08.02.07

New Laptop: Getting Started

Posted in Customer Service, SAnToS at 8:09 am by Todd

I have been spending time over the last couple of weeks trying to get my new laptop setup so that I can transition to using it. Unfortunately, this has been quite a chore and is taking a non-trivial amount of time. So far, I have run into a bloated Vista install, a lack of documentation on how to reduce the bloat, and an inability to repartition the drive from within Vista.

I have already talked about the bloat but wanted to provide a little bit of a conclusion to the story. It turns out that you can remove the recovery partition and extend the Vista partition to include it. You simply need to create DVDs (or CDs) of the HP Recovery system, uninstall HP Backup and Recovery, remove the Recovery partition, and finally extend the Vista partition to take up this new free space. I am still trying to figure out how to remove the 3rd partition (OS_TOOLS) but can’t seem to find any clues as to what it is, if it is safe to remove it, and what procedure to follow to remove it (feel free to leave a comment or email me if you know how to do this).

At this point, I had quite a bit of space on the brand new system so that I could create the Linux partitions and setup my dual-boot laptop. This is where the trouble with Vista and HP Support started. To be specific, I had a working Vista system that was trimmed down to have about 80G of free space.

I found out that Vista has a built-in utility to manage partitions. So I tried to repartition by issuing the “Shrink Volume” command on that partition (hoping to free up 70G to install Linux on). It came back and said that it could only shrink the partition down by 6G. This seemed weird because there was so much free space so I asked the great google brain “Why can’t I shrink a volume more in a fresh install of Vista?” The response was no louder than crickets chirping (ok, there were quite a few hits for my query but nothing close to a real answer). After searching “Live Search” (Microsoft’s answer to Google), I found some details that said that the volume shrinkage might be limited because of the location of the pagefile, hibernation files, and other system files (shadow copies, whatever that is). With this information I thought I might try to use Disk Cleanup and the Disk Defrag tools in Vista and it might push all of these system files closer to the beginning of the disk and it would free up space in that partition. This was not the case and I still could not shrink more than 6G.

With my new found limitation and the lack of knowledge on the internet I decided it was time to consult the experts at HP. I contacted HP support using Active Chat and was greeted rather quickly with a real person (within about 5 minutes if I recall, pretty impressive). He read through my description of the problem and said he would have to research the issue and respond via email. I thought, great, this should be resolved within a couple of days and I will have my new laptop closer to being usable as my primary platform for everyday work.

This is where the story starts to frustrate me. The response that was sent to me via email was quick but didn’t tell me anything I hadn’t tried already (Disk Cleanup and Disk Defrag). So I went ahead and tried it again and it ran overnight (sidenote: why does defrag take so long?). When I got in the next morning I rebooted and tried to shrink again. No luck (surprise). So I connected to ActiveChat again. This time the tech support specialist tried to walk me through something but he didn’t know how to find pagefile.sys (I later learned a little something about folder options in Vista that will be useful in the future). So he said I would need to contact Microsoft for support.

This is where I got really angry. Why did I need to contact Microsoft for support when I have a 3 year warranty with HP and this is the OS that HP installed? Besides, Microsoft charges for support (and doesn’t recognize my product ID, probably because it is an OEM product ID and they assume you get support from your OEM – good assumption). So I argued a little bit and he gave me the standard “customer is upset and we won’t fix it” response. At that point, I just shut-up and disconnected.

With all my pent-up-anger I decided to take a break. After my break (and reducing my anger by about 50%) I decided to try another route. I would use HP’s email support and see if I get any better results (I know, not a good idea but I figured I might as well give it a try).

HP’s email support obviously didn’t read through the prior history detail in the Active Chat session so I got a little further with them. Unfortunately, they ran into issues and gave up as well and told me to contact Microsoft Support. Here is their final message:

Hello Todd,

Thank you for contacting Hewlett-Packard’s Commercial Solutions Center.

This is with reference to your e-mail regarding the HP Compaq nc8430 notebook.

Based on the information provided in your e-mail, we understand that you want to create a second partition on the Hard Drive of the notebook.

We understand your concern; we wish to inform you that it is a known issue in Vista and Microsoft has not yet released the patch to resolve the same.

However we suggest you using the below link of TechNet of Microsoft which provides the clear picture that the issue is known one. We suggest you that you will have to wait until Microsoft releases the patch to resolve the bug:
http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=1319579&SiteID=17

Please do contact the Microsoft using the below link and they will help you in providing further assistance:
http://support.microsoft.com/oas/default.aspx?ln=en-us&x=10&y=12&prid=10299&gprid=436975

Please e-mail us in case of any further queries and we will be more than glad to assist you.
Once again, thank you for contacting Hewlett-Packard’s Commercial Solutions Center.

Regards,
HP eServices
So I am left contacting Microsoft for support and a not-really-usable laptop (I cannot work in Vista since it is so slow and takes so long to boot besides the fact that I am much more efficient and effective in a Linux environment). I am left thinking several things:
  • HP doesn’t know how to support their customers and their technical knowledge is the same as using Google and Live Search.
  • HP doesn’t want my business.
  • HP does everything it can to avoid working hard to satisfy its customers.
  • HP outsources their support to an off-shore firm where the techs are non-native English speakers.
  • Microsoft Windows Vista is not ready to be released.

To all my loyal readers, don’t buy an HP. I think this was huge mistake and I should have just ordered a MacBook Pro or a Dell Inspiron instead.

Update: I just got an email from Thomas Netter who mentioned this article that might have fixed my problem. Unfortunately, it was too late for me to try since I have given up on Vista, completely removed it, and installed Linux instead. But others might find it useful. Good luck. And thanks Thomas!

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