Recovery Not Working

My hard drive crapped out on me recently. Fortunately my computer is
still under warranty so HP sent me a new (well, certified repaired) one
and some recovery discs. Turn on computer, put in disc 1 to start the
process. The recovery goes very slowly. It takes about 6 -hours- by the
time the 3rd disc checks off on finishing installing the Windows
portion. When the "reinstalling original content" phase starts it never
gets past 0%. I also tried using the recovery DVDs I made when I got the
computer and got the same result.

I can run diagnostics (F9) when I turn on the computer and get no
problems detected with the HD or anything else. I have not added any
extra components to the computer. Everything is set to original default
state.

HP said they probably gave the the wrong discs but I doubt this is the
problem since the ones I made didnt work either.

HP m9350f Media Center
64 Bit Vista Home Premium


--
Guinness74

"Guinness74" <guest@unknown-email.com> wrote in message
news:ecbd19352f9fc9d071aabb9c5088b7a0@nntp-gateway.com...
>
> My hard drive crapped out on me recently. Fortunately my computer is
> still under warranty so HP sent me a new (well, certified repaired) one
> and some recovery discs. Turn on computer, put in disc 1 to start the
> process. The recovery goes very slowly. It takes about 6 -hours- by the
> time the 3rd disc checks off on finishing installing the Windows
> portion. When the "reinstalling original content" phase starts it never
> gets past 0%. I also tried using the recovery DVDs I made when I got the
> computer and got the same result.
>
> I can run diagnostics (F9) when I turn on the computer and get no
> problems detected with the HD or anything else. I have not added any
> extra components to the computer. Everything is set to original default
> state.
>
> HP said they probably gave the the wrong discs but I doubt this is the
> problem since the ones I made didnt work either.
>
> HP m9350f Media Center
> 64 Bit Vista Home Premium
>
>

Since it's under warranty I'd let HP fix it.

Hi,

There's still some damage, and I would not trust a 'certified repaired'
drive. A warranty entitles you to new equipment, insist on it.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

"Guinness74" <guest@unknown-email.com> wrote in message
news:ecbd19352f9fc9d071aabb9c5088b7a0@nntp-gateway.com...
>
> My hard drive crapped out on me recently. Fortunately my computer is
> still under warranty so HP sent me a new (well, certified repaired) one
> and some recovery discs. Turn on computer, put in disc 1 to start the
> process. The recovery goes very slowly. It takes about 6 -hours- by the
> time the 3rd disc checks off on finishing installing the Windows
> portion. When the "reinstalling original content" phase starts it never
> gets past 0%. I also tried using the recovery DVDs I made when I got the
> computer and got the same result.
>
> I can run diagnostics (F9) when I turn on the computer and get no
> problems detected with the HD or anything else. I have not added any
> extra components to the computer. Everything is set to original default
> state.
>
> HP said they probably gave the the wrong discs but I doubt this is the
> problem since the ones I made didnt work either.
>
> HP m9350f Media Center
> 64 Bit Vista Home Premium
>
>
> --
> Guinness74

Alas, Mr. Rogers, all warranties now carry the proviso with regard to
"refurbished" rather than "new."
Guiness does not say whether the computer will boot or not.
If it does I suspect that the "original" content is mostly HP crapware and
can be obtained from other sources.

She gets to blue HP screen, then screen where it detects storage drives
and what not then goes to a black screen screen with a blinking cursor.

Got the new discs from HP in the mail. They are marked with the exact
same build ID as the ones they gave me before. I'll give 'em a go so I
can at least say I tried them. 30 min in I'm up to 11% of "reformatting
the windows partition of your hard drive".


--
Guinness74

"Guinness74" <guest@unknown-email.com> wrote in message
news:f29d4615addfddd86255f7016389d57b@nntp-gateway.com...
>
> She gets to blue HP screen, then screen where it detects storage drives
> and what not then goes to a black screen screen with a blinking cursor.
>
> Got the new discs from HP in the mail. They are marked with the exact
> same build ID as the ones they gave me before. I'll give 'em a go so I
> can at least say I tried them. 30 min in I'm up to 11% of "reformatting
> the windows partition of your hard drive".
>
>
> --
> Guinness74

It can take a while to do a complete reformat on a large drive but those
times you mentioned do seem extreme. If the harddrive is indeed okay then
you could look for things like BIOS drive controller setting set to PIO
rather than DMA. Resetting the BIOS to defaults might even be in order.

Other possibilities, the harddrive data cable could be iffy, causing
interruptions or frequent data resends. If the drive was previously serviced
it might have a jumper left in the wrong position for normal use, some
drives have service jumpers that should normally be left open, some have
speed limiting jumpers for compatibility with slower older mobos or 40 wire
data cables.

As a worst case scenario the drive interface on the motherboard could have
been damaged when the original harddrive failed.