HP laptop question- very long

[DigitalDiva]

I have a 17in dv9410, Vista prem, less than 1 yr old that I purchased from another TPF member. I've had it since March I think, so far the cd/dvd drive has been replaced, a new hd and it has been formatted at least 3x. Now HP wants to send me new recovery discs so I can format it yet again.
Other than the hd clicking and freezing (hd replaced) most of the problems have come from the cd/dvd drive disappearing.
I can almost remove the upper and lower filters with my eyes closed..
I've read about itunes and roxio (came prloaded) causing this problem. I've done the fixes with the techs and by myself, but now nothing seems to correct the issue. I can either have the drive show up or roxio and itunes and no drive. I need itunes for my iphone but I need the drive to show for Adobe Premiere Pro to burn a dvd, which by the way I need to uninstall and reinstall when the upper & lower filters are deleted.
Does anybody have any suggestions? Also I noticed that there use to be something called toast or toaster running in the services but it doesn't show up now. I had done a search on it once and it had said something about used for burning cds/dvds but I can't find that article now.
Oh, one good thing about all this, when I called HP today they said I had 327 days left on my warranty. I said 327 days left? Like in almost 1yr? Yes, 327 days.

[Wes]

Don't know what the problem is, but it seems like all anyone wants to do nowdays is reformat and reinstall. No one seems to want to take the time to actually troubleshoot a problem anymore. Is there any way that you could get through to their 2nd level or 3rd level support?

Hope you've been backing up your data.

[Rson]

I had the same problem with Vista dropping my DVD drive. After many reformats and patches I gave up and went to XP Pro X64. One day (almost everyday) my drive would disappear from My Computer. If you went into the control panel it would have a exclamation point over it. I would delete it and vista would find it again and things would be good until the next day when it happened all over again.

This is one of my issues with Vista....

Will HP let you "downgrade" (This is the Oxymoron for moving from Vista to XP) it should be free

[DigitalDiva]

Wes, I back up weekly but of coarse when hd went out was in the middle of the week after processing a little league game and lost all the pp work.
Rich HP hasn't offered that option but I'll ask next time. I don't think they understand how much work is involved with reinstalling Adobe programs and getting the presets "jus right" on all the programs, much less serial numbers, pw etc.

[Rson]

Hope this helps:

http://h20331.www2.hp.com/Hpsub/down...ngrade_FAQ.pdf

[chano]

The first thing that came to my head, was "Vista" haha. Still has random bugs floating around in it. Seems like your Cd/dvd dissapearing is driver related. which in the end..leads back to vista being unstable. You should try setting up a dual-boot to windows xp pro...i bet your issues will go away.

[luis_relampago]

Dora,

My advice is for you to sell that unit and invest in a MacBook Pro and forget about all your problems, live stress free!

[Charles Putnam]

I re-read this, and it definitely sounds like you got a lemon. Where I work (Methodist Hospital), we use HP computers, and every so often have issues with their laptops.

I'd ask HP to refund your $$ if possible, and go with another brand. If you're a Windows user, I've had great success with Gateway. Just picked up one of their M1625 laptops and am extremely happy with it. The built-in ATi X1270 video chip is quite adequate for Photoshop. I upgraded from 2gig to 4gig of RAM, which I'd definitely recommend on any machine.

FWIW, many of the issues people have with Vista aren't Vista or Microsoft's fault. It's crap drivers or poorly written software from third parties. Apple makes good products too. The main downside is their higher cost, and added costs for switching your software from Windows to Mac.

[DigitalDiva]

Thanks Rich, I'll try and take a look at it before this next reinstall. Luis, doing a regedit is more techy than I wanna be let's not add setting up dual-booting too.
Charles, it smells much like a lemon. I would love to get a mac but it would be the only one in the office and I don't know how that would work on our network. Most of my Adobe software with the exception of illustrator I think came with both mac and windows versions. And if you have both os on a mac doesn't it defeat the purpose of getting a mac?

[Charles Putnam]

Originally Posted by DigitalDiva

Charles, it smells much like a lemon. I would love to get a mac but it would be the only one in the office and I don't know how that would work on our network. Most of my Adobe software with the exception of illustrator I think came with both mac and windows versions. And if you have both os on a mac doesn't it defeat the purpose of getting a mac?

If you're connecting to a Windows based network, and your IT department isn't familar with Mac, that spells one big headache. From my point of view, if you use software that's Windows only (i.e. not ported to Mac, like Adobe does), then switching to Mac isn't a real option. It wasn't for me as there are a number of "mission critical" programs I use that are Windows only.

If you can get HP to take it back and refund your $$, you might be better served looking at alternatives - Toshiba, Gateway, or Dell. BTW, stay away from Sony. Many of the drivers they have are proprietary to their version of Vista Home Premium - i.e. won't work on an install of Vista Ultimate. Found out that the hard way after my sister in law purchased a Sony laptop for her husband, and tried to upgrade it to Vista Ultimate (primarily for Bitlocker). I had to contact Sony, who advised that their drivers only work on their version of Vista Home Premium. Two words - horse crap...

[DigitalDiva]

Update on laptop- the recovery dvd that tech support insisted I use arrived Thurs. I moved everything off and started the recovery at approx. 11 pm at 3 pm I'm awakend with the windows restart chime every minute and a half. FBI qui kept rebooting machine. I managed to check computer between reboots and it showed only 2 drives c and optical. AND my former 160g hard drive was now 24g with 4g available. So after hrs of phone support lots of work I had a brick.. Their solution was to send it in because "major motherboard issues with this model" Now he tells me!
I decided to pull out the recovery dvds that were burned previously which tech said had to be bad and now. finally, brick has life, optical drive and itunes as well as roxio.

[Cope]

I have learned from several years of HP experience that for serious issues, you must insiost on speaking to a 2nd tier tech immediately. The people in the call center will try to bluff you into letting them handle the issue, but if you get tough, they will pass you through.

Hope this gets resolution soon.