HP recovery disks and "tattoos"

[NYJimbo]

I ordered some recovery disks from HP for a client and they are coming this week, only cost about $16 with shipping. When you order they ask for the model/pn of the computer and the key for windows on the COA tag. This is for Windows vista premium OEM on a pavilion entertainment center laptop (or whatever they call it)

What I am wondering is just how specific are these recovery disks?. I doubt that they actually go and burn a new disk with the customers model/pn/COA each time you order, it would be a nightmare for the millions of machines they make. So it would seem that it would be a little more generic than that.

I know HP does tattooing on their machines, but is it that they tattoo the mobo bios or do something to the hard drive?. I get different responses from different people.

So If I order these recovery disks for "Windows vista premium OEM" for this laptop will I be able to use them in all laptops running the same "Windows vista premium OEM" or is it very specific to the model, year, bios, southbridge, etc ?.

I want to build up as many OEM disks as possible and I dont mind ordering and paying for them as machines come into the shop and then keeping a copy, but if the use is that specific then it would not be worth it.

 

[14049752]

The machine specific disks look for the DMI information in the bios.

The tattoo process enters the information for the manufacturer, model, feature set, etc. If the information doesn't match what the discs expect, they will not work. The discs are somewhat specific....but they may work on other machines as well.... There's no real way of knowing, without having HP's service disc library, which has a list of the disc sets, and which machines they work on. One set of discs may only work on one or two machines, where others may work on ten....
Hp releases a service disc library quarterly....I'm assuming that you need to be an HP partner or authorized repair center to get them... They come in big binders of a few hundred cds per year.

The product key on the disc is just a volume license key, it has nothing to do with the key on the sticker.

 

[@ncient geek]

I ordered some recovery disks from HP for a client and they are coming this week, only cost about $16 with shipping. When you order they ask for the model/pn of the computer and the key for windows on the COA tag. This is for Windows vista premium OEM on a pavilion entertainment center laptop (or whatever they call it)

What I am wondering is just how specific are these recovery disks?. I doubt that they actually go and burn a new disk with the customers model/pn/COA each time you order, it would be a nightmare for the millions of machines they make. So it would seem that it would be a little more generic than that.

I know HP does tattooing on their machines, but is it that they tattoo the mobo bios or do something to the hard drive?. I get different responses from different people.

So If I order these recovery disks for "Windows vista premium OEM" for this laptop will I be able to use them in all laptops running the same "Windows vista premium OEM" or is it very specific to the model, year, bios, southbridge, etc ?.

I want to build up as many OEM disks as possible and I dont mind ordering and paying for them as machines come into the shop and then keeping a copy, but if the use is that specific then it would not be worth it.

You will have to separate three differnet things here :

- the notion of what an OEM CD is
- the specific driver versions
- the licencing issue

- One important thing to remember is : all OEM CDs are the same (with the exception of a few files which handle the automatic pre-activation).
Therefore it is not important if you have a branded installation CD or an unbranded one. The difference is that with a branded installation CD you will not have to activate Windows for all computers of the same brand (but you do have to activate all computer from a different brand)

- second : a brand like Dell or HP will burn installation CDs/DVDs with included hardware drivers (most important are the AHCI compliant SATA drivers). These installation media will allow you to do reinstalls without the lengthy research for hardware drivers. Most OEM Brands like HP will burn installation DVDs for a family of computers. These are called "service disc libraries" and are sold or given to partners only. They can provide an appreciable gain of time if you work with essentially one brand only, but are generally not necessary for most computer techs

- the licencing issue : all brand computers install their systems with volume licence keys. These keys are independent from the keys on the stickers on the side of your computers. As long as you install (or reinstall, repair install) a brand computer with the brand installation CD you will neither have to enter a serial number nor will you have to activate your windows installation. If you use a generic OEM install disk you WILL have to activate windows with WGA. If you use a branded install CD on a computer from a different brand you will again have to activate after installing.

- it is extremely easy to build branded OEM install CDs, in fact there are only 4 to 6 files to change depending on the windows version.

