Code Purple on HP

Tried to turn on my desktop computer the other morning only to find out that the thing would not stay turned on. It was back to the turn on, turn off, restart restart, restart....

I tried the same tactic I had tried when it did that before, resetting it to factory specifications, only this time instead of just resetting it I told it to wipe everything I had on the hard drive and reformat the user partition part of it so it could reload Windows XP onto there. That was a mistake.

The computer seemed to do everything right, but just as it was about to restart I get some warning that it has a problem and I need to shut down by holding the power button down until it shuts off. There was a notation about (Code Purple) so I went looking. Code Purple seems to be a HP / Compaq booby trap for anti-pirating. They have locked me out of my computer and won't let me use it anymore!

I have no idea why they would do that, but I am not amused by it. How the heck can some punk kid that works for HP and is in desperate need of the best acne treatment just place a trap in my computer that makes it a paper weight? I've been without the things I need from that computer for two days now, have to wait until tomorrow before I can call HP and ask "WTF???", and am losing money every day that computer is down.

Not to mention that if the problem can't be fixed I am out nearly $2,000 I paid for the system plus what I have to pay to replace it. How in the heck can something like that be considered ethical by the HP company? I can tell you one thing, I'll never buy another HP computer if they don't figure out how to make this right.