I was just given an HP pavillion 4458, which has a Phoenix bios v. 1.02 from 2/25/99. is there an update anywhere online? yes, I have searched HP, Phoenix, and any site that came up when I googled stuff like "pavillion 4458 bios update" or any variation thereof.

but I still can't find any. I just brought the ram up to the board's max of 256 hoping that would allow xp to load and run okay, although not speedy. I am redoing this machine for a very basic user and am wanting to get rid of the ME os and put on a real os. during load, xp chokes with a stop error trying to deal with an ancient bios.

any technical leads or ideas would be very well appreciated!
Chuck

How fast is the CPU?

If this computer is from 1999 like the BIOS, it may not meet minimal requirements for XP. If it does, I don't think it will run very well.

The Brand Name computer companies have no interest in extending the life of thier products. They want you to buy a new machine.

I don't know-I've ran XP on a IBM Pentium 3 from 1999 w/ 256 RAM no problems. I don't remember the exact CPU speed though.

If you are committed to doing this I suggest that you wipe the drive using Killdisk. There may be a hidden partition that you should delete also and make it one partition. Find Killdisk here: http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_description/0,fid,22920,00.asp

"I don't know-I've ran XP on a IBM Pentium 3 from 1999 w/ 256 RAM no problems. I don't remember the exact CPU speed though."

I'm running Xp on PII - 400Mhz, 128Mb RAM. My last stable BIOS version is from 2000.

BTW, XP runs great on this system.

It's nice to be important but it's more important to be nice...

it is a 300MHz. sorry. I had a detailed reply written up here but must've lost track and closed the group.

anyway, the problem lies with the following error described at: http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?admit=716493758+1114726951250+28353475&threadId=559269

thanks hp. that was incredibly helpful. unless I am completely not seeing a link to a bios update for this machine. I am sorry to admit "OtheHill" was right on the money with that posting. it's the truth. where is the incentive to help out the old machines?

I was banking on putting xp on tonight. it is my only night this week to get it done. and I've had this damn machine since monday night. so what's the skinny here? I really need to get this piece of sh.. machine back to them pronto.

thanks to all involved here.
Chuck

and ghimpe--, I too have had a 300/128/10gb that ran xp very well given the hw to work with.
but don't know why it worked on that and not on this p.o.s.

more specs on this pavillion 4458:

like I said, it is a 300 with 256mb ram, and an 80gb hd. any questions will be immediately answered as I really want to knock this out right now.

thanks again,
Chuck

WinXP may be seeing a partition that it doesn't know how to handle. That is why I suggested using Killdisk. If the computer originally used restore disks then there is a hidden partition. Fdisk may not be able to deal with that partition. Killdisk should.

The HD is not the problem. the problem at hand is the incompatibility between the BIOS and either 2k or xp. I know 98x os's will work, but that ain't what the goal is here.

the drive is now formatted via killdisk but I still choke just a minute into booting off the XP CD to a stop error "BIOS not fully compliant with ACPI specifications. ... contact manufacturer for an updated BIOS..." and so goes the rest of the stop error msg.

ain't this just convenient.

I do apologize for ever sounding short here in this thread. I was getting a bit nervous of not being able to do this tonight. but I just found the solution.

just press F7 the moment it gives you the option to insert a disk for third party or SCSI drivers. it is currently installing files during setup.

saawwwwweeeeeeeeettttt. :) :) ;)

thanks again to all for your input,comments, and dialogue.
much obliged.
Chuck

Your BIOS should have selections for ACPI. Try using different settings than the current one to see if that helps. Using S1 and setting to minimal settings may help. S3 may be what WinXP is looking for.

hp use to have bios and bios updates for most of there products. I checked the website a while ago because i saw an update for my laptop bios and when i went back a few months later and there were no downloads available for it.

Please keep us updated so we know if we helped you or not.