SZ (new) won't boot from recovery discs

OK, this seemed simple enough..
I have a new SZ and wanted to change out the HDD for a 200GB/7200.

I made a set of recovery DVDs then swapped the hard drive. Now the system won't boot from the recovery discs, it just says "operating system not found".

Is there some key I need to press during boot to force recovery mode?

The BIOS is recognizing the new HDD so I am assuming it's OK.

I know I can go back to the original HDD but that swap process is a big pain.


-jim-

 

Are you booting from optical drive?

 

are you sure the disks you made are bootable? maybe they ar bad........

 

To answer the first reply, yes I am using the built-in optical drive.

For nobscot6: They were supposedly verified as part of the creation process but I didn't try booting from them before the drive swap.

Looking at DVD#1 on another machine I see a single folder called WindowsImageBackup, 4.38gb in size.

The optical drive spins up at boot, but there is never any indication of a disc being recognized, it just goes to the "no OS" message.

-jim-

 

No, what I meant was have you selected the option to boot from optical drive not hdd?

 

Not sure what you mean here. In the BIOS boot order the optical drive is before the HDD. Or are you talking about something else? I don't get any type of prompt on the screen.

Am I correct in assuming this should happen automatically and not require any F-Keys???

-jim-

 

of course you have to set it as the boot devise

can you see if it starts the install routine on the other machine to see if it is bootable??

 

By setting it as the boot device I assume you mean in the BIOS? It is 1st on the list of boot devices.

As far as your second suggestion, I tried rebooting my desktop machine with restore DVD#1 in the drive and it wasn't recognized; at least I didn't see anything different from a normal boot sequence.

So it sounds as though my recovery discs are somehow bad???

Would it be feasible to put the original HDD in an external USB enclosure and use something like ghost to copy the image to the new HDD?

I suppose I could reinstall the original HDD and try to burn a new recovery set.

Appreciate the help BTW!

-jim-

 

ok
yes, you could get a usb enclosure, put in the hd, and copy it to the new hd with acronis true image home or ghost

i would try burn a new set.. did you use dvd-r or +r. I've seen in the hp forum thread that for hp you must use +r's according to orev. also, what prgram and speed did you burn the recovery set with? I like to use ImgBurn and have the "verify" option checked. ImgBurn is for high quakity iso/image burns.

don't burn over 4X.....

EDIT-

you could also d/l the trial version of UltraISO and open the reovery disk. In the upper left hand corner next to "Image", it should say "bootable cd/dvd"--> then you would know for sure..........

 

I used 8X DVD-R. There are no options in the Sony utility that makes the recovery set. It does do a verify of each disk after writing though. So I'm not sure what went wrong.

I think I will try putting the original HDD in an external enclosure....

-jim-

 

as suggested, you might download the trial of ultraISO to see if they were bootable, for some reason, i don' think they were
[URL="http://www.ezbsystems.com/ultraiso/]UltraISO Link![/URL] 3.2MB

 

Well, think it was just a screw-up on my part. When I was stumbling around looking for the utility to create the recovery disks, I think I wound up creating a backup disk set instead.

I never had any luck with the orig drive in a usb enclosure, wound up having to (temporarily) reinstall the orig HD, re-burn the recovery set, swap back to the new HD and do the recovery. AQll is well now....

-jim-

 

ok great!!

That's what's important!!!