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I've been buying HP computers and equipment for years, and have been very happy with them. Until a month ago. I bought an a530n pc. Two weeks and three days later, the hard drive crashed. I've been arguing with Indians several times per day since then. At the moment, I have their promise that they will ship me a new tower, and I should get it in about 10 days. I'm not holding my breath, because they have made and broken several promises in the past couple weeks. They even demanded I give them my credit card number 4 times before they would send me a replacement hard drive, which they never sent. I paid extra to have memory added and some programs installed. HP will not reimburse me for that, or pay to have those upgrades to the tower they claim they're sending me. I'm hoping to buy my husband a new computer in June. What brand should I buy? I'd appreciate some input from anyone with knowledge.

That is certainly a change for the worse with HP, if what you describe is a recent experience. In 1998 I had a hard drive crash due to a power outage (this was before I had a UPS). HP sent a tech to my home to replace the hard drive within two days. That level of service won me over to HP at the time. What you describe now is not good. One the other had, I just purchased a Dell Inspiron notebook, Dell set it up as a dual boot Windows 2000 Pro/Windows XP Pro (I use a lot of Rockwell Automation's software in field service, some of the device drivers to communicate with industrial automation systems do not work well with XP, per Rockwell/Allen Bradley). In both cases, HP for my home office, Dell as my field PC, they were not cheap, however, my livelyhood depends on them.

I shake my head when people say they like HP. Their machines suck. Their components are worse. I DO still like some of their printers. I have nothing but contempt for their customer "service" (no 800 number, that tell u something on the front end).

I own a small ins brokerage, and bot a machine from them several years ago. The drive died, and I pulled it out, put another one in it, restored the software, fired the machine up, and called them to replace it. They refused to do so UNLESS I MAILED THE WHOLE MACHINE BACK. I told them I could not do so, as we were using the machine. The idiots wound up refusing to honor the warranty on the drive because THEIR "technicians" (one of whom did not know what a master boot record was)had to pull the drive from the machine.
Second, I have two cd/rw drives from hp. THEY STILL HAVE NO DAMN DRIVERS ON THE WEBSITE for it, although they will be happy to charge you 10 dollars to mail you a cd.
Third, I have the same story on a printer (laserjet 3200. They now have drivers on hp.com, but when xp came out, they were a year getting the drivers on the website. I had to pay to get a cd mailed to me.
I bought a scanner from hp because it had an adf. Horrible mistake. Would NOT cooperate with our imaging stuff (Paperport), drivers repeatedly corrupted and needed to be reinstalled, jammed. THANK GOD I bot it locally from a Gateway store and they just took it back. I went back to visioneer and canon for our scanners.
Finally, I bot 4 dells about a year ago. Excellent machines. Easy to upgrade, not much proprietary stuff if you have to tinker with them, and the Customer Service (I had a small problem with a server) is OUTSTANDING.

My advice for folks is that HP makes some good printers and networking stuff, but avoid anything else like the plague. The tech support is a bunch of stupid script-monkeys (they read you the manual), and you have to wait on hold on your toll call just to talk to the idiots in the first place. I will NEVER buy anything other than print or print server networking equipment from them again!

Just my rant.

My advice is to go to some computer store locally which has BEEN AROUND for 7 years (not a national chain) and let one of the techs build you a machine. That is all Gateway, HP, Dell, etc do. They buy components and slap them in. If you buy locally, you have someone with a face who does support and can just take the machine back. Be willing to let them educate you as to what components to buy and why, and buying a computer can be educational. Those guys are like anyone else. When you show you appreciate what they know, they will fall all over themselves to help you

I build about as many machines as I buy (not as much time to do it anymore, as the business has grown), and I use a local store (Intrex, in Durham NC). I know the guys in the store by face, they know me, and I can count on them to help me.

I've been buying HP computers and equipment for years, and have been very happy with them. Until a month ago.

