Question:

Hi, I just purchased a new pc with vista loaded and am having 2 problems. 1 is I cant make the restore cd’s so if I lose my drive I cant restore to the factory installation. I did contact HP and they said they will send the cd’s since it;s a new operating system and pc. I dont believe them and expect a battle. My pc will record the first dvd and then give m ea error saying it failed. If I hit retry I just waste another dvd.

Answer:

This isn’t a surprise to me. Microsoft changed the way CD and DVD burners work in Windows Vista, so the developers who create software that burns CDs and DVDs need to rewrite their software to make it work properly. Based on my experience, HP is EXTREMELY slow in releasing updated drivers for their consumer products–and they typically stop releasing new drivers about a year after the computer is released.

Here’s the good news: Don’t sweat it. Take them up on their offer to ship you restore CDs (after all, what choice to you have?). Then, buy an external hard disk, and run a Complete PC backup. That’s better than the Restore CD anyway, because it’ll also restore your applications instead of just wiping your hard disk clean.

If you’re eager to get working software and drivers for your HP computer, follow my advice to get drivers directly from the component manufacturers.