The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Restore the recovery partition

    Discussion in 'HP' started by richie281, Oct 25, 2007.

  1. richie281

    richie281 Notebook Guru

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    55
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    Hi guys,
    I've just upgraded my HP laptop HDD and certainly the new HDD is blank. I really like the recovery partition on the old drive and as I put it into a closure to make it a portable hard drive, is there any way I can retrieve back the recovery partition and copy it onto the new one? Thanks
     
    richie281, Oct 25, 2007
    #1
  2. orev

    orev Notebook Virtuoso

    Reputations:
    809
    Messages:
    2,829
    Likes Received:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    56
    You have a lot of open questions there:
    • How did you install the OS onto the new drive?
    • Did you format or do anything to delete files on the old drive?
    • Did you make the recovery discs when you first got the system?
     
    orev, Oct 25, 2007
    #2
  3. richie281

    richie281 Notebook Guru

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    55
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    Thanks for replying.
    1/I borrow a Win XP disc from my mate who also uses HP laptop but different model and entering the serial on the stick underneath the laptop
    2/I remember re-installed the Win XP once on the old hard drive
    3/No recovery disc

    any ideas?
     
    richie281, Oct 25, 2007
    #3
  4. Lithus

    Lithus NBR Janitor

    Reputations:
    5,504
    Messages:
    9,788
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    205
    Put the old HDD back in and make recovery discs. DO IT.
     
    Lithus, Oct 25, 2007
    #4
  5. orev

    orev Notebook Virtuoso

    Reputations:
    809
    Messages:
    2,829
    Likes Received:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    56
    If you put the old drive back in, then boot off the recovery partition (assuming it's still there), then you should be able to recover that drive back to the factory state. Once that is done, then you can burn the recovery discs from the software that's preinstalled from the factory.

    To boot off the recovery partition, you'll need to make that partition active. You can probably do that in Windows while you still have the old drive in the external enclosure.
     
    orev, Oct 25, 2007
    #5
  6. richie281

    richie281 Notebook Guru

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    55
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    But how to activate the partition? I checked the old drive and I have a bout 2.1GB missing which can not be seen in WIndows so I presume that the recovery partition still there. Any ideas?
     
    richie281, Oct 26, 2007
    #6
  7. orev

    orev Notebook Virtuoso

    Reputations:
    809
    Messages:
    2,829
    Likes Received:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    56
    Look in Start / Programs / Administrative Tools / Computer Management, then "Disk Management". You will see the disk and the partitions. Right-click on the other partition and choose "Mark partition as active".

    I'm not sure that 2.1 GB is enough for a recovery partition. If that's not it, then you are out of luck.
     
    orev, Oct 26, 2007
    #7
  8. gridtalker

    gridtalker Notebook Virtuoso

    Reputations:
    18
    Messages:
    2,976
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0


    you need to make a recovery dvd from the old drive
     
    gridtalker, Oct 26, 2007
    #8
  9. orev

    orev Notebook Virtuoso

    Reputations:
    809
    Messages:
    2,829
    Likes Received:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    56
    Do some people make posts just to get their post count up?
     
    orev, Oct 26, 2007
    #9
  10. richie281

    richie281 Notebook Guru

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    55
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    Thanks all guys for trying to help me out. Really appreciate that, especially you orev.
     
    richie281, Oct 26, 2007
    #10