Dell has changed it policy on OS disk

FYI

Just received a Dell 600m and did not get a Windows XP disk. Sooooooooo
I called support and was told this is Dells new policy, the operating system
is
on a hidden partition on the hard drive. Well after a smooth discussion with
the rep he agreed to send me one. I explained what happens if my Hard drive
crashes
after my warranty has expired. He said, I would have to purchase a new hard
drive from
Dell and it would come with XP on the hidden partition. Yea I could see me
making that
argument 3 years down the road, well you rep told me...........sorry sir he
was wrong and you must
purchase not only a new drive but another copy of XP. Well just call me
paranoid but it all ended well as I will get my disk. It only took 30
minutes to resolve the issue. BTW it could also
have been me saying that it was unacceptable and I will send this machine
back tomorrow.
The moral to this story is, if you don't ask they don't offer.

I hope this may help someone in the future.

This is forcing you to buy a replacement hard drive from them that will have
the OS. Isn't this sort of bundling illegal?

Hard drives are dropping like flies these days. Not having an OS disk at
the ready is pretty stupid IMO! Your ability to recover fairly quickly is
gone.

When you buy a system you're supposed to be buying the rights to use the OS
as well on that system. Not having the ability to recover from a hard
drive crash without being forced to buy from them or pay for another copy of
the OS is a BIG reason to not buy from Dell. Are they giving you a complete
system restore disk instead?


"BigJIm" wrote in message
...
FYI

Just received a Dell 600m and did not get a Windows XP disk. Sooooooooo
I called support and was told this is Dells new policy, the operating
system
is
on a hidden partition on the hard drive. Well after a smooth discussion
with
the rep he agreed to send me one. I explained what happens if my Hard
drive
crashes
after my warranty has expired. He said, I would have to purchase a new
hard
drive from
Dell and it would come with XP on the hidden partition. Yea I could see me
making that
argument 3 years down the road, well you rep told me...........sorry sir
he
was wrong and you must
purchase not only a new drive but another copy of XP. Well just call me
paranoid but it all ended well as I will get my disk. It only took 30
minutes to resolve the issue. BTW it could also
have been me saying that it was unacceptable and I will send this machine
back tomorrow.
The moral to this story is, if you don't ask they don't offer.

I hope this may help someone in the future.

Dogface wrote:

This is forcing you to buy a replacement hard drive from them that will have
the OS. Isn't this sort of bundling illegal?

Hard drives are dropping like flies these days. Not having an OS disk at
the ready is pretty stupid IMO! Your ability to recover fairly quickly is
gone.

When you buy a system you're supposed to be buying the rights to use the OS
as well on that system. Not having the ability to recover from a hard
drive crash without being forced to buy from them or pay for another copy of
the OS is a BIG reason to not buy from Dell. Are they giving you a complete
system restore disk instead?


Perhaps there's some way to burn a recovery disk from the HDD (I know
that's the case with new IBM Thinkpad's). If so, then I'd say the
policy is relatively fair. From what's been posted prior, it seems to
bve restrictions set by Microsoft which has caused this situtation. To
be fair, I understand why MS would rather OEM's ship a "restore disc"
rather than a full XP copy.

BigJIm wrote:

FYI

Just received a Dell 600m and did not get a Windows XP disk. Sooooooooo
I called support and was told this is Dells new policy, the operating system
is
on a hidden partition on the hard drive. Well after a smooth discussion with
the rep he agreed to send me one. I explained what happens if my Hard drive
crashes
after my warranty has expired. He said, I would have to purchase a new hard
drive from
Dell and it would come with XP on the hidden partition. Yea I could see me
making that
argument 3 years down the road, well you rep told me...........sorry sir he
was wrong and you must
purchase not only a new drive but another copy of XP. Well just call me
paranoid but it all ended well as I will get my disk. It only took 30
minutes to resolve the issue. BTW it could also
have been me saying that it was unacceptable and I will send this machine
back tomorrow.
The moral to this story is, if you don't ask they don't offer.

I hope this may help someone in the future.

Just out of curiosity, what division did you purchase from?

Notan

"Nicholas Andrade" wrote in message
om...
Dogface wrote:

This is forcing you to buy a replacement hard drive from them that will
have
the OS. Isn't this sort of bundling illegal?

Hard drives are dropping like flies these days. Not having an OS disk
at
the ready is pretty stupid IMO! Your ability to recover fairly quickly
is
gone.

When you buy a system you're supposed to be buying the rights to use the
OS
as well on that system. Not having the ability to recover from a hard
drive crash without being forced to buy from them or pay for another
copy of
the OS is a BIG reason to not buy from Dell. Are they giving you a
complete
system restore disk instead?


Perhaps there's some way to burn a recovery disk from the HDD (I know
that's the case with new IBM Thinkpad's). If so, then I'd say the
policy is relatively fair. From what's been posted prior, it seems to
bve restrictions set by Microsoft which has caused this situtation. To
be fair, I understand why MS would rather OEM's ship a "restore disc"
rather than a full XP copy.

At a minimum, I would hope so. But I can tell you that most new buyers
aren't going to do this because they won't understand why they should. Yes,
yes, I know. Then they are too stupid to own a computer. So is Dell making
it easy to create a bootable CD to restore the hard drive to original
condition?

