I never have a problem with the business line of HP PCs' (Kayak, Brio and Vectra) - the Pavilion line keeps me going with warranty repairs at $65 per inshop repair and $30 per "exchange unit". I only get one of every 50 or 60 owners that have the Compaq owner's attitude about HP's machines. I personally wouldn't buy one due to the proprietary nature of the mainboards, cases, power supplies and other hardware. I can get ATX 250 watt clone power supplies all day at $25 each but certain Pavillion supplies can cost up to $100 each. If you contact customer support at HP they can either ship a free restore set if it's under warranty and you tell them it's there but not loading. If you've lost it, in or out of warranty, they can sell you a replacemant if you supply the unit serial number. Packard Bell wasn't bad near the end of their reign of terror. They got real too late and were already on a downward spiral fast towards earth. I don't know why anyone feels the HP restore is bloated...it's all MicroSteal for the most part. All windows 98, NT, ME and 2k stuff is huge and you need a broadband connection to download it. I just popped $20 for the Win NT 4.0 service pack 6.0a rather than sit for 2 days downloading it. -> -----Original Message----- -> From: owner-classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org -> [mailto:owner-classiccmp@classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Glen Goodwin -> Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2001 10:34 PM -> To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org -> Subject: Re: HP & Compaq -> -> -> > From: Russ Blakeman <rhblakeman(a)kih.net> -> -> > I wonder if HP will absorb Compaq and totally do away with -> them or still -> run -> > them as an independantly named subsidiary. -> -> PC-wise, I hope they just sort of do away with each other. IMHO, the -> current HP and Compaq lines represent the lowest point in mass-produced -> boxes. As bad as E-Machines and Packard Bells. Additionally, obtaining -> the drivers (when the customer has lost the restore disk) can be -> impossible, and when it *is* possible I'm often looking at a 15 -> MB download -> for the video and 11 MB more for sound. -> -> This is grotesque -- crappy, proprietary hardware running -> bloated software. -> It's a wonder people put up with it. Perhaps they won't anymore. -> -> Glen -> 0/0 -> ->