Win7 Recovery on HP Touchsmart tm2t-2100 CTO Setup freezes Check AC

Have an HP Touchsmart tm2t-2100 CTO purchased in December 2010. It is running Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit application.

• June 2012 it crashed. Since I am a teacher, I needed my laptop to recover quickly. The system would not recognize my recovery disks so I had to order disks from HP. The disks arrived but when I began to rebuild the tablet I killed the process at 12 hours because it seemed ridiculously long. ( My prior career I was a system project manager...so I am no strager to computers and software installations.) My quick solution was installing Windows 7 Home premium and then downloading the custom installtions for my HP tablet off the HP site. This was required to finish the school year.
• July 2012 I began attempting to rebuild my laptop correctly. I found, through HP forums, their installtions take 16 hours before you get to the windows setup screens. In the midst of this process my battery also seems to have completely died. I have tested that it is the battery: AC Power glows steady white when battery is removed and system boots. Put the battery back in and the light blinks orange the whole time. Battery test shows it cannot recognize a battery.
• So....when I tried to install the first time with battery still in, 16 hours later HP recovey processed, and Windows setup began. It made it through preparing software installation, installing software, customizing software, and stopped at "Checking AC Power."
• The second time.....I tried to install I removed the dead battery. This allowed the power led to stop blinking orange and be steady white glow. For this test the system made it through preparing, and installing, but hung at customizing software.
• Third try now....battery back in hangs again at Checking AC Power. It has been here for 8 hours. The HP site also indicates that the WIFI radio needs to be on for installation. Mine is and glows white.

Any remedies for how to complete the installation, through checking ac power where it is hanging, and then initate and complete the installtion verification would be great! While I can install my full clean version of Windows 7, it would be preferential to install with the HP customizations specific to this laptop.

Here is a link to the customer forum for the inordiantely long recovery process on the HP side: Installing from HP Recovery CD, installation freezes at %12 - Page 11 - HP Support Forum

Thank you in advance for your assistance and expertise,
Deb

Hi Ztrucker,

I did think about the new battery and actually purchased one almost 3 weeks ago now. I am not sure why it is taking so long to get here. I was hoping I could rebuild the laptop before my battery arrived, alas I may just have to wait.

Thank you for your reply!
Deb

I would try a Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 which is always a superior install with an HP, which has the worst corrupting factory bloatware of any model.

As it specifies in tutorial, wait until all updates are installed before checking Device Manager to import any missing drivers from the HP SUpport Downloads webpage for the model. You may not even need much software and should only import that which is required to function correctly.

We will be glad to help you along the way. It is a specialty of these forums for which we are the recognized leaders in the industry.

Well....after waiting for almost 6 weeks for a battery it finally arrived. Tried once again to rebuild using the factory restore disks. After waiting the usual 16 hours to complete the initial format/reinstall, windows setup began. Once again made it through preparing software, intalling software, customizing software, and has stopped and checking AC Power. It has been sitting at this point for 26 hours!

Is this typical? Any suggestions?

I can fully build it as windows clean install, however, wanted to rebuild using HP disks. ...

Why would you want to go through all of that to reinstall the worst load of crapware and useless utilities in the industry?

I gave you the steps to get a vastly superior Clean Reinstall which is what most tech enthusiasts prefer to the bloated factory pre-install.