But then you won't be able to scratch the drive and reload just the OS and
the stuff you want without all the crap they throw on the drive.

And sorry, I don't buy the BS line about blaming it on Microsoft. This
smells like another penny saving cost cutting move.

So are we headed to a point where MS burns a single copy of an OS and we're
all supposed to make copies of it? 8-)

Yet another reason not to buy a Dell Computer.

It appears that Dell is, as with the Overseas Tech Support, going to keeping
"pushing" until it costs them customers(Corporate Customers, that is).


"BigJIm" wrote in message
...
FYI

Just received a Dell 600m and did not get a Windows XP disk. Sooooooooo
I called support and was told this is Dells new policy, the operating
system is
on a hidden partition on the hard drive. Well after a smooth discussion
with
the rep he agreed to send me one. I explained what happens if my Hard
drive crashes
after my warranty has expired. He said, I would have to purchase a new
hard drive from
Dell and it would come with XP on the hidden partition. Yea I could see me
making that
argument 3 years down the road, well you rep told me...........sorry sir
he was wrong and you must
purchase not only a new drive but another copy of XP. Well just call me
paranoid but it all ended well as I will get my disk. It only took 30
minutes to resolve the issue. BTW it could also
have been me saying that it was unacceptable and I will send this machine
back tomorrow.
The moral to this story is, if you don't ask they don't offer.

I hope this may help someone in the future.

Irene, HP has been doing that for about 2 years now. That is how my
niece got her HP Computer.

Irene wrote:
Yet another reason not to buy a Dell Computer.

It appears that Dell is, as with the Overseas Tech Support, going to keeping
"pushing" until it costs them customers(Corporate Customers, that is).


"BigJIm" wrote in message
...

FYI

Just received a Dell 600m and did not get a Windows XP disk. Sooooooooo
I called support and was told this is Dells new policy, the operating
system is
on a hidden partition on the hard drive. Well after a smooth discussion
with
the rep he agreed to send me one. I explained what happens if my Hard
drive crashes
after my warranty has expired. He said, I would have to purchase a new
hard drive from
Dell and it would come with XP on the hidden partition. Yea I could see me
making that
argument 3 years down the road, well you rep told me...........sorry sir
he was wrong and you must
purchase not only a new drive but another copy of XP. Well just call me
paranoid but it all ended well as I will get my disk. It only took 30
minutes to resolve the issue. BTW it could also
have been me saying that it was unacceptable and I will send this machine
back tomorrow.
The moral to this story is, if you don't ask they don't offer.

I hope this may help someone in the future.

I always considered it to be a support issue that lead to having a restore
partition vs. shipping all the CD's. Let's be honest, folks..... How many
people faced with a corrupted ("You have to do a clean install") OS are in
any position to re-build their computer if you hand them the OS, drivers and
application CD's??? In my experience, very, very, very few.... The vast
majority are up the creek and need to hire someone, convince a support tech
to walk them through it for hours or convince a friend to do it for them....

From a tech support point of view, it makes recovery a snap if there is a
recovery partition. Many people can actually RTFM and do it themselves. The
rest need a five minute support call. I believe that this has to save Dell
a ton on support costs....

I've always felt that IBM had the edge in this for a long time. The folks
who get the short stick are the tiny minority (myself included) who want to
either build a "clean" install without all the bloat/trialware that the OEM
builds install or have multiple partitions installed...

--
Regards,
Hank Arnold

"Nicholas Andrade" wrote in message
om...
Perhaps there's some way to burn a recovery disk from the HDD (I know
that's the case with new IBM Thinkpad's). If so, then I'd say the policy
is relatively fair. From what's been posted prior, it seems to bve
restrictions set by Microsoft which has caused this situtation. To be
fair, I understand why MS would rather OEM's ship a "restore disc" rather
than a full XP copy.

"Joan Hansen" wrote in message
news:R2t4e.74906$7z6.61659@lakeread04...
Irene, HP has been doing that for about 2 years now. That is how my niece
got her HP Computer.



I agree. As I've posted before, Sony does this as well. It cost roughly
$20 U.S. (plus shipping) for the restore DVDs for a Vaio I worked on some
months ago.

But - it is one more option taken away, and I don't care for it. The last
Dim8400 I had here 3 weeks ago still had the WinXP Home disc with it. It
also had the restore partition as well as an option at start/programs/dell
accessories to 'create a recovery CD'. Gone was the Resource CD, and only
the MS Office and modem driver discs were included with the operating system
disc.

I suspect this is going to generate a lot of phone calls for them for a
myriad of different reasons, and some of those will be long-time Dell buyers
who will be considering just sending the thing back. Or
corruption/destruction of the hard disk image, or of the newbie who's blown
away all partitions on the drive before inspecting their available discs,
OR......etc etc etc.

I want my OS disc and the option to reinstall w/o the bloat.


Stew

"BigJIm" wrote in message
...
FYI

Just received a Dell 600m and did not get a Windows XP disk. Sooooooooo
I called support and was told this is Dells new policy, the operating
system is
on a hidden partition on the hard drive.

The Small Business division offers the OS with or without the media. Yet
another reason to pay the tax and buy from the small business division.

--

Rob