So a good friend of mine bought a laptop May of last year. She contacted me that her system was stuck in a boot loop and unable to get Windows to boot as well as unable to get to the system recovery via hot key. Additionally she did not create a system recovery set and so she needed to get a system recovery set from HP support.

She contacted HP support and initially some support guy in India just stated that we already supplied you with it, its on your hard drive and you need to pay us $36 for a REPLACEMENT recovery set.

She contacted me about this because her system was under warranty and I told her that under warranty in the past HP has no questions asked sent out the recovery media while the computer was still under warranty for free.

I got her systems serial number and part number and inquired on her behalf to support to see if maybe just contacting a different support person would yield better results. Sure enough I expressed that the laptop was still covered by warranty for another 24 days and I was told same story that she got that sorry your system is crashed but you will need to pay I was told somewhere between $30 and $50 for the recovery media.

My questions then were, why cant you give me a set price?

Can I use Paypal because I dont have a credit card?

Why do I need to pay for this when my system is still covered by warranty?

And I shared a fact that is truth which is that my friend lives in a nursing home and the nursing home gets all of her money except for $20 a month in Ohio.

The response back was that HP only accepts Major Credit CARDS and does not accept Paypal.

So I started telling them that there is no way for her to pay if they dont accept Paypal and that she has bought HP products in the past and this not covered under warranty is rediculous. I said how can I get the recovery media that i need to get my system up and running if you wont even accept paypal and I dont feel that I should really have to pay for this when my computer is still covered by a warranty. I said maybe I should have lied and told that the computer is completely dead and then you would have to send her a full replacement for free under warranty. I said this makes no sense to CHARGE under warranty terms still active.

I was then told that this is going to be handled over to their manager and the manager would give her a call. They asked what time was best to call her and I gave them a 3 hour window to call her and supplied her name and phone number.

That time window came and went. No phone call. I thought she was getting blown off. The following day I was going to contact them again on her behalf, but I got busy and didnt get online to do it. She finally got a phone call from them in which some manager guy was very apologetic and he confirmed with her her address at the nursing home and told her he was sorry that it was so difficult to get the system recovery media mailed out. She should receive the system recovery media over night delivery and receive it tomorrow.

So I wanted to share this to inform all that read this that it appears that under warranty. At least 2 support Techs INSIST on payment for the system recovery media while the computer is still covered by a valid warranty. Maybe this is their policy now and the warranty for the system does not cover the system recovery media, but in years past I ran into a similar situation where a netbook was still under warranty 5 years ago and I contacted the same support with serial number and part number/model # info and it was no problem. They sent it out right AWAY. This recent encounter with their support suggests that its quite possible that they no longer offer the system recovery media for free under warranty terms and that they were kind enough to make an exception for my friend in the nursing home to get the recovery media to avoid bad publicity since she is truly unable to purchase the media with their lack of accepting paypal.

I have always looked up to HP as one of the leaders of good computers and good support. This latest experience left me questioning just how good a warranty is, and if I ever had a computer with a simple problem of just needing a system recovery performed to it, should I completely LIE and say that the system is DEAD and have them mail out a replacement laptop for free. I am very glad that HP did finally get her the system recovery media though for free under warranty. But the insistence of having to pay for it when under warranty by 2 support employees makes me feel that they are using the recovery media as a cash cow even for people covered by warranty.

I will still buy HP products, but I will be more careful to tell my friends, family, and clients that I support to make sure that they create that recovery media on Disc's or USB stick as for its a gamble if HP will come thru for you under warranty and give you the media you need for free.

The good thing is that her hard drive is just corrupt, it sounds like the laptop wasnt plugged into outlet and it ran out of battery when performing system updates. I had her daughter create a live USB stick with Linux Mint on it and I showed her how to check the hard drive health in which the SMART data on the drive showed healthy. Once she gets that media from HP she will be all set and until then she can use the USB stick to surf the web with Linux Mint 17.3 Cinnamon 64-bit.