb hard drives, Now when i look on the my comuter and click properties on the hard drives, I have 1 that says 237gb free of 286gb, The next one says 259gb of 298gb another that says 2.70gb free of 16.6gb

Where then is any drive that says i have a disk with 320gb x 2

Also the space bar is terrible in that youhave to nearly punch it to get it to work

Look foward to hearing from you
Thanks

 

Thanks for the tip. BB retail $80 plus tax. Ebay auctions going off all day today for refurbed BB oulet items for about $40 with free shipping. I think I'll play around and try to win one for half price.

 

I'm not scolding, etc., just observing how it was explained here several times why and how to avoid the problems of the type you now have.

I have said this before but I'll repeat it since it seems to be forgotten in the emotions of the situation. I am a "step-by-step" kind of guy. I select the best first step and execute it. Then I evaluate its results and select the next best step. Etc., etc.

So, having told you the next best step(contact the s/w author and d/l a Hiren's BootCD to perform MBR repair) in the previous post, it's up to you.

Given your tendency to "spontaneity", Jeff, I'd be crazy to forecast anything in response to your request for an assessment of likelihood of successful outcome because i don't know whether, in your haste, you will "stick with the program" to completion. Sorry.

Regards,
- - Phil

 

If you want to spend the money.. I'm using a logitech "anywhere mouse MX".. it works on glass, the surface of your laptop.. or anything..... perfect size too with lots of nice features.
You can just leave the usb port in its so small.. no worries about fracturing your motherboard from someone hitting it.. and no funky buggy microsoft drivers to worry about.

Logitech Anywhere Mouse MX Mouse reviews - CNET Reviews