HP Customer Support Hell

[Kelye68]

I have a Compaq Pressario I am trying to update from Win Xp Home
(oem) with a retail Win Xp Pro. I have not been able to do so -from what I have narrowed down to be my CD/DVD rom. It is not, (I do not believe) the original CD/DVD rom that came with the computer when I purchased it 13 months ago. I have had to reinstall the original factory disks twice now, to get me back to a good starting point. When I do this, the system does not recognize my CD/DVD drive. However, with changing the jumpers I can get it to recognize the drive (therefore enabling it to read the drive and attempt to set up Xp Pro). The problem then becomes, I get an error message during the copying of XP Pro files, that due to internal configuration it cannot install.

I have a SATA drive, and a CD/DVD rom set to CS. The first thing the HP support "gang" tells me - before letting me complete my description of my problem is that they do not reccommend upgrading because of the drivers. They have said this twice, leaving me to believe (not) I have purchased a computer that will never be able too grow with my needs! They quickly change the story after they question the validity of my purchased MS XP Pro cd (upgrade), asking if I "received" a copy of MS XP Pro. I didn't "receive" anything - I PURCHASED it! As if the MS God's have dropped a goodie bag of software on my doorstep.

My questions are-

1) If this is infact not the CD/DVD rom that came with the computer, but has been working, do I need different drivers?

2) Should I have the cd/dvd rom set to CS, on the first IDE controller?

I had an extra hard drive set up I was using for storage, but am not even going to think about attaching that again at this point. I have just reinstalled with factory disks, and will be at a good starting point again. But am still sitting here with a $200 receipt for a CD I am not able to install and a headache from trying to understand the HP support "staff" past the initial "Thank you for calling HP.............." intro. Any help or suggestions is very much appreciated as this "alterted machine" was my ex husbands and I have no idea what he did with it.

Thanks!

 

[tipstir]

What you can do is this.. Take out the old HDD and go and get another one. Install Windows XP Pro fresh copy on the system. Once you done all the adjustment an everything else. Shutdown the system. Put back the older HDD as slave drive.

The drivers for XP Home will work on XP Pro, so don't worry about that. But you should download all the drivers you need onto a CD or DVD and then install it on the new OS on the replacement HDD.

 

[k.jacko]

Question: Why are you upgrading from home to pro? The main differences are networking ones. Are you intending on joining your pc to a domain?
If not, i'm not sure what benefits you will get from pro.

 

[Firedawg1971]

Most likely the software package is opened so returning the MS winxp pro cannot be done. so you have 2 options

1: leave the winxp home on and sell the xp pro/w key
2: install the xp pro and really most likely not benefit at all. unless you are using 5 or more computers on a network together.


master is better when using IDE jumpers if it is at the end of the ide cable and slave if is connected in the middle of the ide cable.

Using the xp pro cd which you said is an upgrade disk you do not need to load win xp home on the drive. it will search for a windows directory than ask for the xp home cd instead. insert winxp home cd it will spin up than it will stop eject and reinsert xp pro upgrade cd.

You also stated that it is a SATA drive. Are you loading SATA drivers (press f6 at beginning of windows install screen?

Are you actually booting from the cd? or trying to upgrade while in windows?

 

[Kelye68]

I am needing XP Pro for learning purposes (school) and learning about the different features that my curriculum keeps referring to, the networking features.

I have another hard drive, not the size I would want but sufficient. I am currently sitting with the original SATA drive with HP Home on it, my CD is set on IDE 1 controller as CS and is now showing up. I am sitting with my extra storage HDD disconnected. I have a boot disk. I really did not want to use my storage disk, (there are no system files only my data on it) as I obviously have stuff on it I want to use, but not going to loose sleep over it. I am not going to attempt to load XP Pro (I have been loading through Windows). So, at this point are you saying disconnect the SATA (original) and load the system files on the HDD and then Pro? Could use baby steps outline if this is my goal if you have the time. And if that is right, I need to attach my HDD on IDE 1, middle of the cable, jumpers to master, and change CD/DVD to slave or leave as CS?? Thanks. Sorry to be such a newbie - but that's why I am here!

Thanks to all!

 

[Firedawg1971]

your whole problem was trying to do an upgrade in windows. you have to boot from the cd. goto the bios and change your boot order. make the system boot from cd first than restart.

The pc will boot from cd than you will have a blue screen with grey border. If you get this your on your way.

your cd should be alone as master on eide 1
if you have a ide hdd have it on ide2 master
sata is on its own shannel

 

[k.jacko]

or press F12 (think its F12) for the bootstrap and choose the cd to boot from. Saves going into the bios.
Just make sure you have your driver disk otherwise you'll visiting the HP website for the downloads (but not if you don't have a nic driver sorted out first )

 

[Kelye68]

Upgrade complete! What is the proper way to set my extra hdd for storage now? Same IDE controller as CD? If so, master in middle of cable and slave at end? I have messed with it so much now, I don't remember where I had it. Something to be said for documenting!

 

[SNGX1275]

As long as you explicitly set master and slave it doesn't matter where on the cable they are.

 

[k.jacko]

i wouldn't put the hdd on the same idem controller as the rom, it would reduce its speed down to probably 33MHz (rom speed).
If i remember right, you have 1 x sata hdd, 1 x ide hdd and 1 x ide cd-rom.
I would just use both ide controllers, 1 for hdd, 1 for cd-rom.