daniel422

Weak, weak, WEAK!!! That was exactly what I feared. And there is no way to get the same mobo -- it's totally useless. Not shooting the messenger! Thanks for your prompt reply! My remaining hair thanks you. Looks like I'm plopping down for a fresh version of MCE. I've learned my lesson. For those of you still buying MCE machines from HP, Dell, and the like -- beware! Recovery disks only go so far. Insist on a full OS install disk.

I'm sorta cross-posting here, but I need to know how much longer I should pursue this....and this has to have happened to others out there. I just haven't found the EXACT case. I've got an HP MCE 2k5 PC. Something happened that caused the original mobo and power supply to die. I thus have replaced them, although not with the same exact model (since it doesn't seem to exist anymore) and with faster RAM. Now when I startup I and Windows starts to boot I get a "configuration error...code purple" and that windows instlal elements are missing. Fine --I tried systme recovery via the recovery partition on the drive. Same thing. I do get an error when I try a full destructive recovery "unable to write user partition". I ordered new recovery disks from HP. Same thing. Recovery seems to work fine -- takes about 2 hours to copy all the files over. On reboot I get the same "configuration error". I afraid (and was warned by HP tech) that the recovery disk won't work right with hardware changes (like the new mobo). Am I stuck? I'd like to just do a fresh install (preferrably of MCE, although anything working would be nice!), but don't have anything but the OEM recovery disks. HP wants to change me $50-$100 just to answer my questions (am I screwed - yes - thanks) and if that simply means I need to buy a new copy of MCE than I'd rather save my money for that (also $100). Any advice? Can I extract a plain copy of MCE from the recovery disks? What about future upgrades? It seems the recovery disks won't support you if you make hardware changes -- thus obsoleting themselves. What's the use? If recovery disks become useless when I make hardware changes, I'm never going to buy a computer without a full version of the OS on disk again!