Opinions please

[Saber99]

I work for a mobile phone retailer on the UK, and we are about to replace 50% (about 600) machines. My boss has sources a couple of Compaq deskpro EN's, and has asked my to give an opinion. At the moment, the other 50% of the machines are HP e-Vectra's. Basically I install the OS (Win2k) on one, add all the relevant software, then run sysprep; this drive is then used as a master clone drive from which all other machines are cloned from.

The Compaq deskpro EN's have hidden partitions, containing diagnostic tools, and the NT loader files. If I remove these partitions, the warrenty will be invalidated; I cant just clone these, as the clone machine (An omniview one) cannot see the hidden compaq partitions. If I remove all the partitions, do a manual install, and try to use that drive to clone to others from the compaqs, it fails to boot, as the clone machine cannot see the hidden partitions on the drives to be cloned to.

Basically, I am not in favour of going for the Compaq deskpro EN's, and would rather purchase 600 HP vectra's. The bean counters will only look at the costs - the Compaq is £200 cheaper than the HP. Can anybody give me their opinions of Compaq deskpro EN's, preferable opinions that will cast a shadow on them - I would like to prepare a valid report to reject them in favour of the HP's.

Any help would be greatly appreciated - the report has to be in for Monday - benchmark results would be useful !!!

Cheers,

Saber

[Icculus]

Man I'm with you on this one. I supported a bunch of corporate Compaq's and I hated them. I also have a client with about 60 of the HP vecta series of desktops and towers. They have been great. Out of the 60 over a 4 year period I've replaced one cd-rom and one NIC, not bad. The HP support is far better also.

About your imaging problem with hidden partitions...If you are using PQmagic by PowerQuest you can unhide the partion include it in the original image and select all partition to be restored when blasting the image onto the next machine. It has worked in the past for me, but I've only used the PowerQuest tools in the last few years.

One more thang...HP was able to offer us a deal when we purchased over 50 workstations at a time. I assume if you work with a hungry rep he can swing some deals for you as well (especially if you tell him the compaqs are cheaper).

Hope I was some help.

[Saber99]

will PQmagic affect the drive in anyway, apart from unhiding the partitions ??