Laptop Restoration

Pardon me if I ask this question in the wrong forum. I have a ZV6000 that came with WinXP and drivers/software restoration CDs. However, I've partitioned and format the hard drive, install WinXP and my own softwares. My first question is if I still can use those 2 CDs to restore my laptop to original factory state. My second question is how to create a restoration CD/DVD or a USB disk drive. For example in case your laptop got virus, instead of re-installing all the softwares again, you just restore it from a CD/DVD or USB drive. On my PC, I used Ghost software to duplicate my primary drive to another drive. So in case my PC crash or when I change my drive, it'll take me about 15 minutes to restore everything back instead of spending half a day to intstall software one by one. I couldn't think of a way to do the same thing on laptop. Please help me with your idea. Thanks.

 

Yeah, a restore disk is pretty much so the equivalent of a "ghost" image of the drive as it was when HP shipped it to you so in case of disaster or just to go back to where you started the restore CDs will work for you. It'll put all the garbage back on the machine that you probably formatted it for in the first place though.

You can use Norton Ghost or software like Acronis True Image ( http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/products/choose-trueimage/) on your notebook to create a ghost image just like you can on a desktop PC, then just move that image to a different hard drive or storage device so you can use it in case the original hard drive crashes or you want to restore it back to when you captured the image.

 

I've never done a ghost image of the hard drive. What's thte size of the image? The same as the size of the hard disk? /stupid question, I know it cannot be that big/

 

The image is compressed heavily which is why it fits on a CD/DVD.

 

I noticed that my L2000 had a secret/hidden 5 gb partition when I reinstalled my windows (i've left it stay hidden for the time being). Did you find a similar thing on the zv6000? Any ideas, why would I have this hidden partition?

 

I saw the same on my zd8000. I have a 60bg hdd and looks like 5 are in another partition somewhere after I formatted

 

The hidden partion was my concern. I was told that the hidden partion contains the image of the drive when it was shipped. The restoration CD contains only a software that loads back this image. Therefore, if I deleted this partion, the restoration disk won't work anymore. Let me know if that's not true.
Abaxter, I've got your idea. I'll give it a try. Thanks.