New laptop with semi pre installed Vista Home Premium

[Guest]

We just received our new laptop, HP Pavilion, with Vista Home Premium pre
installed. No CD/DVD.

The problem is that it refuses to start. We get an error about winload.exe
being missing or corrupted. Apparently this is a common problem (after
googling about it) but I haven't found any similar situation as ours. There
is no BIOS to go in to or any options what so ever.

What can I do in this situation?

Eva

 

[Guest]

You should look around your documentation to find out what key to press when
your system is first booting to boot from the recovery partition. If you
Pavillion didn't come with recovery CD/DVDs, then it probably has a recovery
partition on the hard drive you can boot from to reinstall everything.

I think you're saying you don't see any prompts that tell you what to press
to access the BIOS or other options, but that doesn't mean that the options
aren't there. Try DEL, F2, etc...

'Coure HP's only a call and an hour of hold time away, right? ;-)

 

[Richard G. Harper]

If the laptop will not start properly, TAKE IT BACK. A new product should
just work. Would you accept a toaster new that takes toast in but never
pops it back up when it's done?

--
Richard G. Harper [MVP Shell/User] (e-mail address removed)
* NEW! Catch my blog ... http://msmvps.com/blogs/rgharper/
* PLEASE post all messages and replies in the newsgroups
* The Website - http://rgharper.mvps.org/
* HELP us help YOU ... http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm

 

[Hertz_Donut]

We just received our new laptop, HP Pavilion, with Vista Home Premium pre
installed. No CD/DVD.

The problem is that it refuses to start. We get an error about winload.exe
being missing or corrupted. Apparently this is a common problem (after
googling about it) but I haven't found any similar situation as ours.
There
is no BIOS to go in to or any options what so ever.

What can I do in this situation?

Eva

Your computer came with a hidden restore partition. When you activated your
copy of Windows, you were prompted to create a restore set. You chose to
ignore it. Your option now is to follow the instructions in the
documentation that came with your computer and restore your computer form
the Restore Partition (restart computer, and press F11 key until it starts
the restore process).

Once your computer is restored, your next step should be to make the Restore
discs, either CD or DVD. You'll need them if the HDD ever has problems.

Honu

 

[Guest]

Thoroughly agree. Too many people landing on these pages are given advice by
very intelligent, knowledgable and "EXPERIENCED" individuals who now and
again forget that totally inexperienced computer users with zero knowledge of
system, software, hardware or tech industry ability get brought here by
Microsoft software.

Please, let's not be too harsh on them (I include myself in this) - please?

If the laptop will not start properly, TAKE IT BACK. A new product should
just work. Would you accept a toaster new that takes toast in but never
pops it back up when it's done?

--
Richard G. Harper [MVP Shell/User] (e-mail address removed)
* NEW! Catch my blog ... http://msmvps.com/blogs/rgharper/
* PLEASE post all messages and replies in the newsgroups
* The Website - http://rgharper.mvps.org/
* HELP us help YOU ... http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm

We just received our new laptop, HP Pavilion, with Vista Home Premium pre
installed. No CD/DVD.

The problem is that it refuses to start. We get an error about winload.exe
being missing or corrupted. Apparently this is a common problem (after
googling about it) but I haven't found any similar situation as ours.
There
is no BIOS to go in to or any options what so ever.

What can I do in this situation?

Eva

 

[Guest]

Thank you everybody for suggestions.

I received a bit more information on what happened at the very beginning of
the first startup (my husband did it by himself). Approx. 1 minute after
starting the installing he got a "BSD". He didn't write anything down from
the error message unfortunately.

What I've done today (thanks to Joe pointing me in a couple of directions):
1. Read the documentation and found how to reach restore section.
2. Ran the restore to factory state. Unfortunately it didn't help.
3. Was able to get a "recovery cmd window" running and checked the
directories in case the winload.exe was in another place. No such luck.
4. Scanned HPs site for clues. Couldn't find anything about Vista but some
leads about XP. For example to get into BIOS setup and running the Disk Self
Test (which I'm doing now), was hold F10, press power on, let go F10 when
text show up.
If the disk is ok I am out of ideas. Will have to wait until we can get in
contact with HP support on Monday. Until then I'll document my steps so I can
tell them.

Don't you just hate giving up like this? I'd like to "blow out" the whole
thing and install XP pro. But since we bought it *with* Vista, it should run
Vista without all this hassle.

Well, thanks again everybody! Any other ideas just keep them coming. )

Eva

 

[Jupiter Jones [MVP]]

Do you need to wait until Monday?
I thought HP had 24/7 support.

But if you are getting the same issue after a recovery, you probably have a
hardware issue, Take It Back for an exchange.

 

[Guest]

It says on HPs site (Sweden) email and phone support only week days. that is
so typical Sweden.

I ran the 'Hard Disk Self Test' which said nothing was wrong with the disk.
And on HPs site they say they will not exchange a "working" drive that have
passed this test.

 

[Guest]

Yes, but that policy is only for hard drive issues. If this is a -new-
laptop, you should absolutely insist on a completely new laptop, as the
others in this thread mentioned.

If you bought it online I definately understand the desire to fix the issue
yourself so as not to have to wait the shipping time... I doubt they
cross-ship laptops But it's worth it, as even if you get the issue
resolved, you won't know for sure if it's not symptomatic of some other issue
that will appear once your exchange period expires! I would just be really,
really firm on the phone in order to try to get your replacement shipped
express, 2-day, or whatever.

 

[Gary VanderMolen]

Winload.exe should be in C:\Windows\System32\

Gary VanderMolen

 

[Guest]

The latest in this tragic business is that HP doesn't even have recovery CDs
to send out! Wait until April/May they say. Yeah right! Why even ship the
machines to the stores if there is no solid support behind them?
We bought it online (at OnOff) and they don't have phone support, only
email. We will definately send this machine back.
I'm so upset!

 

[Gary VanderMolen]

The latest in this tragic business is that HP doesn't even have recovery CDs
to send out! Wait until April/May they say. Yeah right! Why even ship the
machines to the stores if there is no solid support behind them?
We bought it online (at OnOff) and they don't have phone support, only
email. We will definately send this machine back.
I'm so upset!

The recovery files are in a hidden partition.
The machine should have prompted you to make a recovery DVD.
Look in the Start Menu for System Restore or PC Restore.

 

[Guest]

The recovery files are in a hidden partition.
The machine should have prompted you to make a recovery DVD.
Look in the Start Menu for System Restore or PC Restore.

Yes, but the initial installation never completed because of the BSD after 2
minutes, so the recovery partition was never created/activated.
When I talked with HP support they concluded we had tried everything
possible to fix the problem and that was when they told me there are no
recovery CDs for this model yet.
We have been told we can send the machine back and they will send a new one.