HP System Recovery Discs...worth it?

I'm thinking about buying a dv2000t from HP.com. Is it worth it to buy the recovery discs for $19? Or is it easy enough to make your own?

I've never had a HP, so I'm not sure how they do this.

 

It is easy enough to make your own if you have a couple of hours to spare. The process is rather long but it will save you the $19.

 

Save yourself the time and buy Acronis True Image 10.

 

Thanks R4000. Do you know of any web sites with instructions on how to do this?

 

Acronis True Image cost's about 40 bucks but it's so worth it, the recovery dvd takes about 20 minutes to make and if anything happens then you can restore your drive to the state you imaged it in in about 10 minutes. You can even make a boot disc in case you can't get past the bios screen.

 

They are right....the process to create the recovery discs takes almost 2 hours even on the fastest specced machine. And use of them will restore your machine to they exact way it was from the factory so no need for $40 imaging software. If you have the time do the discs yourself. If you dont, get the $20 pressed discs.

 

I can wait a few hours, because I figure I'll only have to do it once.

How many discs does it take? Can you use DVDs?

 

Are the discs worth making? I was just considering "winging" the Vista clean installation.

What's the approximate failure rate?

 

Yes, you can use either CD or DVD's. It takes around 3 regular DVD's or a single dual layer DVD. Use DVD +/- R, re-writable discs do not work.

I would definitely recommend burning the discs since that is the only way to get the system back to factory state without purchasing the extra recovery discs from HP. Plus in case you want to sell the laptop the restore disc come in handy.

 

It takes two DVD-R's and it's not two hours - closer to one.

You'll get an insert in the box that explains how to do it in a few short steps, it's not complicated. Just put the disk in and have a snack - you'll have to load disk two in between.

No big deal.

 

It took me ~2 hours. The problem I had was two "coasters" during the burn process caused the delay. I used a D/L disk.

One should realize that you can only make one "set" of recovery disks, so an HP backup would be something to consider.

 

Burning a recovery disc takes less than 30minutes but re-installing takes at least 3 hours! You can also re-install by pressing f11. Buying a recovery disc is worth it in case you lose or if something else happens. I bought one for emergency when travelling.

 

you dont need that. "i found" a way to create more than one set of recovery discs. even though hp only lets you create 1. also if i were you i would delete the recovery partition after you create the discs. thats if you only want one set, if you want to create another set then create those and then delete the partition.

 

Hi TwiztOG43. How did you create an extra set of recovery disc? A 2nd set of recovery discs may come in handy...

Thanks.

 

If the HP program only lets you make one set of discs, couldn't you burn them and then use a CD/DVD burning program to make copies?

 

Just get HP's....my self-made discs ended up not working, meaning I had to wait 3 days for HP to send me new ones.

 

If you use CDs, you need 10. If you use single layer DVD+R, you need 2. If you use DL DVD_R, you need 1.

 

ok well this is how i found out a few months ago (january)
basically i found software that would work with HP. but the software is by Gateway. basically what it does is resets the software to 0. meaning you havent created recovery discs yet.

ftp://ftp.gateway.com/pub/hardware_support/drivers/win_xp/misc/ResetRmc.exe
the password to extract the .RAR is "G8way!" without the quotation marks

the reason why hp does not want you to create a second set is because they want to make money off it. basically if you loose the recovery discs they will tell you to purchase them from their site.

 

I second the vote for Acronis True Image. It rules.

 

yeah but this is free.

also im sure it would work with the dv2000 series because its the equivalent to the v3000 series, just with a webcam

 

It took me about an hour to make the "restore" disc. 2-Dvd's and no big deal. Simply start the "HP recovery" program and follow the instructions. I sat it on my coffe table as I watched the ball game on TV and then simply inserted the DVD when prompted.

Then I removed the "restore" partition to gain another 8 Gigs of HD space.

 

Thanks. I'll try this out later on my dv9207us.

 

I only recommend to delete the partition if you're REALLY low on HD space.

 

They cost about £25 to buy in the UK - that's over $50! Think I'll be making my own, then...

 

well then whats the point of creating the recovery discs then if your not going to delete it (when you have allot of disk space)

 

You can only create a restore disc ONCE...so there is no need for that space after it's created.

 

actually you can create it more than once, if you use the thing that i found. but you still need the partition to create the 2nd set if discs (if you want to) then delete the partition

 

You are forgetting the most expensive item... Time! If you spend 10 hours setting up your computer, installing software, customizing backgrounds and settings, removing crapware, etc and you use the recover disks (or partition) it's ALL LOST!

