Refurbs & OS

Hi all. New here.

I'm looking at buying a refurbed HP laptop, and I've got a question about it.

HP says when you buy a refurb you don't have the option to buy the OS disk like you do when you buy new from them. They also say that they won't sell you the OS disk separately. They tell me that there is a utility on the machine to make your own from the hidden, recovery partition (which I HATE). My question is, when you use that utility to make the disk, is it a "recovery" disk, or can you make a backup OS disk? If I wipe the new laptop, I want to choose what's installed rather than let it install a bunch of crap I don't want. I also want to recover that "hidden" partition space.

 

Welcome to the NBR forums.

The HP Recovery Manager creates a set of recovery discs for your notebook. Unfortunately, the recovery set restores the notebook back to its factory settings, which means that all original software/bloatware will be reinstalled. There isn't much of a choice to exclude them.

What you should do is try a clean install. Back up your C:\SWSetup folder, and follow the instructions in this guide - http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-compaq/432564-hp-laptop-out-box-guide-2-0-windows-7-a.html

Are you looking at a particular notebook? Chances are that you can actually purchase the recovery disc set separately as well (again these restore to factory settings like the ones you can create through Recovery Manager).

 

That's what I was afraid of. Oh well.

I read that over.

I'm looking at the Envy 14 with the Radiance screen. I really don't care if I can buy the recovery discs. That's not what I want. I was hoping to be able to get the Windows 7 Premium disc so I could do a "clean" install. Just from a quick look at the link above, it looks like I can do this with the legal download of Windows 7. That's great info! Thanks!