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2nd Destructive Recovery coming / Help Please

Discussion in 'PC hardware help' started by gerry1, Jan 8, 2006.

  1. ScubaBud

    ScubaBud Regular member

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    I'm sorry Gerry...

    "OTD" is not a tech term but actually means Out The Door, including taxes and shipping.
     
  2. gear79

    gear79 Guest

    ask ddp, he makes house calls !!! lol
     
  3. gerry1

    gerry1 Guest

    Hi guys!

    @scubaBud: thanks for the explanation...teach and learn as ddp would say. I think it would be a good idea to start a thread as you suggested but to do so as a "plan B". Here's what I'm thinking: I've been doing some shopping around and given the cost of hard drives, I think it would be worth the risk; they're not terriblly expensive but I have two questions if you'd be a little patient with me:

    1) If I were to get a new and really good hard drive installed, would the HP installation/recovery discs work? If I had to go out and buy XP and all the applications seperately, I might as well just buy a new puter. This leads me to my next question:

    2) Would it be less problematic and all around more sensible to just order a replacement hard drive or compatible hard drive from Hewlett Packard?

    @gear...would you do me a favor buddy? Next time you boot up your pavillion, would you take a listen at the CPU to see if you hear a sound which sounds like the fan going a bit harder at first ... from the time you first boot up to when your desktop appears, then goes back or normal? Only recently did I put the CPU on top of my desk; I never had it close enough to hear what sounds it makes. (I got this great computer desk from work designed for the disabled; adjustable everything. They were going to throw it out because the lower keyboard table wouldn't adjust adjust anymore...I took a look at it and there was a paperclip caught in the crank-shaft thing that raises and lowers it.)

    As always, thanks for the help guys! ... Gerry
     
  4. ScubaBud

    ScubaBud Regular member

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    Gerry

    1 - Yes it should if you have the disks.

    2 - No, don't waste your money!
     
  5. gear79

    gear79 Guest

    gerry, my pc, as i stated earlier, is only 1 year old.. but, since thats the case, my is a tad louder then the last one i had, it has 3 fans in it..
    one for the processor, one for exhaust and the other cools my graphics card.
    as scubabud stated, getting a new hard drive, all you do is a normal install and load the disks in one by one... assuming you have 7 or 8 disks. it will prompt you when to install one and the number.. i tried that on my last puter, but it was toast....
    if your pc has the recovery built in, hp gives you the option to make your back up (either cd or dvd)
    i did mine when i got it and got the system running..
    for your hard drive, if you get a new one, will more then likely be the IDE plug type, and not the sata... (btw, mine is sata, cuz its newer).
     
  6. gerry1

    gerry1 Guest

    Hey guys, you're not going to believe this! I did a spur of the moment thing when I was pissed off and totally forgot about it; it can pay to be a pain in the a$$!

    When I first ordered my HP pavillion, I'd gotten a 754n which was a lemon and never worked; it was in the shop for 5-6 months sending it back and forth four or five times. I needn't tell you my blood was boiling; the last time, I dug up the name and corporate address of the CEO of HP and wrote a polite but firm letter demanding that they stop trying to fix it and give me a new one. A few days later, I got a call from their office telling me that they'd stopped it in the shop and that I would get a new one. The new models had come out and I got the A250n which I have now. I totally forgot I did this but I demanded that the extended warranty I purchased (and I never buy those things) actually start over on the date I received the replacement and they agreed. I also insisted that they send it to me in writing with the model and serial number of the new one as well as the old one as I didn't trust them and feared more problems at that point. They sent it to me. [bold]My computer is still under warranty for just under one more month!![/bold] I'm a cynical guy by nature and fear that they wouldn't have sent me that letter without a loophole out that I don't know about but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

    I called HP support this afternoon and naturally, they had no record of the replacement puter and no record of the new expiration date of the warranty. I faxed it to them from the office and they say they need 24 hours to verify it. (Again, my suspicions were aroused).

    There is a program in the puter called "PC Doctor". They had me run this test on the hard drive which took about four hours...it was five tests; three said "pass" and two had the red X with the word "failed" across it so it looks like our diagnosis was correct. I may well get the whole problem fixed for free unless my cynical nature is correct but I'll raise a hell of a stink with them as I did last time if they give me any grief. I'll keep you posted and thanks again for the help! ... Gerry
     
  7. ddp

    ddp Moderator Staff Member

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    go get them tiger!!!!
     
  8. ScubaBud

    ScubaBud Regular member

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    Gerry, I think I'm going to let you handle my purchases from now on!!! :)
     
  9. gear79

    gear79 Guest

    hey gerry, when you called them (hp) did they speak english?

    lol, when i had problems with my last one, i could never understand them at all.... very hard to listen to onw who barely speaks english. i think my call was transfered to india !
     
  10. gerry1

    gerry1 Guest

    @gear: strange you should mention that; I was thinking about it as I spoke to them this afternoon; things sure have changed. Right after I first ordered some three and a half years ago, I spent huge amounts of time with them on the phone...they allhad Indian accents but spoke very well and were easy to understand, they all had Americanish names like Bob and Charlie and they were very well trained and extremely polite...I mean I was in a serious rage as you can imagine but it was rough to be nasty because they bent over backwards to help you. This afternoon, I couldn't understand a damned word she was saying & was always asking her to repeat herself. She gave no name at all...real or fake. I mean she wasn't nasty at all or anything but with an impossible to understand accent and sort of a blah "ask me if I care" attitude, it wasn't the same at all; customer service has taken a severe nose dive but you know, as long as they dont give me any crap tomorrow about the warranty orthe results of that hard drive test, she can have as much attitude as she pleases.