 

[Daifne]

Interesting. I just ordered the discs for an HP/Compaq Presario F700 (also Vista) and did not have to supply the COA or S/N. All they wanted was the P/N. I would assume that this one is more generic? This machine is out of warranty and the discs cost $20.95 + tax

 

[@ncient geek]

Interesting. I just ordered the discs for an HP/Compaq Presario F700 (also Vista) and did not have to supply the COA or S/N. All they wanted was the P/N. I would assume that this one is more generic? This machine is out of warranty and the discs cost $20.95 + tax

Most OEM builders will send you the installation disks without serial numbers (except for checking if you own one of their computers )

 

[NYJimbo]

Most OEM builders will send you the installation disks without serial numbers (except for checking if you own one of their computers )

Yeah, I want to understand as much of this as possible when I dont need to know it, I hate being stuck in the middle of a repair because I don't fully understand what the manufacturer is doing with that machine.

I am starting to see many HP laptops come in with cooked mobo's or failing drives and the customer never has anything, so I want to become very familiar with all aspects of HP drive recovery/restoring/rebuilding so I dont get stuck on a weekend with no disks or other stuff I may need. All this tattoo and hdd_dmi crap is just another layer of nonsense that we do not see with non-branded machines.

 

[@ncient geek]

Yeah, I want to understand as much of this as possible when I dont need to know it, I hate being stuck in the middle of a repair because I don't fully understand what the manufacturer is doing with that machine.

I am starting to see many HP laptops come in with cooked mobo's or failing drives and the customer never has anything, so I want to become very familiar with all aspects of HP drive recovery/restoring/rebuilding so I dont get stuck on a weekend with no disks or other stuff I may need. All this tattoo and hdd_dmi crap is just another layer of nonsense that we do not see with non-branded machines.

The big difference between yourself building a system and HP building a system is that you actually boot the computer when installing your OS. Any branded computer company (and many OEM builders) will just install a generic image on the hard drive. The computer never boots before leaving the assembly chain (only once into the BIOS)

One could say that if you build a computer system by hand, you have tested this system before selling it (many small shops do this)

 

[BerthaControl]

I actually have access to an HP (Compaq) Recovery Disk Library that my boss obtained last week. I was so excited, thinking of how amazingly easy it would be to fix all of those HPs that come in...But the excitement passed quickly. The disks will NOT work in any other machine except the one that it is supposed to run on. And if you start to use one, and decide against it shortly after it starts to load....a new lovely HP recovery partition plants itself to boot first. It is a pain.
For one particular computer, after getting the data I needed on that hard drive, I attempted to proceed with the System Recovery...Which would not even complete. I ended up with strange error messages. I had to wipe the disk and install a generic vista.

OK, enough ranting. To sum up, it is just a hassle (even with the appropriate CD for that particular model.)

 

[NYJimbo]

I actually have access to an HP (Compaq) Recovery Disk Library that my boss obtained last week. I was so excited, thinking of how amazingly easy it would be to fix all of those HPs that come in...But the excitement passed quickly. The disks will NOT work in any other machine except the one that it is supposed to run on. And if you start to use one, and decide against it shortly after it starts to load....a new lovely HP recovery partition plants itself to boot first. It is a pain.
For one particular computer, after getting the data I needed on that hard drive, I attempted to proceed with the System Recovery...Which would not even complete. I ended up with strange error messages. I had to wipe the disk and install a generic vista.

OK, enough ranting. To sum up, it is just a hassle (even with the appropriate CD for that particular model.)

I just attempted to do a recovery on a HP laptop with the exact disks required and it failed each time after hours of installation. Some stupid errors like "0x4001001300001002" "If this problem continues contact a repair technician" or some nonsense. Everyone who has this problem gets a different response from HP, including having them send you the same exact disks all over again. If it "fails" the install it will then modify the partition to do an automatic attempt to do a recovery install again.

What I ended up doing is letting the install go all the way to the point of failure, then when it rebooted I put in a bootcd to get control of it and using a partition manager I deleted the HP install "c:" partition, renamed "d:" to "c:" and made it active, then when I rebooted it I killed the FBISM.EXE program as soon as I could, then I went and deleted the autoexec.bat and config.sys it created and then renamed some FBI folder so it could not be found. Next time I rebooted it was fine. I then expanded the partition (HP recovery left it at 40 gigs) to the full size of the drive and then continied with all the patches and upgrades. The machine works fine now. But what a horrible experience, nobody should have to go through that.

 

[BerthaControl]

I just attempted to do a recovery on a HP laptop with the exact disks required and it failed each time after hours of installation. Some stupid errors like "0x1004001300001001" "If this problem continues contact a repair technician" or some nonsense. Everyone who has this problem gets a different response from HP, including having them send you the same exact disks all over again. If it "fails" the install it will then modify the partition to do an automatic attempt to do a recovery install again.

