Goodwill and Purchased Intangible Assets (Details) (USD $)	12 Months Ended						12 Months Ended								3 Months Ended				12 Months Ended
	Oct. 31, 2012	Oct. 31, 2011	Oct. 31, 2012 Autonomy	Oct. 31, 2012 Autonomy Goodwill and Purchased Intangibles	Oct. 31, 2011 Personal Systems	Oct. 31, 2012 Personal Systems	Oct. 31, 2012 Printing	Oct. 31, 2011 Printing	Oct. 31, 2012 Services	Oct. 31, 2011 Services	Oct. 31, 2012 Enterprise Servers, Storage and Networking	Oct. 31, 2011 Enterprise Servers, Storage and Networking	Oct. 31, 2012 Software	Oct. 31, 2011 Software	Oct. 31, 2012 Software Autonomy	Oct. 31, 2012 HP Financial Services	Oct. 31, 2011 HP Financial Services	Oct. 31, 2010 HP Financial Services	Oct. 31, 2012 Corporate Investments	Oct. 31, 2011 Corporate Investments	Oct. 31, 2012 Legacy HP software business	Aug. 01, 2012 Reporting Units Minimum	Aug. 01, 2012 Reporting Units Maximum
Goodwill
Net balance at the beginning of the period	$ 44,551,000,000	$ 38,483,000,000	$ 6,900,000,000		$ 2,500,000,000	$ 2,498,000,000	$ 2,471,000,000	$ 2,456,000,000	$ 17,280,000,000	$ 16,967,000,000	$ 8,070,000,000	$ 6,610,000,000	$ 14,063,000,000	$ 7,545,000,000		$ 144,000,000	$ 144,000,000	$ 144,000,000	$ 25,000,000	$ 2,261,000,000
Goodwill acquired during the period	16,000,000	6,868,000,000					16,000,000	16,000,000		66,000,000				6,786,000,000
Goodwill adjustments/reclassifications	207,000,000	13,000,000			(2,000,000)			(1,000,000)	(40,000,000)	247,000,000	(308,000,000)	1,460,000,000	580,000,000	(268,000,000)					(25,000,000)	(1,423,000,000)
Finite-lived Intangible Assets, Accumulated Impairment Losses	(4,330,000,000)	(72,000,000)	(3,100,000,000)
Impairment loss	(13,705,000,000)	(813,000,000)							(7,961,000,000)				(5,744,000,000)							(813,000,000)
Net balance at the end of the period	31,069,000,000	44,551,000,000	1,200,000,000		2,498,000,000	2,498,000,000	2,487,000,000	2,471,000,000	9,279,000,000	17,280,000,000	7,762,000,000	8,070,000,000	8,899,000,000	14,063,000,000		144,000,000	144,000,000	144,000,000		25,000,000
Goodwill reclassification adjustment	280,000,000
Goodwill purchase accounting, adjustments to estimated fair values of purchased intangible assets and net tangible assets													244,000,000
Accumulated impairment loss	14,518,000,000								7,961,000,000				5,744,000,000						813,000,000	813,000,000
Goodwill and Intangible Asset Impairment	$ 18,035,000,000	$ 885,000,000		$ 8,800,000,000											$ 8,800,000,000
Percentage excess of fair value over carrying value for the goodwill			10.00%																		9.00%	9.00%	330.00%