Clean Vista install WITH NO ACTIVATION

[orev]

It should be noted that the HP Pavilion 6000 Series allows BIOS access to the hard drive(s) that the dv9500t does not. Thus fresh-OS installation measures such as the one mentioned in this thread will only work if want to re-build your machine using ONLY the exact opsys HP sent/pre-installed. You will likely NEVER be able to install other operating systems, not Linux, not Windows Server, and almost certainly not Longhorn or whatever else comes after Vista. See my earlier post from the XP-Pro/Vista dual-boot thread.
-------

HP Pavilion dv9500t

I sent my dv9500t back - it's junk because of what they did with the BIOS!

I'll explain. HP has had Phoenix make a "locked down" BIOS in the dv9500t. It does not give the option to control the SATA drives which means you can NOT un-hide the hard drives.

I bought the dv9500t with dual drives so I could dual-boot Vista Ultimate (64-bit) and Windows Server 2003 R2. It came with Vista Ultimate pre-installed. When I ran the Windows Server 2003 R2 (Genuine MS) setup DVD, it reported "no hard drives found." So I ran the excellent freeware program VistaBootPro 3.3 and it reported that the hard drives were either missing or "hidden." I'll explain. See, HP tries to lock the consumer down into using only their "factory" installation which includes their tweaked version of the opsys and lots of "crapware" from vendors such as Vonage and Vongo and AOL who pay HP to include their software on every machine sold.

With older Pavilions, you could go into the BIOS and turn off what HP calles "SATA Nativity" mode which woould then allow other operating systems to see the hard drives. But on the dv9500t there is no such option to change the "SATA Native" mode which really ought to be called "HP Hidden Drive Mode."

This has worse implications than just keeping the iser from having a dual-boot machine. It also means you can't run Linux. Worst of all, it almost certainly means you'll never be able to upgrade to whatever comes after Windows Vista! This, because other operating systems simply can't see the hidden drives.

Now the average consumer might not care about this, but nobody tells ME what I can and can't do with MY $4400.00 computer! HP's tech support people are terrible too. Most have no idea what SATA is, none among the dozen I suffered with had ever heard of (TPM) Trusted Platform Modules, and all said dual boot is "possible on the dv9500t but not supported." Finally my support ticket (about the hidden drives) was "escalated" to a Case Manager. This guy was a technical lightweight of goosefeather proportions! HP's tech support people, especially the Bangalore-outsourced script-readers, are useless.

Their totalitarian attitude and design decisions are sad because otherwise the dv9500t is a fine machine. The integrated fingerprint reader was very nice, the UltraBright (two bulbs) screen was gorgeous, the Lightscribe DVD burner was great, and the 4GB RAM option were reasonably priced. Perhaps best of all, the dv9500 is one of the only machines available anywhere right now, along with the Toshiba Qosmio, which is DirectX 10 compliant, both having the new nVidia 8600M GS GPU. (None of the other big brands are bothering to mention that none of their laptops will ever support DirectX 10, as all other GPUs are of the old DirectX 9 architecture.)

But nice as the dv9500t is, it's got the FATAL DESIGN FLAW of the hidden drives, locking the user in to only using the HP factory-customized operating system. Buy the dv9500t and it's Hp's way or the highway - and your support will stink.

I will stand by all I have said and will answer any questions.

- Hansrarius@yahoo.com

Any time a problem like this shows up, I of course want to investigate it before replying. However, on the other thread that you posted to, there are already people who have posted a solution (marmion, taktakb) -- which is solution that I was suspecting that it is.

The "hidden drive" mode that you're complaining about is the difference between SATA legacy and native mode. Legacy mode has been around for a while so older OSes could handle SATA drives without drivers, BUT THIS IS A WORKAROUND MODE AND NOT A LONG TERM SOLUTION. In Native mode, an older OS will need the SATA drivers loaded during installation, otherwise it cannot see the drives. In XP, you could either press F6 and load them from a floppy, or you had to slipstream them into the install CD. I'm sure Windows Server 2003 works in a similar, if not identical way.

There is a very good explanation of the difference in modes you can find here, but I'll quote the good parts:

Let us first understand what is native mode. In native, SATA is used purely as SATA, without any consideration towards the compatibility with older devices and operating systems. Native mode enables use of all the advanced features that SATA can offer. It provides the most flexibility and options, but there is little regard for backwards compatibility.

On the other hand, the Legacy mode is used to work around the most important problem caused by the Native mode: the backward compatibility. However, this comes at a price: the Legacy mode is not as flexible as the Native mode and some advanced SATA features cannot be used. So now there is no doubt why Native is technically the preferred choice.

It's really not unreasonable the HP has removed the legacy SATA mode from such a modern laptop. It may not even be supported in the Santa Rosa (ICH8 southbridge) chipset.

Also, as the poll attached to this thread can attest to, if not also all the posts from people who have had success, you can do a clean install without any of the crapware. And as long as you have SATA drivers, you should have no problem installing Linux or any other OS as well. HP does nothing of the kind in "locking" down the system to only their software image. It would be a very stupid thing to do, as people would pick up on that very quickly and their sales would drop down to nothing.

