I reformated my hard drive and deleted the recovery partition! help!

stupid stupid stupid me... I got bored and decided to reformat my girlfriends computer. I ended up deleting the recovery partition and formatted just one partition. Unfortunetly it didn't come with any disks (as expected because of the recovery partition), even worse... it's over on the warranty so I can't get the disks if I wanted to without paying money ofc. I ended up installing xp home with sp2 on it and finding all the drivers with driver detective (great software btw). What I'm trying to get at though is.. Is there any way that I can get/make my recovery partition again? And will I ever be able to install the original drivers/OS back on the computer again?

Also: The laptop is a HP Pavilion dv2000

 

Oh god. Your girlfriend? That makes a bad computer situation even worse. Well at least the computer is up and running with no problem. But honestly, the fact that you lost the recovery partition is not a big deal at all. You don't even really need the CDs. If you have the drivers and an OS CD, then what's the big deal? I bet your girlfriend didn't even know a recovery partition existed. But don't panic. If you want, you could just order copies of the CDs from HP. But again, I don't know why you would. And install sp3.

 

Lol ya I didn't even tell her.. The reason why I was wondering if I could recover the partition.. or remake it.. or whatever you do when you delete it on accident like me is because we were gunna plan on selling it. It wouldn't sound good if I was like "oh ya I have the drivers on a burned CD along with a burned copy of home /w sp2 on it if you ever have troubles and need to reformat it. Oh by the way the computer's CoA and CD Key is for XP Pro". I just want to organize it and make it easier to sell really.. Is there a way to reformat without any disks..?

 

Bump.. I still need some info on this plz lol

 

Umm how exactly did you reformat your HDD? Did you just do a fresh install of XP?

Go to start, right click on My Computer, and click properties then go to system restore. What does it have there?

 

Well what I ended up doing was just randomly thinking my old xp home /w sp2 would be just fine for it and I threw it in. Then I just started the reformat and deleted both partitions and made a new partition and bam.. I was sol with no drivers lol...

In the System Restore tab it is set to %12 (whatever that means :S) and the status is monitoring the C drive

 

What OS did you have before? You'll just have to redownload your drivers from the manufacturers website (if you don't have a disc for them). Exactly what drivers do you think you're missing?

That means Windows is using 12% of your total HDD space to use as a recovery partition (system restore). So it'll create and store more restore points for you.

 

Well the original was Windows Xp Pro. (at least that's what the shiney sticker says under the laptop) and then I just threw in my old copy of xp home /w sp2 on it and started the reformat, and well.. you know the rest. I did have to go on a diff computer to get the WLAN driver. Then it was all downhill from there.. I ended up buying Driver Detective for $40 for 2 years, and it's found all my drivers (which is awesome). And this would all be fine and dandy, but i want to sell it. This is a pretty rigged up machine right now, with xp home installed as the OS and all the drivers on a burned cd...

Im assuming if I ever want xp pro again I'm going to have to buy the cd hey?

Is there any way that I can go as far back as before I reformatted the HDD with a recovery point? It was about 2-3 Months ago

 

No no no. You reformatted your HDD and installed a new OS. All those recovery points are gone. You'll have to repurchase XP Pro. I don't think the XP Pro would add much to the resale value, so don't worry about it

 

Alright thanks, do you think it would knock the sell value if it didn't come with an OS? But it came with a burned cd of all drivers and a fresh reformatted copy of Xp Home /w SP2?

 

Yeah lol make sure it at least has an OS installed. Some people may already have their own copy of Windows, but others wont. But yeah whenever you're selling a laptop, you want to reformat the HDD and install a fresh copy of Windows.

The computer should have came with Windows XP Pro recovery disk from HP. Do you still have those?