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Question

Installing new drivers to a confused laptop

by Nov 22, 2012 10:25PM PST

So, I'm attempting to fix my friends laptop, she has a Compaq Presario CQ50
What happened before, is it had gotten a virus or something, and sent it out to be fixed. it came back fine, then a week later it completely crashed. This time, she restored it herself, however, used the backup restoration disk from a Gateway desktop. So now her laptop thinks its a desktop, and will not try to wirelessly connect to the internet. Nor will it accept me trying to install the correct drivers from Compaq's website.
The first time we took it to best buy, geek squad said it would probably cost about $40 if they did it, but recommended we try to do it ourselves and save money. When it decided it didnt want any of the drivers, we took it back, and another guy from geeksqaud said it would cost $80, to which we said hell no.
Any help on this would be fantastic, thank you so much for your time

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2 Posts
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Answer
Recovery
by Nov 22, 2012 10:56PM PST

Probably should have paid the 40.00. What you need now are the OEM recovery disks, you can get them from HP, at a cost, of course.

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Answer
Proper procedure
by Nov 22, 2012 11:40PM PST

The laptop has become hosed, no doubt. it basically is far better to restart from scratch. While you can try this or that, it will continue to be problematic. You need to reformat the primary drive and re-install the CORRECT OS from the Compaq recovery/restore disc -OR- the Compaq partition found on the laptop(if present). You can use retail versions of similar OS as well. Then you can supply the required drivers beyond native installed ones. I don't see any fix for that laptop, as the prior install has to be removed.

HP/Compaq if Win7 was sold with that laptop will provide OEM discs at some small cost. If this is Vista, it all depends wares being available. Visit the support website and find the order process. This method is better for most and should be under $30(last I saw). If you hadn't before follow any advise they supply as well for any recovery methods, print them out. Some outside vendors offer legal recovery/restore too, check them and similar(buy from trusted sources). Here's one to checkout:

http://www.restoredisks.com

tada ------Willy Happy

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