The fact that NO ONE else has complained about this problem should be a good indicator that maybe you're doing something wrong, instead of the rest of the world doing something wrong.

Basically, you have no idea what you're talking about, so please stop spreading FUD around the forum.

PS: You think that $600 is a good price for 4GB of RAM, when it can be had elsewhere for about $200?

[stallen]

PS: You think that $600 is a good price for 4GB of RAM, when it can be had elsewhere for about $200?

4GB (2GB x2DIMM)= $170 for me but I'm not braggin'

Hey orev, I plan on going from 32-bit Ultimate to 64-bit Ultimate. Since the product key is supposedly the same between x64 and x86 your ABR should work right? I think I saw a post yesterday that you were checking into something 64-bit related.

If nothing else, I'll be giving it a try as soon as my laptop arrives and I'll post the results.

[orev]

ABR does not work when backing up the product key on a 64bit system. It does work when restoring the key to a 64bit system though. So if you already have the key, you can restore it, it's just the backing up part that doesn't work.

[stallen]

Thanks Orev!

[nephipower]

It should be noted that the HP Pavilion 6000 Series allows BIOS access to the hard drive(s) that the dv9500t does not. Thus fresh-OS installation measures such as the one mentioned in this thread will only work if want to re-build your machine using ONLY the exact opsys HP sent/pre-installed. You will likely NEVER be able to install other operating systems, not Linux, not Windows Server, and almost certainly not Longhorn or whatever else comes after Vista. See my earlier post from the XP-Pro/Vista dual-boot thread.
-------

HP Pavilion dv9500t

I sent my dv9500t back - it's junk because of what they did with the BIOS!

I'll explain. HP has had Phoenix make a "locked down" BIOS in the dv9500t. It does not give the option to control the SATA drives which means you can NOT un-hide the hard drives.

I bought the dv9500t with dual drives so I could dual-boot Vista Ultimate (64-bit) and Windows Server 2003 R2. It came with Vista Ultimate pre-installed. When I ran the Windows Server 2003 R2 (Genuine MS) setup DVD, it reported "no hard drives found." So I ran the excellent freeware program VistaBootPro 3.3 and it reported that the hard drives were either missing or "hidden." I'll explain. See, HP tries to lock the consumer down into using only their "factory" installation which includes their tweaked version of the opsys and lots of "crapware" from vendors such as Vonage and Vongo and AOL who pay HP to include their software on every machine sold.

With older Pavilions, you could go into the BIOS and turn off what HP calles "SATA Nativity" mode which woould then allow other operating systems to see the hard drives. But on the dv9500t there is no such option to change the "SATA Native" mode which really ought to be called "HP Hidden Drive Mode."

This has worse implications than just keeping the iser from having a dual-boot machine. It also means you can't run Linux. Worst of all, it almost certainly means you'll never be able to upgrade to whatever comes after Windows Vista! This, because other operating systems simply can't see the hidden drives.

Now the average consumer might not care about this, but nobody tells ME what I can and can't do with MY $4400.00 computer! HP's tech support people are terrible too. Most have no idea what SATA is, none among the dozen I suffered with had ever heard of (TPM) Trusted Platform Modules, and all said dual boot is "possible on the dv9500t but not supported." Finally my support ticket (about the hidden drives) was "escalated" to a Case Manager. This guy was a technical lightweight of goosefeather proportions! HP's tech support people, especially the Bangalore-outsourced script-readers, are useless.

Their totalitarian attitude and design decisions are sad because otherwise the dv9500t is a fine machine. The integrated fingerprint reader was very nice, the UltraBright (two bulbs) screen was gorgeous, the Lightscribe DVD burner was great, and the 4GB RAM option were reasonably priced. Perhaps best of all, the dv9500 is one of the only machines available anywhere right now, along with the Toshiba Qosmio, which is DirectX 10 compliant, both having the new nVidia 8600M GS GPU. (None of the other big brands are bothering to mention that none of their laptops will ever support DirectX 10, as all other GPUs are of the old DirectX 9 architecture.)

But nice as the dv9500t is, it's got the FATAL DESIGN FLAW of the hidden drives, locking the user in to only using the HP factory-customized operating system. Buy the dv9500t and it's Hp's way or the highway - and your support will stink.

I will stand by all I have said and will answer any questions.

- Hansrarius@yahoo.com

Wouldn't just slipstreaming the SATA drivers into the Window 2003 Install Disk fix the problems like Orev suggested work? I did that for a Windows Vista install disk when I did my clean install, that worked beautifully.

[rconner]

question: once you've done the 'activation_backup' once and have that saved. Can the 'activation_restore' use the same files if you had to do a clean refresh again? thanks

[orev]

Yes, once you have done the backup once, you won't need to do it again every time you reinstall, as long as you save the files from the first time. All you would need on each subsequent install is to run the restore.

[ickysmits]

This worked perfect, thanks Orev!

One question: If I want to clean everything up later, and do another clean install over this one, I assume I'll be able to repeat the process agian with no problem?

Thanks again

[ickysmits]

Sorry, didn't read the last post that answered my question. Thanks!

[orev]

Yes, you can repeat the same process. If you keep the files from the activation backup, you can skip that step and use those same files the next time, and only have to restore it