HP Pavilion a430n Configuration Data Problem

[CoolMan2002]

I’ve bought and acquired many HP Pavilions over the years (as I have with other brands), and most of them have had a system recovery option with the partition intact on the hard drive. When I get new systems I generally use those types of things to get rid of any data on systems if the hard drive is in the system, and they’ve all worked, never had a problem...until recently when I was trying to restore my old Pavilion a430n desktop to the factory install since I wanted to use the machine for testing old XP era software in which the OG install had some interesting bits of software IMO. When I tried to reinstall the factory stuff with the system recovery dvds I burned on that computer for that computer, I got an error with the following message:

“These System Recovery CDs do NOT support this HP pc model.

Press any key to continue.”

When I received the error the first time I decided to try the F10 System Recovery option that is displayed on the the HP POST screen, which I was expecting to work, however instead of giving me an error or just ignoring the F10 key being pressed, I got an endless beep from the system and if I restarted into the recovery environment through Windows it did the same thing. Immediately I realized something was seriously wrong. I put it aside before doing what I did originally to get the system recovered, which was to plug a second drive in with a clean install of Windows XP on it, but first I needed to find the file. While I looked around on the hard disk I found a few other files, but when I did find the restore files, every time I tried that it gave me an error, however when I tried it on my main system I got the program to open. Finally after getting the drive to play nice with the restore program I got it restored after waiting a long time. Sounds good right? Well no. Everything was going smoothly until I got to the “Please Wait...” screen that can be seen on first boot of a new XP install, and then I was hit with an error that said the following:

”System Configuration Error”

Your system has detected a configuration error. Please report this error to Customer Care using the phone number found in the Warranty and Support Guide that came with your PC. Unless corrected, this error will prevent your PC from operating properly. Turn off your PC by pressing and holding the Power Button. After a few seconds your PC will automatically turn off. (Code Purple)”

Since I was more than sure that I was gonna get no help from customer care, I did a little research and found out that if I cleared the document with the configuration check, it would work. But I also found out that it could have been caused by a replaced component like a video card or dvd drive. But I literally put the computer back together back to its original hardware and everything and it still didn’t like it, so I didn’t think it was that (I’ll list some specs down below). I cleared the configuration check file and put it back in the computer, and was able to get through the OOBE without a problem. But I realized that whatever was wrong with what I assume is the motherboard, was messing with the windows install. The HP screen saying your computer is gonna reboot after 10 minutes or something never went away until the countdown was done, and it never rebooted. When I went to clear out some of the crap that was causing it to be super slow, I would get an error sometimes that basically meant the program was stuck on the PC for good unless I was to manually go in and clear out the files. Norton Antivirus said “Until [ProductName]” the first time but after that claimed it completed the uninstall, it still was on the system, and now I get an error saying a newer version was on the system even though I didn’t install a new one, and the new one had to be removed before I could touch the old one. And another big red flag I found was the HP Pavilion System information dialog or whatever it’s called didn’t actially give me any info on what system I had, and in the help and support center the HP Support info thing just gave me registry keys. 

What I’m asking is, is there a way to change the configuration data or reset it on the motherboard by myself. There’s no option in the bios despite my SR1150NX having one. I also searched the motherboard itself to see if there were any jumpers or something I could change to clear the configuration data and clearing the cmos didn’t seem to help. My apologies if this is a lot, I thought I’d list out all the problems I was having so that I could see if I could fix it myself without having to track down an exact replacement board

Thanks.

Current specs of the system: 

Model: HP Pavilion a430n

Motherboard: [Unsure of make] A7N8X-LA 

BIOS: Focus 3.07 

Processor: AMD Athlon XP 3200+ 

Memory: 2GB DDR400 SDRAM

Hard drive: Seagate ST3200822A and ST3160021A

Optical drive: Lite-ON DVD+RW SOHW-802S and Ricoh DVD+RW MP5240A 

Video card: NVidia GeForce FX5200 

Sound card: Creative Soundblaster audioPCI CT5808

[wb2001]

@CoolMan2002,

As this is a hardware error, HP will fix it, according to my experience and reading of this message.

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Desktops-Archive-Read-Only/Media-Center-m7557c-Code-Purple/m-p/331670/...

STOP------ STOP:     Read the following only if you want some insight.  Attempting the suggestions will void the above starement that I made.

This error is a hardware failure prevalent with XP and Vista systems.

https://ccm.net/faq/20400-hp-computer-code-purple-error-message

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Desktops-Archive-Read-Only/Code-purple/td-p/5835766