Formatting HP computers
I’ve started over from scratch with a few HP computers of various ages.
As some of you know, HP computers come with rescue partitions these days. They’re supposed to be used instead of installing from a windows CD. So if you do start from scratch (new harddrive, for instance), you might be in for a few surprises, like I was.
One older machine came with a sticker for a win2000 license, but I felt like installing win98 on it (only put such a machine offline or behind a good router firewall). The installation was text book, until I was finished and discovered that the display driver was wrong. Looked horrible. Turns out it needed drivers for just about everything. HP is really good about drivers. You can download everything you need from HP’s site, no matter how old the computer is. Just search their site for the exact model number. And using a different OS wasn’t a problem with this particular computer.
An AMD Pavilion that must have been a race horse in 2003 was due for a complete reinstall. I didn’t have the original harddrive, and the harddrive I put in had had a Debian flavor on it.
It has one DVD drive and one DVD burner. But no matter what I did (yes, verifying in bios that it’s set to boot from one of the drives, changing drives even), I could not get it to boot from the DVD drives.
Solution:
First a win98 boot floppy with fdisk on it. To kill of the Linux MBR:
fdisk /mbr
Then, disconnect the built in DVD drives, and connect a plain vanilla CD-ROM drive, with the windows CD in it.
This time it works…
Heh, the first time I did this, I just grabbed the first CD-ROM I saw. And marvelled at how slow the windows installation went. Turns out the CD-ROM was made in 1996. So I got a newer one (yanked it out of a machine at the office), and the installation worked.
BTW, there’s usually a sticker with a windows license key on HP machines. To use those, you need an OEM windows CD. The license will not work with a retail version CD. Fujitsu Siemens CD’s are usually OK. They don’t have bloatware built in, like some rescue disks (Dell, HP, and I’m sure others are filled with bloatware). One win98 CD I tried refused to install on a non-Fujitsu Siemens machine, but winXP usually works. Well, at least the machine hasn’t foobared yet. I didn’t have time to register windows last night… Hopefully I won’t have trouble with switching the DVD drives back? WinXP has copy protection that pays attention to the hardware you use for a windows installation…
Update: I had to call Microsoft to get the WinXP copy activated. Because it had been activated before, and the hardware was changed a little bit since (new harddrive), it wouldn’t activate by itself. Calling Microsoft was pretty painless. The automated thingy didn’t work, but all the guy at Microsoft needed to know, was that it was the same box, and that the code on the license sticker hadn’t been used for other computers as well. IE, that it wasn’t pirated, just a new harddrive on the same box. I’ve been thinking. Let’s say I want to test out some software on the box, but don’t want to ruin my main installation (not time to reformat). I’m not sure if Microsoft would understand the distinction - one machine, several instalations alternating? Maybe an image of the finished and patched OS would be in order, before I put on a lot of software?
Also, as I said below. Both DVD drives failed and had to be replaced. I don’t know why they failed, but they wouldn’t work in any of my tests.
April 5th, 2006 at 2:16 am
Turns out the newer computer had failed DVD drives. Both of them failed at the same time. I had to replace the drives with new ones. Don’t worry about the type of drive. Any will do, you don’t need drivers. And that HP machine will hide the drives, so any color will do. Just make sure they have the open tray button in the regular place, so the lever hits in the right place from the cabinet (you’ll know what I’m talking about if you have one of these cabinets).
June 3rd, 2006 at 3:42 pm
Why on earth would you want to remove Linux and replace it with M$ OS
June 3rd, 2006 at 3:53 pm
To AG:
Good question, by itself. But when repairing computers is a part of your job, such situations could happen. That particular computer never had Linux on it, and probably never will. But the harddrive had been in another computer, where I did run Debian. I find that SimplyMepis is a tad resource hungry, so I don’t install it as often as I’d like. The customers don’t want Linux, they want their regular programs and gadgets to work, and they want what’s familiar.
If Pegasus came in Linux flavor, I personally might make the move completely. There are a few other programs I also rely on that I’d have to have. Including TextHarvest.
June 4th, 2006 at 6:04 pm
Have you tried Thunderbird or Evolution email clients? Thunderbird has been ported to windows.
You might also try Kubuntu w/a much ‘lighter’ window manager (ie iceWM), instead of KDE or GNOME. I’ve found that the desktop manager is typically responsible for majority of the memory consumption.
June 5th, 2006 at 1:43 am
To AG,
I’ve used Pegasus almost since the beginning of my days on the internet (used Eudora the first few months). I fear I’m not a candidate for switching.