Can't restore HP Laptop

[Gritz]

My nephew brought an HP Laptop to me because it would hang in the middle of bootup. I've tried everything from the Recovery Console to the UltimateBootCD4Win .... Bootcfg/rebuild, FIXBOOT and Memtest86. Nothing changes. My nephew has NO backups, no original discs, and no manuals. It's legit I'm sure ... he's just careless. It has a COA sticker on the bottem so I have the Keycode. It is MS's Media Center OS. I did notice that it has a Recovery Partition with data in it ... but I haven't a clue on how to recover it ... if it's even possible. I see NO executables in that partition. Could someone give me a clue, or at least point me in the right direction?? I appreciate.

[Marvingj]

HP has a Partition that is for Recovery. You just go to accessories and then to system restore, for earlier time.

[Squash]

My HP desktop allows you to boot from the recovery partition by hitting F11 on boot before the OS loads, but this is clearly stated on screen during boot so probably doesn't apply to your laptop.

Best place to ask is probably here:

http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/bizsupport/categoryhome.do?categoryId=411

[Gritz]

Thanks guys. I can't boot up into Windows nor is there a F11 prompt on the screen during bootup ..... so I'm still working on it. I'm thinking he'll have to buy a new copy of XP ... but jeez .... $286 for ONE copy of XP at NewEgg .... what a rip!!

[Bodyslide]

I would check with HP support and see what they can help you with...Good Luck

[jman98]

Try pressing F11 repeatedly as soon as it starts to boot up and perhaps you will get lucky and be able to reinstall from the recovery partition. Do note that everything on the laptop will be lost once you recover from this partition.

Linux is free. Perhaps this would be a good time for your nephew to consider downloading Linux and installing it instead of Windoze. In my experience the Ubuntuu distribution is probably the easiest for newcomers to Linux and the best supported.

Calling HP support is not a bad idea, but if HP has outsourced their support to India like almost everyone else in the business, I will be honest with you and tell you that the odds are extremely high that you will get no help at all and Sanjay or whoever you talk to will have no idea at all what to do to help you and probably will never understand your problem. For best results, try to call HP support during US Eastern time business hours and pray that someone based in the USA answers your call. If you deal with an outsourced help desk, there is 90% chance that they will suggest a bunch of things that will do nothing to solve your problem.

For whatever it's worth, I've seen PCs that run legitimate copies of Windows that get so messed up that they can't be saved and there is no choice but to do a destructive reinstall of the entire OS.

[Squash]

You can order a set of recovery disks (including the OS) from HP for a low price (don't remember how much, offhand). You just need your model and serial numbers. See these links:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c00707856&cc=us&lc=en&dlc=en&produ...dlc=en&lang=en

more info:

http://www.pctechbytes.com/hprecovery.htm

The linux suggestion might be a good way to check for any hardware problems such as a bad hard drive, even if you have no desire at this time to switch operating systems. Some of the live-CD distros have good diagnostic software on them.

[Gritz]

Thanks guys .... I DO have a couple of systems running Ubuntu 7.04 (I think) and have been playing with Sabayon a little and I'm about ready to load it on the laptop to see if it configures correctly, especially since he has NO paperwork for me to refer to if I call HP. But I suspect he's more into games and downloading music so linux may not be the ideal for such a newbie. We'll see. But I'm not sure I want to be his support system for this for linux! :^)) I appreciate the help.

[Gritz]

Good information Squash! Even though I finally formatted I might still be able to recover from the HP discs .... I'll check it out.

Thanks again ......

[jman98]

HP won't require any paperwork. You can call them with the serial number of the laptop. However, if it is old enough to be out of warranty, then they won't help you without being paid first.

This might be kind of tricky if you've never done this before, but if the hard drive is relatively big and you have a decent amount of memory in the laptop (at least 756 MB) you could install Linux as the main OS and then install the free VMware server and install Windows on that. We run something similar at my job and it works fine. Then the main OS would be stable Linux and your nephew could just start Windows in a virtual machine when he wants to play games and download music.

[Gritz]

Ahh ... it's definitely out of warranty. And the OS is the Media Center Edition 2005. I went to HP's site and they don't offer Recovery Disks for this Media Edition .... but they do for the other MS OS versions. The laptop is a Pavillion DV5000. The hd is 80 GB but even if I were to install the free VMware .... would it somehow require a keycode and activation? I guess I can Google that to find out. :^)) But the linux .... yes, I'm leaning in that direction. And I thank you jman98.

[redwudz]

XP home would be about the cheapest if you want a fairly up to date MS OS. I've revived a HP laptop that had a dead battery and the wrong power supply connector. It would lose power often. Sometimes during boot. That corrupted the hard drive, including the backup partition. That made his backup discs useless.

I had them buy XP home and then wiped the HD and installed the OS. Actually, it was a big improvement as it didn't have all the 'crap' that HP includes. Usually HP adds crippled programs and programs that expire in a few months without a $$ upgrade. You are not missing much with the HP recover files.

If your nephew can tolerate a Linux distro, good, but I wouldn't bet he would be happy.

[Gritz]

redwutz .... I think you are right ... he would not be happy with Linux since for him it's mostly for play. I put the word out to him tonight ... and I suspect he'll put the arm on his dad. We'll see ... as he's just learning what's it's like when you don't live with mom and dad. lol ... :^)) I think I saw XP Home for $119 ... well, I did see XP Pro in Panama for $54.95 but maybe Mr. Gates gives them a discount?? No ... probably not! Makes you wonder though. Thanks redwudz .... I appreciate.