Help me understand the "recovery disc" please.

This is my first HP laptop. I have always had a Dell and the recovery discs came with my software package.

1. Is this unique to HP that they don't include recovery discs or is this something new in the computer world?

2. If I do not burn my own and buy a set will the partition that HP talks about exist anyway? Will the space that was devoted to the recovery now be available for other things?

 

I think other manufacturers do this too but I know my old Dell had its own CDs and so did my two Acer laptops.

You can delete the recovery partition if you like as long as you have the recovery discs and then you can use your new gained drive space for whatever you want.

 

1. HP kinda started it a couple years back, but a lot of manfs. do it now. Most new laptops you get have the recovery partitions (I know acers, HP, Toshiba does it). I am unsure of if Dell does it still, but I know HP isn't the only one. I hate that they do it BTW

2. If you buy your own set of recovery CD's/DVD then you can format your partition or merge it with your original partition for the extra space. But if you dont plan on using it, definitely repartition/reformat it since it is fat32. NTFS will be faster than fat32 and more reliable.
Keep in mind also, that if you use the recovery dics to reformat your pc, it will still resetup that partition all over again like the day you purchased it.

 

Follow-up Q - I just realised that I have a recovery partition (D drive) on my laptop.

Given that I ordered the recovery DVDs with my HP, how can I remove this partition and put the 10 GB to better use? Is it possible to do without re-formatting the entire system?

TIA

 

I would keep that partition on your drive if I were you.

Disks do fail. HDDs fail. It's good to have one or the other if something messes up.

 

Just a few posts down from yours

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=102985

 

If I purchase the recovery discs from HP for XP Media ( which is what my dv9000t) came with.... when I ( if I ) upgrade to Vista Premium will I need to purchase another set of recovery discs or will the Vista upgrade disc have the recovery on it .....

Thanks.

 

vista upgrade discs will be the "recovery disc" as thats what they basically do, they will install windows albeit the new vista not xp. so no you wont need to buy recovery discs and you should still keep the ones you have as you paid for them and they have XP on them

 

Okay...I am out of the country at the moment returning next week....my brand new dv9000t is sitting there waiting for me.

From what I understand when I first boot up the FIRST thing the computer will ask me to do is make a recovery disc. Correct?

If I don't and start playing with my new computer have I lost the chance to make the recovery disc later?

And finally ....

What should I have "on hand" ( cds, dvds,) to make the recovery disc?

Thanks again.

 

You can make a recovery disc by clicking start>programs>system recovery and there you have the option to create one. but you can only create one copy this way.

 

You can only make the recovery disks when the recovery partition still exists. The recovery disk process uses either 2 double layered DVDs, 3 single layered DVDs, or something like 18 CD-Rs. Using 3 single layer DVD-Rs is the best method as it's much cheaper than using 2 DL DVD+Rs and obviously it's going to be easier to keep track of 3 discs than close to 20.

 

It only used two single layer DVDs for me and one of them isnt even filled.

 

Normally, it's about 2.5 single layer DVDs for a brand new system. Are you sure you'd finished the process of creating recovery discs with no errors? The system allows you to create a successful recovery disc only once, so try it again and see if the system allows you to make recovery discs again - that would mean you failed the first time.

 

Boy...is it just me or does it sound a lot easier to just buy the recovery discs.....

 

It finished without errors and I have even recovered my system using the discs and they seem fine. In fact I had smoe trouble earlier on about my CPU sometimes suddenly running at full speed and becoming unresponsive and its fine now after the recovery.

My recovery partition (which I have yet to delete and dont think i will) is 7.36GB in total and only 6.22 of that is used so thats less than a dual layer and equal to 1.5 single layer discs. Maybe its cuz mine is XP Home and not MCE or Prof (**** HP here sells their entertainment laptops with XP Home ONLY!)

david its simple all u have to do is start the disc creator program for it and it will tell you how many discs it needs, then go out buy them and create the discs. its alot cheaper than buying them from HP but its up to you really

 

Easier yes, but if you don't mind spending $20 on something that would cost you less than a buck 50.