If you use True Image an exact copy is made. There is no better backup. So make an image when you are finished with your setup and customization, then make a new one every week. Always keep the first one. Taaa Daaa, the ultimate recovery disk. It will also work if you get a new, bigger, faster HD.

 

i used 11 DVDs (DVD+R and DVD-R) and everytime it hangs on the verification stage !! i even tried different brands and STILL am not able to create the recovery disk.

btw it says it only needs 1 DVD not 2 or 3 at the start of the process. i dunno if this is a mistake from the program or what exactly.

 

If it says only one dvd is needed, it is likely set for a dual-layer dvd. This is what I used to burn the recovery.

 

Nop.. it says 7 CDs or 1 DVD-R or 1 DVD+R or 1 dual layer DVD.

The size of the recovery partition is 4.09GB and since the DVD is 4.7GB it could be right..But it still hangs on the verification stage

 

So I will ask this again...once you burn the recovery dvds, what is stopping you from making multiple copies of them?

 

You can burn a recovery disc in case the hard drive goes bad. That's another reason, even if you keep the recovery partition.

The time it takes to burn can vary, one person saw 30 minutes, good for you. Others saw 2 hours (which is what I saw), so that's also true.

Taking a disk image (acronis) of the system is a nice thing to do, but not everyone wants to spend $40 for something like that. (If you have Vista Ultimate it's built-in anyway).

The time it takes is really meaningless, because you can start the process and then go do something else.

There's no reason to go through a hack to burn another copy, use your CD burning software to make a copy of the originals. I made an ISO image and store them on a hard drive. CD/DVD media is not permanent, and can go bad in as little as 2 years, so it's a good idea to have 2 copies anyway.

The number of discs it takes depends on your system. Some will take 1 DVD, others 2. On my system it was 2, but the software knows how many it needs and it will tell you.

You want to have the recovery discs even if you do a clean install. If you don't make them first, then wipe out your recovery partition, you are not as clever or smart as you think you are. It costs about $1 in blank discs and a little bit of time, so just do it.

If you just got your new system, I'd say it's a good idea to test the discs you make right after you make them. That is, go through a whole recovery process using them. That's the only way to know for sure that they work.

Recovering from the recovery partition is much faster than using the discs. The discs basically create the recovery partition, then do the system recovery from that.

If you are getting a lot of coasters during the burn process, I would call HP support. You may have a bad DVD drive.

 

My Vista has been buggered from the start - so I just ordered the disks from HP (I got a DV6565US). I couldn't save favorites in IE 7 my first minute online (I had to make a folder). I tried to make recovery disks and got an error message saying "Could not split WIM file cc\Temp\Base.Wim) to d:\Preload Base-Wim Error Code 112". It told me to restart process and it would pick up again at same spot. When I started it again it it proceeded to burn me a DVD. I could see items on disk but not sure it would ever work so I just ordered from HP. They should just include the stupid things for the 14 bucks they cost. Sheesh!

 

Vista (Ultimate) itself has a good backup program, it will backup the whole HD. Also if you have Roxio Easy Media Creator 9 you can also backup the entire HD and restore it in the future. I usually save these backups to an external HD since I didn't want to use DVDs to burn them in. And the good thing is when you do restore it won't ask to activate Windows again.

 

Original Poster here, checking back in.

I got my dv2000t the other day (beautiful LPL screen!), and burned the recovery discs. The program gave me the option of 10 cds, 2 DVDs or 1 Dual Layer DVD. I chose the 2 DVDs, and it took about 2.5 hours. I am going to dig around in the registry and see if I can find a setting that will allow me to burn the discs more than once.

Anyways, I have another question. This is for anyone who has used the recovery discs to do a system restore. Will these discs restore the Operating System and the recovery partition? Or just the OS?

 

If the burn worked correctly, and you want another copy for backup, just copy the discs using your burn software. Make sure you do a full disc copy so the copies will be bootable.

As for recovery, yes, it does restore the partition, then restores the system from the partition. Basically goes Disc->Recovery Partition->Main Partition.

 

how did you overcome the problem?

 

I tried to make recovery disks and got an error message saying "Could not split WIM file cc\Temp\Base.Wim) to d:\Preload Base-Wim Error Code 112". It told me to restart process and it would pick up again at same spot

need help on how to overcome the problem and to make the recovery disc