Loading a vista restore cd

[timko]

Hello All,

I'm a newbie to the forum and it is a tremendous site. I have a HP Pavillion M8150N with a quad core 2.4, (2)320 drives, upgraded to 4gbram ... and ... its a great machine. I bought it 18 months ago and it fixed every problem I had with my old celeron 1.7 machine.

I bought a "project" pavillion M9040N desktop box with no hard drives. It is similar to the 8150 ... so I bought an HP Restore Disc and moved my (1) unused 320 SATA drive from my 8150 to the other machine ... and expected to just power it up and restore vista and have a nice backup machine.

It wasn't quite that easy. After a bunch of tries, I <powered on>, <hit F10>, entered the setup program and made the HD the first device, made the CD the 3rd device, made the CD the first boot device, and set it to display the parameters as it loaded. I don't know if I said that right. I hope you get the idea.

So I power up and it then displays the following and then ... stops ... hangs? ...
===========
AMI Bios ...
Press F10 to run setup
Press ESC ...
Initializing ...
3072 ..
USB ...
SATA Port1 Samsung HD ...
SMART ok
Auto detect Sata 2
sata 2 CD ...
Auto detect USB device 1 generic
Auto detect USB device 2
Auto detect USB device 3
Auto detect USB device 4
04 USB Mass Storage devices found and configured
==============
Thats it, then it stops scrolling or loading ...

Where do I go from here?

I have the Vista restore disk in the CD.

I was expecting to get a prompt.

Thanks very much everybody for any suggestions. This was supposed to be a working machine sans hard drives.
Tim

[kaninelupus]

Ummmm, you do realise a "restore disk" does not contain a copy of Vista?? A restore disk is used to allow the copy of Windows installed on a hidden partition as if it were an actual disk. A fresh HDD would not have this partition (unless specifically sold to you by HP as such), and thus your recovery disk will do you no good what so ever.

You'll need to either purchase a FULL Vista disk, either from the OEM (HP), or a retail version. The OEM build will save you the hassle of downloading all the drivers and installing manually, but will also likely be bogged down with HP's "Useful" applications (please not the sarcasm!!)

"This was supposed to be a working machine sans hard drives"

And I'm sure it is - you just need an OS to actually use that "working" machine, lol

[jbennet]

Um, if its not an HP system you cant use an HP recovery disk on it? that is only for systems which are a) HP and b) have a valid licence

Even if you managed to get it installed (it may be BIOS locked) you wont be able to activate it, as the HP Volume Licencing key on OEM disks, wont work on non-hp systems as its pre-activated depending on the hardware mathing.

[timko]

kaninelupus,
Are you making fun of a poor dumb animal? Come on. Thats not nice. Also, realize is spelled with a z (where I come from) :)

That is really weird. HP told me I could! In fact I called them three different times and talked to three different people and they all told me I could. But, you say I can't. ??? What to do, what to do, what to do??? Who do I believe? Hmmmmm. hmmmm.

Well anyway, I did drill down and I did get my answer on another forum. So, I think I have it knocked. I found out that there are three or four different scenarious which apply. Yes, you were right about one and wrong about the other. Anyway,
1) The Recovery CD's will restore vista to a new drive but the problem is that apparently the joker who installed the mb and vista cut corners during the install and didnt tatoo the mb ... so that is the reason, the restore doesnt work
2) yes, a brand spankin' new copy of vista would load (of course) - this is the least technical, the least favorable and most expensive option.
3) The problem that remains is that only a certified HP service guy has access to the tools to tatoo the mb so the recovery cds will load.

kaninelupus, the problem with your response is that I was looking for a solution that doesn't require me to do something stupid like buy a new computer. Its like buying a new car when the radio breaks. There is a glitch. I was looking for a comment on the glitch. Buying a new copy of vista is idiotic. That's not a fix. I can get that response from a high school student who is working at best buy on the weekend. I thought this was a techie forum.

JBennet,
Thanks - you are correct. I agree. This is an HP. Yes, to prevent theft, they tatoo the hd with a bunch of stuff to id the hardware to the os and thats what's missing on this unit.

[kaninelupus]

Recovery Disks and OEM Windows disks are not one and the same.

Having worked on a few HP's (including the wife's over-priced Pavillion desktop which thank GOD we traded off), the recovery disk accesses a pre-configured partition.... ie, if you install your own HDD, no pre-installed recovery partion, no use for the recovery disk.

The FULL OEM disk however shouldn't have this limitation (yes, providing you have legit licence and all) - unless HP have taken a different tact from other OEM releases. Have bought a few custom (locally built) PC's, and all came with a full OEM Windows disk. Even had the DELL OEM release of Vista Ultimate running on my Toshiba Sat Pro, until I could afford to shell out for my own copy (hey I was a cash-strapped Uni student at the time) and that never had any issues.