That's unfortunate! Never bought anything but local generic PC's but alot of HP components, mostly printers and always have had great experiences. Even had an HP CD Burner in one of those generic PC's die exactly 364.25 days after purchase and HP replaced it without question.

My suggestion would be to lose the "name brand" mentality entirely, and find a local company that has been around long enough to have a track record, and have them build a computer for you, a "white box" computer. All standard, easily replaceable parts should anything go bad, a local presence for service, and many times little to no difference in price. I have been using computers I have built myself since 1996, and to be honest, anyone with any sort of rudimentary skills can assemble a computer and get it working with very little trouble. It's not complicated at all. Knowledge is power. If the local college offers a course in Computer upgrade and repair, take it, and you will never again be at the mercy of a technical support person who can't find his butt with both hands.

Interesting - I've had two HP products go south in the past 6 months or so. One printer, one camera. Anyway, I chatted with the Indians, who were courteous though at times very difficult to understand (and I'm good with dialects). The printer was cheerily replaced after our discussion, however despite my spelling out my name and street (including the usual "a as in alpha, b as in beta, etc.) they got both wrong.

With the camera all went smoothly, it was replaced and the address was correct.

Dell has been fairly good when we've called as well, but I can see how some folk would truly have difficulty understanding them.

The Dell(hi) customer service people made similar promises to me. They had me reload software three times over a period of two months for what they insisted was a software problem (it wasn't).

They promised me they would follow up with the same service rep to make sure I didn't have to repeat the problem to a new rep (they didn't).

When a U.S. customer service rep -- probably one whose job had been insourced back to the U.S. -- correctly diagnosed the problem to be a fatal fault on drive 0, Dell sent out a crack, Indian H1-B hardware rep to my office to replace my defunct hard drive with a reconditioned one, with uninitialized memory, which crashed and burned within three weeks.

I now have my office PCs custom-built by a local PC manufacturer/retailer. I paid less than what I had the last time I bought PCs through Dell. I have a warranty that exceeds the one I had with Dell. And I have local face-to-face support that will service the problem in person, on the spot.

I wouldn't buy another Dell if Michael Dell himself led his corporate staff in a parade up Pennsylvania Avenue carrying the flag in one hand, an M16 in the other, and a bayonet in his teeth.

Simple rule of thumb...

Do NOT buy from any manufacturer that does not include the FULL restore CD set. For most XP based computers it is about 6 to 7 CD's. They will have a clear reference to "system restore" or restore computer" or operating system (WIN XP) on the CD's. A restore CD set is NOT application software (MS-WORKS, Anti-virus, Quicken, etc.)

Make them open the box and SHOW you the set. Salesfolks will tell you that WIN XP will restore itself from the Hard Drive. True. Right up untill the point of the Hard Drive crashing, or you get an unmountable boot volume error (very common).

Also, as I do this for a living, here is my best advice...

BACK UP YOUR DATA.
UPGRADE YOUR ANTI-VIRUS.
DOWNLOAD A COPY OF RECOVERY CONSOLE AND CREATE THE 6 FLOPPY DISK SET.
RESEARCH YOUR STARTUP LIST IN MSCONFIG. TURN OFF ALL UNNECESSARY PROGRAMS

recovery console . . .
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=E8FE6868-6E4F-471C-B455-BD5AFEE126D8
Let it download the file to your computer.
Put it on the desktop or some place where you will remember where the file is.
Double-click on the file, click "yes" to the license aggreement.
Press the "a" key to specify the drive to create the disk set.
You will need six (6) floppy disks.

Not really enough time or room to explaine how to use recovery console, but if you have it ready to go your computer tech will be forever gratfull.

My Dell computer got zapped by lightning last spring. After arguing with the Indians at Dell (who were upset because I couldn't undestand THEM) I swore I would never buy a Dell again. When I got my insurance check I went to a locally owned, highly recommended computer company that build their own. This way my tax dollars stay in my city and if I ever have a problem, all I need to do is unplug the computer and deliver it down the road to be repaired.