    All those damned jobs are in India now...from the customer service folks to network administrators, systems engineers and programmers. As you know from other threads, I am a career counselor with the department of labor and industry. Labor trends have three categories; growth industries, zero growth industries (labor force in a particular industry sector is equal to retirements and hiring trends without job creation or job loss) and decline industries (excess labor force in an industry sector where job titles are rapidly being reduced)...the IT industry is in a 40% decline over a five year period which is the worst of any industry since the depression and was caused by the deregulating of the industry in 1996. The only exceptions to the rule are network and internet security as well as database managers and administrators...particularly Oracle with a stress on 9i. But if you are a PC support or workstation support guy or even fresh out of school for network administrators or systems engineers, the best way to get your foot in the door is to actually learn MS office as well as some web maintenance, make sure your techie knowledge is well spelled out on your resume then apply stictly for administrative positions and you can usually work your way from one job title to another rather quickly. Since most places don't have on site techies and merely phone them in, applying for an admin position with a solid PC/workstation support knowledge and you're head and shoulders above the rest and if you throw some web maintenance into the mix so they can sack the wev dev. in favor of a contract guy, you've got it made. (How the hell did I get into that?) You though, gear, are tied for first place in the highest demand occupations ...certified auto mechanics as well as pharmacists are the two highest demand occupations all over the country and you could easily find a job anywhere.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 21, 2006
  11. gear79

    gear79 Guest

    sometimes you get a person who knows what they are talking about, other times you get a person typing what you say on a computer and reading you what they see.

    been there done that, thats why i am learning all i can for my self.
    as far as my career, being only 31 years old, i am getting tired of what i do. i am the only one in my shop who is an L1 master certified tech, i know you dont know what that may mean... basically, its top of the line, test wise. i passed all these tests, and i have to continually take and pass them to retain my status... surem the pay is good, but the toll it takes on my body, skin, bones, and mental health, well, lets just say everyday i come home tired. i have loads of people wanting me to fix their cars on the side, but thats the last thing i want to do when i get home, is work on more cars..

    anyway, i dont want to ramble on..
    keep me posted gerry, i am curious as to see what they will do for you... persistance pays off !
     
  12. gerry1

    gerry1 Guest

    Howdy gear! We used to have this book at work for certified auto mechanics; basically it dealt with how to use your certification to obtain positions within the industry that doesn't deal with bending over a hood or skating yourself under a vehicle. There were tons of them. Most of them were lateral career moves while others required a couple of courses in spreadsheets, business math etc. but not a whole lot or too heavy. There are also a lot of ancillary industries which would require your certification, for example, in most states, you could teach auto mechanics in propriatary schools or trade schools with your current certification. I'll try to find it.

    I'll let you know how I make out with HP; I have to call them tonight after 6:00. They were giving me all sorts of crap about having no records of my purchasing an extended warranty. You know, I'll bet they really screw a lot of people that way; I'm sure they know damned well who did or didn't buy the extended warranty ... I'll bet they tell everyone they have no record of it and you're screwed if you can't prove that you did. Lots of people would have lost the paperwork after three years. Well Boss, gotta go; I'll let you know what happened......Gerry
     
  13. gerry1

    gerry1 Guest

    I had a one and a half hour arguement last night with non english speaking people at HP. Took 45mins just to convince them I had a warranty despite having faxed it to them the day before. Finally they agreed to send me the hard drive, got all the shipping info then asked where I want the $300.00 billed! They insisted my warranty didn't cover the computer but only phone tech support! ... ROUND TWO!..I finally won the fight though and should have my harddrive on Thurs. I'm supposed to call phone tech support and some guy who probably doesn't speak a word of english is going to walk me through installing it. (I did this effortlessly five or six years ago; couldn't have changed that much.) Anyway, I'll keep you posted. Thanks!
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 23, 2006
  14. gear79

    gear79 Guest

    gotta love HP support....
    i hate calling places like that, even my cell phone provider, when i call for anything, you never know where your call is going to..., much less who you are gonna talk too !!
     
  15. gerry1

    gerry1 Guest

    "Award Winning" tech support at that! Judges for that contest must have been from Bombay!
     
  16. gear79

    gear79 Guest

    dell is the same way... alll our pc's here at work are dell.. we have had (out of the 9 pc's we have total) 2 monitors go bad, 1 hard drive fail, the alignment machine took a dump, bad m/b, and the bosses video card failed.. takes forever to get service..

    my next one, i'll get it built or learn and do my own !!
     
  17. ddp

    ddp Moderator Staff Member

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    gear, mean to say you don't know how to build your own computer, shame on you!!
     
  18. gear79

    gear79 Guest

    i know enough to get me in trouble. but i will learn.. reading does wonders..
     
  19. ScubaBud

    ScubaBud Regular member

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    gear it's a lot easier then disassembly and assembly of that 454 you were working on! It’s more like a few screws, plug this into that, load your O/S and power it up to find out that it won’t boot! LOL

    Actually the hardest is software and OS issues, the building is a breeze!
     
  20. ddp

    ddp Moderator Staff Member

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    ususally is unless something got screwed up!!
     

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