Recovering with HP recovery parition

I helped one of my relative (more of stopping him from spending too much) in buying a new desktop. After he continously and impatiently pionted to one desktop after another with each successive one having a higher price tag then the one before it, I finally got him to buy a HP Pavilion a6200 with the Q6600 quard core processor. I knew his parent didn't wanted him to game so an intel GMA x3100 was fine beside he can always upgrade to a better graphics card when he actually start making his own money.

After he gone home and set everything up, not very hard, he called me stating the sound didn't work because he was randomly clicking buttons. Eventually I fixed it by randoming clicking buttons also. On my ride home he show me an xp installation disc and I told him not install that. First of all there was no driver for xp for this pavilion desktop and I was pretty sure it was an illegal copy.

Today I got a call from his dad saying that the internet didn't work, I thought all I had to do was use cmd/ipconfig or pull some wires worst reinstall the ethernet card driver. But when I got to his house big surprise the computer booted with window XP Pro, and it was in Chinese. Although I was able to navigate to the device manager, I realize the USB drivers was not recognize as well as the ethernet. I asked him did the internet worked when vista was installed, he told me yes, then I asked him did it work with XP pro, and he also replied with a yes. I knew he was lying then, he even blamed his parent for the fact the interent didn't work.

Of course the HP recovery manager was deleted when window XP was installed, but the recover parition was still there on the D drive about 5 GB.

My question is how can I recover using only this parition, and what step do I need to take to do the recovery. I am just a bit frustrated right now because I told him specifically not to install XP and to create recovery disc right away. He didn't do any of the above and is acting like a spoil brat. So any help would be appericated.

 

I believe you hit F10 while the computer is booting and it will bring up the recovery options. From there you will be able to do a factory reinstall of everything.

 

After you recover the system, tell him that you will:

• Never help him with his computer again, unless..
• He pays you $100/hour for you to help him with it.

Take my word for it, this person will become nothing but a huge time sink and headache for you. As soon as you gave him some help for free (gave him an inch), he will repeatedly and constantly screw things up and expect you to fix it for free (takes a mile).

I have been there before, and the person I dealt with eventually had the attitude that they could do whatever they wanted (download anything, turn off anti-virus and firewalls, etc...) because they just figured, "whatever I screw up you will just fix for me for free".

If his parents complain about this, explain that your time is valuable and you are will to help, but only if they pay you.

Edit: It can also be helpful that for this time that you are helping him, that you track your hours and then present them with an invoice when you are done, showing how much time you spent and how much it would cost at your rate. Then at the bottom show "Amount due: 0". This type of bill is sort of a warning shot that says, "I helped you once for free, and now you can see how much this type of work is worth".

 

Thanks for the help Envision lol, right on orev. Basically he didn't know what the heck anti-virus are, and he thought that XP will magically install and everything will work perfectly because the person who he got the illegal copy said it will.