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Troubleshooting Proprietary Compaq PC

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by frenchfries290

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I operate a small computer repair service. Many of my customers have Compaq computers needing service or repair. I have found that Compaq is very proprietary. I have a third party diagnostic diskette that Compaq PCs will not allow to load into memory. Also, the cabling for the CD-ROMs and the floppy drives will not allow subbing a standard drives into the system. Is there a way around these problems, other than buying Compaq replacement parts? Compaq parts are 3 to 4 times more expensive than standard repalcement parts. Do you know of any third party troubleshooting tools and/or replacement parts that will work for the Compaq desktop type PC? Also, do you know of any troubleshooting books that would address this problem.
FRENCH FRIES

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by snowman29

Unfortunately I'm in a similar situation. I am a tech for various computer systems, and work wtihe verythign from Gateway, to Dell, to Compaq. You can try Driverguide.com for software fixes. They have a lot of people posting their own compaq drivers, and other software. The only thing I can suggest for hardware, is to try finding a small computer store nearby that sells the compaq hardware. I am fortunate enough to have one nearby that does this, also try online. Try Ebay, Half.com, Pricewatch, and those type establishments. As for books, I would keep looking online for tha tinformation. Google would work best, in my opinion, but there are others. Hope this helps.
Scott

by Former member

Ditto what the snowman has already said.

It seems "proprietary" applies not only to hardware.

You may run into problems when you need to replace the hard disk and then do a full re-installation of the OS etc. Things are fine if the customer isable to supply the recovery CD. If not, have fun staring into another Compaq X-file.

I am not sure if Compaq (are they the only ones?) is still building the systems this way, but it seems the recovery CD is required to write certain information to the hard disk in order for the system to be willing to 'talk' to it.

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