Vista recovery disk

[JacKnife]

J have an hp laptop with windows vista home preminum. and download both the 32 bit and 64 bit recovery disk and when booted with the right one is worked and let me get to the repair center where i clicked to complete pc system restore but it told me there was no back up drive or dvd is this because of me being naieve and not backing up my hard drive(ever) because I dont understand why it still couldn't just erase to factory settings. I also have that lame partition thing but its empty.

[Mak 2.0]

The Recovery Disc that we have here is not for a reinstall. It contains no install files. At all. It is just used as a recovery for boot problems and other such problems that can be fixed with those tools on there.

It can not be used to reinstall Vista or to restore your PC back to factory settings. That you will have to use the Media provided by the manufacturer.

[JacKnife]

so without the vista disk it came with I cant restore my computer to facotry settings and erase all my files.

[PC eye]

If the files and information on the recovery partition are now missing and you didn't use the manufacturer's own instructions for creating a set of recovery disks you will now have to order them direct from HP there.

The alterative would be to buy an entirely new full installation version dvd OEM or retail to see a totally new copy of Windows installed using a brand new product key included with the disk. Then you would download all drivers needed from the HP support site when looking up the model you have there.

These are the two options once the original recovery partition is lost. If that is intact however you may only need to use an assigned key or key combination if the bios has the system restore feature as seen with most new model laptops and desktops alike. Refer to the user manual or troubleshooting guide that came with it.

[Terry60]

I believe HP recovery partition is accessed by holding down F11 at the 1st splash screen.
If you've overwritten it, contact HP for some replacement media (cheaper than buying a new copy of Vista)

[PC eye]

JacKnife You would have to provide the serial number as well as other customer information to see them send out a set with all prepackaged softwares included along with all drivers. He may find it easier going through an HP dealer if you don't have a charge card. The information for ordering is seen at http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/d...340198&lang=en

[JustinW]

so without the vista disk it came with I cant restore my computer to facotry settings and erase all my files.

If you have a recovery partition on your PC that you can boot from, you can use that. If that's not an option or doesn't work and you can't find the recovery discs that came with your computer, you should be able to borrow a friend's Vista disc for the re-install using the product key on the sticker on your computer (if you do this though keep in mind any pre-installed programs well be gone not to mention your current programs/files).

[PC eye]

Well if you lost the recovery partition or files in that and went out to buy a brand new full install disk you would face the same thing there too.

The one advantage a full install disk offers while still losing all of the preinstalled programs is that you can take that drive right out and upgrade to a large capacity model since you will still need to download all drivers for the board, video and sound as well as buy or download the programs you had been running.

The files stored in separate folders on the drive generally will still be right there on the drive unless the primary partition is reformatted where everything is then wiped off of the drive. If you have some files on the drive now you can't lose like family photos one option for rescuing those would be to buy a 2 1/2" external drive enclosure and plug that into another system for temporarily storing files there.

Those simply plug into a usb port on another Windows machine where you can browse the drive there as well as copy files from it. Once you have the drive available to another system you can also create a disk image if that type of program is installed or burn data disks(cd-r, dvd-r) and recopy them back onto the drive once Windows sees a clean install and is up and running again.

[lostgirl]

Any kind soul out there to advice?
My HP labtop showing me a black screen with funny characters’/numbers.
Happened to read this site & forum.I had downloaded the recovery above and burn in the ‘iso format in a dvd disc. How can i go about it?
After i press F8, there are options as below
-Startup Repair
-System restore
-windows complete restore
-windows memort dignostics tool
-commond prompt
-recovery manager
how to go about rescusing my labtop
Lost Girl…

[JustinW]

You're looking at the builtin recovery options rather than the recovery disc you burned. If you press F8 repeatedly before Vista tries to load your menu should be displaying safe mode, last known good configuration, etc. Can you get into safe mode? Does last known good configuration fix the problem? You can try the built-in recovery options first since you already know how to get to them. Try startup repair (May require it be done 2-3 times) and than system restore.

If none of that works, you'll need to make sure your disc drive is first in the boot sequence in your BIOS so that you can insert the recovery disc you burned and go from there. It basically has the same functions (though don't click the install now button cause it'll just give you an error - the disc is only meant for repair operations). Check out our wiki on repairing the vista bootloader from the dvd for screenshots and advanced steps if case need be.

[PC eye]

lostgirl Take down any information displayed on the screen if you see number codes or a file name of some type. That can be quite useful at times in finding out what the actual problem is.

[Yedwa]

Used Icon Styler that ended up messing completely with my Boot Manager. " Windows failed to start." . File: \Boot\BCD. Downloaded Windows Vista Recover Disc from Neosmart using utorrent. Burned Bootable ISO using MagicISO, tested in a working laptop and found working 100%. Enabled CD-ROM BOOT and its order as well. Can not make the disck to work in the problematic laptop (HP Paviolion DV6000 vista 32 Home Premium). Tried access Safe Mode (F8) almost for 2 hours but no luck. I can go to Command Prompt through advanced options after F12. What can I do from there ? I have a full system bootable backup I've done with Acronis 4 months ago but the most sensitive and very very important work in the machine was done 2 months after that. Please gurus, help me !

[Coolname007]

Hi Yedwa. Welcome to NST.
Have you tried burning the Recovery Disk .iso to a CD with ImgBurn instead. A lot of people have had problems using other software to burn the ISO to a CD, but when they tried ImgBurn, they experienced no problems.

Cheers,

Jake