WWWalker's HP Overview

See HP Experience | Links | PC BIOS and Driver Recovery and Update Tools | Storage Outage | Cloud

HP Experience

HP supported HP/UX at State Rail Authority of NSW when I was system admin in 1989 - very slow to respond due to silos
HP printers and 2nd hand laptop are used by us
HP laptop repair failure
- 11/15 stuffed up BIOS upgrade on HP laptop so no device was detected
- 11/15 quote for getting HP to replace motherboard cost as much as new second hand laptop so was unviable
- 1/16 tried to replace motherboard of HP laptop myself with second hand motherboard from eBay but failed
- 2/17 copied files from laptop hard disk to PC using HDD dock from eBay in and wrote off laptop
- vowed to never buy HP again

PC BIOS and Driver Recovery and Update Tools

official links
- HP portal for support under warranty or out of warranty
- HP portal if you have an HP support contract or HP Care Pack
I used FreeBSD lftp smart ftp client that restarts when ftp.hp.com timed out which it did frequently for large 900MB USB boot key file which took an hour to download!
HP make it very difficult to understand tools to upgrade and recover BIOS and drivers
HP support provides service packs in sp*.exe files which often are not complete and screw up BIOS e.g.
- laptop 6550b UEFI BIOS update sp67215 failed due to HP_TOOLS Installer.exe missing according to hpqFlash.log causing ID of ROM to be lost and WiFi, USB, DVD and ethernet drivers to fail in Windows 10 11/15
need to
- download to USB stick 916MB Windows HP PC Diagnostics for your HP laptop ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp69001-69500/sp69063.exe using lftp
- plug USB with HP PC Diagnostics into Windows 7 machine and copy it to desktop and run installer on Windows 7 machine
- insert blank 4GB or higher USB stick into Windows 7 machine and overwrite it with HP PC Diagnostics
- insert HP PC Diagnostics USB in laptop
- reboot laptop with Windows-B keys pressed (Moab) to flash BIOS correctly
- if it doesn't boot, replace motherboard probably via laptop repair company, HP Customer Care expensive onsite service or buy motherboard on eBay and DIY with right screwdrivers
- if it doesn't boot properly, extract hard disk and use All in 1 HDD Docking (SATA and IDE) to read the hard disk via USB on Windows PC
HP laptops and printers since 1990s
documentation quite atrocious, disorganised, unindexed and not maintained on their Websites

Product	Dependency	OS	function
Client Management Solutions (ex SDM (SoftPaq Download Manager))		Windows	finds, downloads, unpacks and installs tools, BIOS RomPaq (to create boot USB) and driver updates for one or more HP commercial notebook and desktop PCs
Client Management Solutions (ex SSM (Systems Software Manager))		Windows	automatically detects and updates only certain SSM supported BIOS, device drivers, and management agent versions on networked PCs
BCU (BIOS Configuration Utility)	SDM	Windows	generates device config file for enterprise deployment of updates
HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage	StoreFabric FC SAN, iSCSI	VMware VVols (Virtual Volumes) in VMware vSphere 6.0	3PB flash SSD
Micro Focus Enterprise Content Management ex HP Records Manager, HP TRIM Records Management System and HP Content Manager	Sharepoint, scanners, labellers, LDAP, standards	Windows	records management, enterprise content management

Storage Outage

Revealed: Another storage crash behind latest ATO outage - Contractor scrambling to restore from back-up 6/17 not HPE this time
HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage flash SSD
ATO reveals cause of SAN failure (HPE equipment) 5/17
Outage strikes the Australian Taxation Office again 2/17
ATO chooses PwC to investigate 2016's HPE storage failure 1/17
ATO takes online services down for the third consecutive weekend 1/17
ATO flags deep investigation into worst unplanned outage 1/17
ATO Website outage blamed on HPE 3PAR SAN storage problem 2/16 1PB lost, down for 3 weeks, I/O could not cope
ATO ripping out EMC storage and moving to HPE 11/16

Cloud

HP closed their Openstack cloud 11/15
remote printing via Internet 2012
Internet of Things (IoT) 1990s

HP Links

HP split in November 2015 into
1. HP PCs and Printers and
  - news
    - Five reasons HP might oppose a Xerox takeover 11/19 3D printing and printing - PC is 2x printing
2. HP Enterprise (HPE)
  - services
    - HPE Enterprise IT Management Software network management
    - Techbeacon Learn IT topics
    - HP managed print services
    - HPE DEV developer portal
  - news
    - list of acquisitions by HP 1958-2017 - Samsung Printing
    - Micro Focus Software - ex HPE Software Division
      - merger of HPE Software with Micro Focus 9/17
    - HPE to acquire all-flash storage vendor Nimble for US$1 billion 3/17 - another go
    - HP completes US $2.35 billion 3Par merger 9/2010 - HP outfoxed rival Dell to purchase storage vendor
    - CSC merger
HP support
- enterprise
  - HP Enterprise gets support for recent and large products
- PCs and Printers
  - @hpsupport Twitter 6/19
  - HPSupport Facebook 6/19
  - HP support Website for current and obsolete products
  - badly maintained documentation (HTML) on Website often only via FTP
  - fragmented knowledgebase on Website
  - complicated fragmented forum
  - needed Google to find information
  - poor maintenance on chat (India)
  - do not support devices past warranty
  - poor DIY support on Website
  - do not support past Windows 7 on older devices
  - ex Compaq
  - better support Website 2/19

Created: 14 Nov 2015 12:50
Last Updated: 23 Aug 2022 12:02

WWWalker Intro