HP Recovery Discs not working with newly replaced hard drive.2nd POST

[techgrl38]

I apologize for the delay in my response.  Occassionally recovery discs do not work and our policy once you have purchased them is to replace the discs if they are not working properly.  Have you called 1-800-HPINVENT to request a replacement?  They should replace these discs for you.  Since the build ID is a match with the error message that you are receiving there should not be a problem getting them replaced. 

[sumsolstice]

On the hard drive itself - do you see on the label - a picture of the letters AF?    There have been some reports of newer advanced format AF drives not working well on older systems that weren't designed for them.

Sometimes this can be worked around by changing the transfer mode in BIOS of the storage controller.   Like to AHCI mode if it was something else, etc.

You might want to give that a shot...

[daly_pr]

Thank you for your response.

HP would not replace the discs.  They stated that there would be NO replacement set; I would be required to purchase another set.

They would offer NO suggestions as to a remedy for this problem.  Right now I am just a little furious with HP and their lack of Customer Care/Support.  The most support I have gotten has been right here at the HP Support Forum....it has not resolved the problem but at least there has been an effort made and I do appreciate it.

Please if you have any other suggestions I would be happy to hear them.

[techgrl38]

Do you see an AF on your drive as suggested by the post from sumsolstice?

[CherylG]

The problem may be the 500gb hdd you installed is not the size Recovery is expecting since the machine originally had a 750gb hdd.

Rather than buy Vista as mentioned earlier, why not just upgrade to Windows 7 ?

[daly_pr]

No...no AF on the drive.

[daly_pr]

I had thought about upgrading the system to Windows 7 but was not sure how the HP Supplemental disk would like the new operating system.

[sumsolstice]

If it is not the AF drive issue, not sure what the issue is for you.

Different things can cause recovery disc restore issues, the most common being that the DMI information (sometimes referred as tattoo information) on the motherboard doesn't match what the recovery discs software build ID/version.

This should only happen if the motherboard was replaced and the tech didn't do a proper job of re-inputting the proper DMI data.  I've seen some people shoehorn a non-HP provided BIOS onto a system and wipe it out as well.  Or - if you totally replaced the motherboard with one of your own - it wouldn't work.

There should be a label on the bottom of your system somewhere with a long string of numbers, including a build ID.   Older systems had something like 94NAv6PRA5, A1NAv6xxxxxx, etc.   You should see something like that on the supplemental and the rest of the discs.   The supplemental will usually have the highest # on the end - which would match the number on the label on the bottom (usually the bottom) of the system.

If the system is out of warranty, probably the better solution would be to purchase a retail copy of WIndows 7 and start from scratch.   The bundled applications the system came with wouldn't be included - but there are those out there that prefer a fresh / clean installation like that anyway.

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