HP Recovery disks vs. Recovery Partition

Hi all-

Please forgive the new thread. (I thought about putting this under the clean vista install thread, but with 150 pages, that didn't seem too useful. Will happily accept recommendations relocating this question.)

Will either the HP Recovery Disks or the Recovery Partition give you the opportunity to create and format the partition you want to put Vista on? I'm reading things that sound like the Recovery Partition merely restores from a cloned image, so woe is you if you change your partition table.

Put another way, do etiher of these methods allow you to install Vista [on the machine that came with it] any way you like?

For those who did a clean install, how much room does your flavor of Vista take now? I'm staring goggle-eyed at 30GB used on my brand new dv5t Vista Home Premium 64.

I like to make my bootable partitions pretty small, and put all my data on an ext2 partition that everybody can read. I really like the free ext2fs package avail. for windows flavors. It's worked great for me.

Thanx for any info!
Liz

 

Neither will give you the option to create customized partitions. Like you said, all it does it restores your system to factory state (not exactly a clone since it installs everything from scratch). This includes the OS and drivers, HP bloatware as well as the recovery partition.

A clean install of vista is around 10-15GB depending on how many updates you have.

Another option is to create a partition using a partition manager. Vista also comes with settings in administrative tools > Computer management to edit partition sizes.

 

Ok, but what I want to know is, if I change my partition table, can I get Vista back onto my machine using either of these methods?

If either of these methods pauses at some point and lets you adjust the size of your partition, then yes, i can do this. But if both methods insist on restoring the vista boot record to its original factory state (with the size of the C: partition unchanged), then I have to do some other shenanigans.

Clear now?

Thanx for the size info! Are people really seeing a 15 GB size reduction after doing a clean install? Wow.

Thanks!
Liz

 

Yes, but only by using the DVD. Changing the restore partition messes up the recovery partition boot process. There are no partitioning options with either of these methods. If you have burnt a copy of the restore DVD, then its safe to delete the partition and just use the DVD's as you back-up.

Your best option if you want to customize the OS install would be to get hold of a Vista DVD and doing a clean install. That way you can play around with the partition any way you want.

 

If you image the OS when it is as you want, then there is no need for the DVDs or the restore partition and it will be the size you want. On some imaging programs you can change partition size to what you want when restoring the image.

 

Thanx very much for the answers! That clears it up. Thanx for the tip, glatzfront. Now if I can just get the darn thing the way I want it.... I need a friend with a vista dvd!

Thanx guys.
Liz

 

hey dark_girl .. i used to wonder the same questions .. until i needed to do a system recovery .. here it goes

i used acronis disk director suite 10 to partition my 160gb hdd of my laptop into a 40gb c: partition for vista and the rest in d: then when the **** hit the fan and i needed to do a system recovery i was in a pickle . on one side i needed to get vista back to factory on the other side i didnt want it to reformate the entire hdd again back to the original factory setting (one large partition) and i would lose 100gb worth of data .. but then i went ahead and did the system recovery anyways with the mindset that i lost all my stuff .. but to my surprise it didnt repartiton the whole hdd again it just used the 40gb c: partition and installed fatory vista to it .. so i had all my data and my fresh vista .

lol sorry for the looooooooooooooong story but to summ it up

1-use acronis products they are the shizit
2-if u really have to recover from the rec partition .. just make a big partition with acronis disk director and put all ur data on it and leave like 40gb for vista and go ahead with the recovery
3-a tip : move all ur documents to that new partition (i never put my documents where the os is) just right click on the documents folder and chose move ..
4-once u reinstalled vista,updated it installed all ur drivers and favourite apps . use acronis true image to make an image of that vista (much better than doing a factory reset everytime u have trouble)


cheers hope this helped anyone who needed that information

 

I have HP dv6000 laptop with Vista SP1 on it and on recovery partition. I don't like some of preinstalled softwares and would like to uninstall them. So, is there a way to edit image on recovery partition or made a new image on recovery partition in the same format which will boot up using F11 in BIOS like original one does?

thnxxxxx

 

i was wondering a similar question myself. i have a dv5 notebook and i created the recovery cds for it. if i delete the recovery partition and the primary partition and create one full partition, will the recovery cds re create the partitions back to the way it was prior to modifing the partitions? (primary & recovery partition)

 

Not any known way by anyone who has posted on this forum. Many would consider you a GOD if you came up with such a way

Yes, if you do a full recovery.

 

Hi everybody, I have a problem with my laptop (dv5-1125nr). My original OS is Windows Vista Home Premium 64 bit. I installed Windows XP SP2 on the same partition with Vista (I format Windows Vista when installing Windows XP). Now, I want to recovery my factory OS, but I can not. When I press F11, nothing happened.
Please help me fix it. Thanks very much.