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Guy drops over his PC for me to look at for tons of pop-ups. I remove the case and blow out tons of dust bunnies.

I then plug in the power cord to this HP Pavilion a462x. Get a monitor cord, mouse, and keyboard all plugged in. Press the front panel button - nothing.

Look at the back and it has a flashing green light on the power supply. It does not have a rocker switch to turn it off (cheap bastards at hp). The sticker on the power supply says "Bestec" with a HP part number of 5187-1098.

I spoke with the guy, and he said it did that once before, and he gave up until the next day when he pressed the front button it started.

Anyone ever seen this type of power supply with this flashing green light?

Update: swapped out the power supply and it boots right up.

Might have to use the system restore on the hidden partition. How do I access to start the restore process from this partition on this HP Pavilion a462x?

Did a standard ATX PSU fit? If not, do a search online for either the old PSU model number, or the model of the PC. There's serveral mail order places that sell after-market HP PSUs.

Unless HP is doing something different now, you usually need a recovery CD. If they're doing what Dell does - putting the entire recovery data in a hidden partition - then there should be a keyboard combination that brings up the recovery menu. Do a google search or check the knowledgebase on HP's web site.

Originally posted by FlyingPenguin
Unless HP is doing something different now, you usually need a recovery CD. If they're doing what Dell does - putting the entire recovery data in a hidden partition - then there should be a keyboard combination that brings up the recovery menu. Do a google search or check the knowledgebase on HP's web site.

I'm with FP on this, I believe you have to have the CD to access that partition and do anything with it. Hopefully the owner has it.

GL!

eGo

Also, HP uses a standard OEM COA, so any OEM XP CD will work with the CD Key printed on the sticker on the case - even a Dell OEM CD.

Worst case use an OEM CD from any manufacturer and then just download all the drivers from HP's web site.

Also, you sure the current boot partition is unrecoverable? What happens when you try to boot? Maybe you only have a corrupt registry in which case a manual registry restore will allow you to boot into Safe Mode and use System Restore: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545

I'm simply going to restore the partition. I ran the MS Spyware app after I installed it, and it reported 8000+ spyware and trojans. Not worth trying to fix it at this point.

I had a spare 300w power supply that actually fit the case. So it's in there now.

There is a hidden partition (D), on the drive, and I did notice in the boot menu a restore selection next to the key to enter the bios. So at this point, I'm going to simply restore the original setup from HP.

This has to be one of the worst pc's I've seen with so much crap on it (spyware, trojans), but even HP installed ton's of garbage. Talking to the kid who owns the pc, he never had any protection while connected to the net. Not even a firewall. Simply had his broadband plugged right in directly.