New Computer - avoiding voiding Warranty

[MorseLady]

Hi,

I have bought a brand new P4 system with XP Home and it's great but with an 80GB HDD I would like to create a Logical Partition for storing stuff. I draw Fractals and have a lot of music files and would like to keep these off the main drive. In any case, I don't need all 80GB for just one drive!

I spoke to the techs and salesmen where I bought the machine but no one can tell me if I am allowed to do this because the system comes with OEM factory restore disks and technically I would be changing their setup if I were to even create one logical partition.

Good thing I have 512MB RAM because I am told installing any more would void my Warranty yet on my old machine HP actually told you how to add memory!

Must I wait until the Warranty expires in 11 months before I can do what I like? There was no manual with the system apart from the abyssmal XP so called booklet.

[NooNoo]

Hey GranGeek...

if you get your mits on something like partition magic, you can resize the partitions easily

I am AMAZED they configured an 80gig drive as one partition, thats very bad practice in my book.

If you are in the mood for a crusade, I would write to them, quoting those you spoken to already and demand and answer to a) sloppy practice and b) whether that would break the terms of the warranty...


Tell me, one ntfs partition or one fat32?

[MorseLady]

Hi Noo Noo,

Yes, I thought 80GB for one Partition a bit greedy but I thought I could partition it like I did with my old machine, that is only 15GB but I still run up to three OS on it and a logical storage partition. I think the issue is that adding OS or even a storage partition would rewrite the MBR and thererfore their OEM instal would be compromised. I would like to instal 98SE and I need to instal W2000 Server for my College course.

This machine came formatted NTFS and with XP Home 2002 build. I would have chosen NTFS anyway. Yes, I have already got Partition Magic 7.

Yes, I will write to them and ask for a clarification both on the partitioning issue and adding memory - they have 2x256, pity it's not lx512 then I would just add another chip. BTW a benchmark utility told me my 512MB DDR memory was too fast for my Intel P4 2.2GHZ processor - what nonsense you can never have too much memory especially when you render very large fractals whilst playing music and downloading........

XP is great and no real problems, yet.

[confus-ed]

I don't see that modifying or installing s/w voids your warranty, that is a h/w thing, are you not supposed to go on windows upodate then.....

The only time I can see it being any kind of problem is if they try to blame any h/w issues on your 'new' setup & s/w in which case you could still restore your original recovery disks if you really had to.

So no - repartition if you like put another o/s on it if you want - your machine warranty is unaffected.

[Stalemate]

I would tend to agree with confus-ed on this: It's your PC and you can configure it as you like (even using alternative OSes like Linux).

Manufacturers' warranties are still applicable to the hardware - although there may be clauses specifically designed against overclocking.

[nytiger73]

I would have to say that you would NOT void your warranty by partitioning your drive, however, if something happens and you screw up your Windows install, then I would say that they may not cover the repair or re-install of Windows under warranty.

You sound like you're pretty technically inclined so I wouldn't worry about it to much. I used to work for place where we had many an argument with customers who FUBAR'd their Windows installation by installing every piece of crap software under the sun, then expected us to re-install Windows free of charge. Sorry, doesn't work that way.

Like I said, I wouldn't worry about it since you're not PHYSICALLY modifying the hardware.

[MorseLady]

Thank you for the replies and as the machine seems to be running very well and I am confident with things like partitioning I am going to do it, starting with a logical storage partition for my fractals, music and resources. I have got Drive Image 5 so I will image the drive first.

Like one or two of you say, it's my computer! Yes, I realise I must not touch the hardware until the Warranty is up which is a problem because I want to instal a network card.

I have since had the following email from my computer Support which I originally posted on the wrong thread sorry

EMAIL

>You are free to make any changes or upgrades to the machine - this does not affect the warranty in any way. However, there are a few provisos:

1. Any failure caused as a result of an upgrade would of course not be covered by the warranty.
2. We may ask you to remove upgrades if we suspect they are contributing to a hardware problem we are attempting to diagnose.
3. Support on the hardware repair line may only be given when the machine is running the pre-installed operating system.

Please also note that if you do repartition the drive, using the recovery disks would restore the drive to its original configuration.>


Thanks to everyone who posted for all your help.