HP Customer (dis)Service - OS & Recovery CDs

[mycarsavw]

I finally get round to setting up the machines I bought in this thread.

I go to work on one in the hope of making multiple copies of the HDD to achieve identical installations and make life a bit easier on myself.

I power on, go straight into My Computer and notice the size of C:\ isn't what it should be. I notice a D:\ partition called something like HP Recovery. I try to access this partition but it's protected and a stupid DOS looking popup appears telling me I can't access it. I root around in the box hoping to find a collection of recovery CDs and an OS CD but there's nothing.

I log on to HP Active Chat but Satvinder K can't help me out, he's in the US () and offers to send me some CDs for "about $9 or $10". I tell him I have ten of these and paying for them isn't really cricket. I bought the machines with an OS already. He obviously gets bored and pastes the details for HP Berkshire and asks if there's anything else he can help me with.

I ring HP Berkshire and get put through to HP Tech Support. Only this time it's Home User support. Rav, I think his name was, gives me the number for HP Business Tech Support.

I ring HP Business Tech Support, press each button on my phone keypad eleven times and get through to a really helpful lady who sounds like she's yelling into a phone at the opposite end of a really really long room.

I tell her my problem and she tells me she can't understand me. I tell her my problem again;

Me: I have 10 new HP machines. None of them have OS or recovery CDs. I would like the OS and recovery CDs please
Her: I will send you one set of CDs
M: Thank you, but I need ten sets of CDs, I have ten machines.

She goes away at this point and leaves me listening to "Chicago - If You Leave Me Now"

H: Sorry for leaving you on hold for so long, I checked and I cannot send you ten sets of CDs, I can send you only one set and you can copy them.
M: Sorry? You want me to copy the CDs ten times? Is that legal?
H: That is what you can do. We can help you with that, but that is all we can do.
M: I will then have nine sets of potentially illegal CDs, I am not prepared to do that.

She's getting a little bored now, I can tell

H: <sigh> You can copy the hidden recovery partition to a CD.
M: Haha! 10 times?
H: Yes, 10 times.
M: Thanks for your help, could I have a case reference number so I can phone back when I've decided what to do?
H: No, we did no troubleshooting, I don't have a number. Just say what you want when you call back
M: ....uh...ok, thank you.

Now, I'm quite annoyed with this, say my HDD dies, how do I then recover the computer? I'm not sure the useless partition will work then. I was never told I wouldn't get an OS discs, ok I could have asked, but still...

What about her suggestion of copying the set of CDs. Is that legal or will I end up with 9 pirate copies of one official OS?

I'm disgusted with HP.

Your thoughts please.

[peterb]

Seems standard with HP - my daughter bought a laptop - first thing it did was ask her to burn off the recovery CDs. (It subsequently went back for repair and I cloned the hard drive 'just in case' and while it was away, I had a quick peak at it - there is a second partition (not normally visible in Windows - but it was using Linux ) which contains the the recovery software ready for burning.

[Splash]

Yep, it's standard practise for quite a few manufacturers these days. And yes, you can legally copy the recovery partition. It won't recover onto non-HP harware as it's BIOS locked.

Personally if they're all identical (sorry, didn't read your other thread) I'd take an image of the drives once you get them to a workable state, possibly making use of sysprep and keep it somewhere safe. Do you really need a seperate recovery disc for each machine?