What I ended up doing is letting the install go all the way to the point of failure, then when it rebooted I put in a bootcd to get control of it and using a partition manager I deleted the HP install "c:" partition, renamed "d:" to "c:" and made it active, then when I rebooted it I killed the FBISM.EXE program as soon as I could, then I went and deleted the autoexec.bat and config.sys it created and then renamed some FBI folder so it could not be found. Next time I rebooted it was fine. I then expanded the partition (HP recovery left it at 40 gigs) to the full size of the drive and then continied with all the patches and upgrades. The machine works fine now. But what a horrible experience, nobody should have to go through that.

I am happy you were able to get rid of it using a partition manager. After trying three different partition managers, I gave up. I think I was better off before even attempting to use those "Recovery" cds. By the way, great job on problem solving. You must have great patience and tolerance. I will have to remember what you did if I come across this again.

 

[NYJimbo]

I am happy you were able to get rid of it using a partition manager. After trying three different partition managers, I gave up. I think I was better off before even attempting to use those "Recovery" cds. By the way, great job on problem solving. You must have great patience and tolerance. I will have to remember what you did if I come across this again.

The problem is that if you delete the C: and rename the D: and make it active and just boot it the FBI stupid thing will pop up again, see it "failed" the install and then it will re-work the partitions again so that there will be a tiny 400meg C:, the good partition will be D: and it will force some autoexec crap on you. The only way to get past all of this is to kill fbism.exe as soon as it starts and then do all the other crap. I really hate HP, every time something goes wrong I have to call their "tech support" and end up with some guy reading a flow chart of worthless ideas. I mean the guy wanted to send me the same disks all over again because his flow chart thingy told him the disks must be bad, but that's what they do to everyone and its not the disks, its some fault with a video driver install or something related to it and the program that checks all the result logs will do a fail if any of these things produced an error, regardless of the severity of the error.

 

[Kenhelms]

I really hate HP, every time something goes wrong I have to call their "tech support" and end up with some guy reading a flow chart of worthless ideas. I mean the guy wanted to send me the same disks all over again because his flow chart thingy told him the disks must be bad, but that's what they do to everyone and its not the disks, its some fault with a video driver install or something related to it and the program that checks all the result logs will do a fail if any of these things produced an error, regardless of the severity of the error.

thats no kidding! Been there, done that.

 

[thor999]

I would try making an ISO of that disc, removing the "OEM" folder, reburning it, just to see what happens... I wonder if it is a Royalty key issue?

 

[NYJimbo]

I would try making an ISO of that disc, removing the "OEM" folder, reburning it, just to see what happens... I wonder if it is a Royalty key issue?

You've never done this before, right. There is no "oem" folder or anything like it. Disc one is a proprietary preloading special environment and the second disk has the O/S and other HP extras. You cant just rip out part of it.

 

[thor999]

Oh, so sorry, NYJimbo! I meant to say $OEM$ folder, you got me there. Yes you can just rip part of it out, either w/ Nlite or by merely creating an ISO and "pulling" it out there. Ease up buddy. Still friends? I believe this also allows for install on ANY system, yet will require activation, so if its an HP OEM install disc, and you want to install on an HP, best to leave it alone.

 

[NYJimbo]

Oh, so sorry, NYJimbo! I meant to say $OEM$ folder, you got me there. Yes you can just rip part of it out, either w/ Nlite or by merely creating an ISO and "pulling" it out there. Ease up buddy. Still friends? I believe this also allows for install on ANY system, yet will require activation, so if its an HP OEM install disc, and you want to install on an HP, best to leave it alone.

So if there are three folders on the disk:

BOOT
SOURCES
PRELOAD

which of these to you is the $OEM$ ?

This is not an OEM windows disk.

 

[thor999]

I want to build up as many OEM disks as possible and I dont mind ordering and paying for them as machines come into the shop and then keeping a copy, but if the use is that specific then it would not be worth it.

Oh sorry maybe I misunderstood what you meant by OEM, very sorry for trying to help, won't happen again.

 

[NYJimbo]

Oh sorry maybe I misunderstood what you meant by OEM, very sorry for trying to help, won't happen again.

If you are referring to a line on the first message you should have said that, we were going through the whole discussion of the restore disks and how they were not working.

 

[thor999]

Well I guess I better apologize for that too.