dv9500 - recovery problem

(The reason why I am writing this stuff here instead of just calling official HP Customer Support to order their Recovery CD is: HP Poland will not service dv9500 models before August.)

So I've bought myself Pavilion dv9500. During the first-time boot / system installation everything went fine until the screen turned blue and displayed long error message. As you may imagine, I freaked out totally; but after reboot the Vista has started in a normal way and since then everything appears to be OK.

Except: there is no recovery partition. I figured it out when I tried to burn recovery DVD and Recovery Disc Creation software malfunctioned. I wasn't able to burn anything, because there wasn't proper source, i.e. aforementioned partition.

However, there are some interesting-looking folders on C:, which I suspect of containing necessary backup data. These are, as follows:

• ST_RP, which contains:
  
  • Master
    
    • Bootdisk - this one looks especially promising?
    • M-SDK
    • RSS
    • Servicing

    ​
  • Tools
  • Update

  ​
• SwSetup
• System.sav
• System Recovery Files

My question is: do you think it is likely that I'll be able either to make my very own Recovery CD with files from this folders or maybe to make my missing recovery partition?

There are files with names like MBR.ini, BOOTDISK.ini, bootmgr, mbrinst.exe; I might post complete list of them if it will be necessary.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

 

wait, did u try to burn the files and it failed? did u know that hp/compaq only lets you burn one set of discs?
however doing some research i did along time ago, i found some kind of "hack" to let you burn more than one set of discs, just in case the other gets lost. it was i think, a gateway software, but it worked with my my compaq v3000z. it reset the restore discs back to 0
http://www.softwaretipsandtricks.com/forum/windows-xp/20069-restore-disk-2-print.html

but u also could make your own xp discs, and use the key at the bottom of the notebook. u can use nLite. if you can figure out what ever you are doing (above) then im sure you would know or figure out how to use nLite. its pretty easy. im sure its legal too since you have a ligit windows key. and then you can embed the drivers into that xp cd from hp.com or just install it after xp.

 

Thanks for your response. Yes, I'm aware that theoretically I had only one chance to burn that DVD, as well as I know that there are certain ways to reset the counter of recovery program.

Still, I've started this thread for another reason. I would just like to ask if anybody could tell me anything about those mysterious folders I've mentioned above.

Certainly, I'm not a software guru, but files named like "Bootdisk", "mbrinst", "PC_creator", "bootmgr" etc., appear to me like they could have some connection with:

• recovery partition I never had
• data used during the first-time boot
• or maybe data necessary for burning recovery disk.

 

If you're in poland, and they're not selling there yet, where did you get the laptop? If there's no recovery partition, and you did not explicitly remove it, then it sounds to me like what you got is not the factory installed system. Was this used by someone else first, did you buy it through a third party, or something else?

 

1. I bought it completely legally from a retailer and it came in brand-new boxing - don't worry about that. I have a Polish warranty for it and a full set of other documents. I've called HP and they told me that they are already selling those (since June/July), but for some reason they won't be giving any support information before the next month. So that's the little catch. And please don't ask me why it must be that much kafkaesque/absurd. I hope that in August I will be able to call HP Poland and order new Recovery CD from them (there is option like that in US, isn't it?).

2. System have not been pre-installed or anything like that. After I've turned my brand-new computer on, I had to go through the whole HP installation process: selecting language for my new Vista etc. During this installation that strange problem (blue screen and error message) occured. In my opinion it is the cause why I never had recovery partition on my hard disk.

But again, there are those folders; I suppose that they might contain boot/recovery data, which wasn't copied on new partition (which, in my case, never existed).

I would just like to perform a clean install of Vista, basing on your guide, orev; but without recovery partition (and thus without possibility of burning recovery CDs) I'm not able to go through first steps .

 

To do a clean install, you can probably get away with burning the c:\swsetup folder to a dvd, then going through the install. I tell people to make the recovery discs because I think they will be sorry later if they don't, in case a problem comes up, etc...

In your case, as long as your burn the swsetup folder, then you shouldn't have a problem doing a clean install. At least you will be able to get your computer working better, and you can get the recovery dvds from hp at a later time.