Sunday, March 28, 2010

HP tc4400 and Windows 7 Boot Failure

I've been using an HP tc4400 Tablet PC with Windows Vista for quite some time now and thought it was about time I started using Windows 7 for work and not just home.

Don't get me wrong, I do like Vista (I think I may be only one of eight people), but as an IT professional I should be using the latest operating system.

So I got started with swapping out the hard drive to start with a fresh install (always the best way to go), and tossed in the install DVD. The install went flawlessly and I followed with Windows Update, as one always should. Upon rebooting the system, it failed to start.

What followed was a large pain in the posterior: After attempting to do a System Restore (it failed, of course), I reinstalled. This time during Windows Update, I deselected some of the likely updates that may have caused the boot failure issue, same result. This process went on five times before I found the (in)correct update:Intel Corp - Display - Mobile Intel(R) 945 Express Chipset Family 16.6MB. Not surprising that it's a video driver, since those are typically the drivers that will hose a Windows system most often (rather embarrassed it took five tries to find out the obvious). Anyway, the update was released in September, 2009 and is one version behind what is available on the Intel website.

Once I skipped the Windows Update version of the driver and installed latest display driver from Intel, I was in business, actually Windows 7 Professional (can't MS marketing decide on a consistent nomenclature?).

8 comments:

  1. Yes sir! I got this problem evertime with my TC4400. I spent a long time for trying to fix it, but i wasnt able to fix it. I hope this is the problem. I wonder that there is no further information to this issue. Not from Hp and not from anyone else. But i remember that there was always an update before the TC4400 wont startup anymore.

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  2. Same problem here, except from what i could see the problem happened after i installed the windows update package for activation key tampering. I also had the problem after i installed the HP driver for the screen adapter, but i didn't do this until after windows update had had a go at the driver, so the registry might already have been broken.

    Can you confirm that this solution still works for you? This is the tenth time im reintalling windows 7 now, and this time im gonna try to get the HP driver before even letting windows update do anything.

    Best regards

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  3. I can confirm that i just tried to install win7 enterprise on the tc4400, and the first thing i did was install the driver from intel for the corresponding OS, and the problem persists; after rebooting i get thrown into the system recovery failure party.

    I also unchecked the windows update for the intel driver. It still seems like it's the key tampering update that causes the problem.

    Can win7 run without it?

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  4. I've since moved on to another system, but I'll see what info I can dig up.

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  5. From what I can find, it is an optional update and can be unchecked and hidden from the Windows Update list without issue.

    It would be nice to get official Windows 7 drivers from HP for the tc4400.

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  6. Thought I should post an update. I've been running Windows 7 on my TC4400 for sometime now without issue, just from a fresh install. MS seems to have the winning combo of drivers now. The Quick Launch tools still are a bit buggy, but otherwise it's been solid.

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  7. I just installed Windows 7 Pro on my tc4400. I thought drivers would be no problem since I'd seen several forums were folks had installed Windows 7 on TC4400s. HP said they don't support Wndows 7 for this device and I almost gave up and went back to Vista, but I seem to have "automatically" found the drivers I needed and now I'm just having trouble with the Wireless. It wants me to turn it on with a Function button or switch on the side of the computer. The Switch isn't working. Function buttons don't seem to be set up for this either. Any ideas for me?

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  8. Hi Michael,
    You can go here to get the Quick Launch software: ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp46001-46500/sp46167.exe, not sure if that'll help, but I installed that right after Windows 7 and updating the drivers.
    You might take a look at the BIOS and see if there's an update. Most drivers and software that work for Vista, will work with Win7.
    I'll see if there's anything else I can dig up.

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