My goal being to have a primary drive partitioned in such a way that I could
have a separate partition, on the same drive as the OS, for the My
Documents folder....
I did a clean, formatted install of HP's OS (which partitions the disk the
way HP wants it, instead of the way I want it).
I uninstalled Norton and as much of the adware and spyware from HP as I
could.
I ghosted the C partition (NOT including the "HP Recovery Partition E:\").
I did a clean, formatted install of MS XP (on same drive), in order to
partition my primary disk drive the way I wanted it.
I then restored the HP ghost partition to the new, smaller C-Partition.
The manufacturer (HP) says they have no drivers for the hardware they sold
me except for those on their "Recovery CD Set" which is why I did the above,
instead of just using MS XP, which would have been my preference. HP said
they "keep costs down" by selling space on my hard drive to advertisers (via
their all-or-nothing-install of their "Recovery CD Set and Partition").
HP's "Recovery CD Set" is full of ad-serving and phone-home spyware,
Wild-Tangent games, etc. and out-of-date software, such as Norton Anti-Virus
2000 (and you KNOW what a pain it is to get anything from Symantec out of
your system).
When I had the clean MS XP installed, HP's sound card didn't work. HP says
it is on the motherboard. I found online what is supposed to be (?) the
driver for my sound device and it installed and moved that question-marked
"Other" device to a named device in the Device Management Sound/Game Area.
However, the sound still didn't work - even though the device showed as "no
problems". The SM Bus Controller is the only hardware that still shows
question-marked under "Other" in Device Manager. I don't know if this had
anything to do with the sound card or not.
If I could solve the SM Bus Controller driver issue, I would just buy
another sound card in order to dump HP's "recovery adware os" forever. I
think the SM Bus Controller is built into the motherboard (like the sound
card). The motherboard is "Imperial." I have never heard of it. Internet
search for "Imperial motherboard" found "Trigem Imperial Motherboard," but
I don't understand any of the stuff on the site or see a way to get support
for the SM Bus Controller.
I don't even know if the SM Bus Controller is necessary - everything seemed
to work except the sound, but I didn't have an internet connection, or
printer, or scanner, set up at that time. What is the SM Bus Controller?
Thanks,
AnnaSummers
----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Ryan" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, June 19, 2005 8:59 AM
I know that my Dell PC came with discs for the OEM version of the OS and
more discs for the drivers/diagnostic programs.
Is it possible there there are still links in the registry that point to the
old HP XP partition? Did you remove the cloned partition after you copied it
to where you wanted it?
As far as the HP dilemma and the XP install, that version of the OS would
probaly not have specific drivers for all of the hardware specific to your
motherboard. Although XP has common generic drivers for things like video,
it probably would not have specific drivers for the chipset/controllers
and/or sound chip that your HP requires. That would be on another disc(?)
or you would have to get them from the manufacturers website.
Chris Ryan
Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 16:18:48 -0400
From: generalstuff <[log in to unmask]>
I have an HP Pavillion XP Home PC. I think the OS is missing something that
my Dell OS had...
..I can't remember if I had this problem when I put a "pure" copy of MS XP
Home in this machine. I couldn't use that because I couldn't find (and
neither could Windows or HP) drivers for the "SM Bus Controller" (I don't
even know what that is) and the sound device that HP had built into the
motherboard)...
..I'm not buying another machine that has a "pre-partitioned, pre-loaded" OS
with no way to re-install everything the way I want it, or to install a
different operating system. Do any PC makers still include separate CD's
for the OS and software that you are supposedly buying as part of the deal?
I will appreciate any help you guys can offer.
Thanks,
AnnaSummers
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