HP computers that dont come with systemrestore disc's

I bought a year old hp pavilion media center computer about a week ago, checking the computer it was almost new and works great, I did argue with the guy I bought it from why he didnt have systemrestore and drive disc's, he said it dint come with it, I almost called him a liar till I found out he was telling the truth.

HP my computer anyway comes with a hardrive that is partioned, the smaller part which is drive d is what holds all the restore info and can do a restore from it, and also you have a one time option to make restore disc's yourself from that so called d drive, which in my opinion is a greety and a stupid idea.

The guy I bought it from specifically said whatever you do don't mess with the d drive in any way, he was right when you click on my computer and the d drive it says in red dont mess with it, ok no problem, I'm not a computer expert in any way but I get the picture.

Yesterday I was going to make a copy of restore disc as hp directs you to, the directions seem kinda simple, my problem is I have a piece of software called Vcom SystemSuite7 Pofessional, its an all in one utility piece that does all kinds of things to keep your computer clean and also has its own defag, I have been using this software for several years and it always worked great, but yesterday when I clicked on to defrag I left the room and let it do its thing, as I came back I noticed it started to defrag drive d, I never tought of eliminating it from defraging d after completing c, it took about 5 min to defrag c but about 45 min. to derfrag the much smaller partitioned d, after completing 99% of it it just seemed to have stalled, after a half hour I just stopped it.

Than I said to myself I wonder if I screwed something up in d by doing that, and would it affect my making a systemrestore from d now cause of that, dont forget you have a one shot deal, and even if you do it, how would you know if it will work if some day you need to make a restore if needed.

I didnt want to e-mail support from vcom cause you know they will not say thier defrag can screw up a partion drive, so I e-mailed hp and explained the problem, oh man, this guy e-mailed me back and his answer was to re-do everything, here is what he said.

I also see that you have performed a defragmentation on the D: drive
with a third-party application. We cannot assure that whether the
recovery partition has been affected by it since we do not have enough
expertise regarding how the third party application defragment the
drive.
I would suggest that you backup all the data and than perform a complete
destructive recovery to know if the drive has been affected or not.


To perform destructive recovery perform the steps given below.

CAUTION: If extra hard drives have been added to the HP Pavilion,
disconnect the IDE and power cable from the back of the
extra drive before performing a system recovery to
prevent data loss on the new drive.

CAUTION: Performing a Destructive Recovery will format the hard
drive. This will delete all the information on the hard
drive and reinstall Windows XP and the original software
that came with the PC. In this case, be prepared to
reinstall software that was not originally included
with the PC. You will also need to reconfigure an
Internet Connection and obtain all critical Windows
Updates, Virus definition updates, and anti-spyware
updates.

CAUTION: If the PC has a Personal Media Drive attached, remove
the drive before performing the recovery.

To perform Destructive Recovery, follow the steps below:

1. Disconnect all peripherals and internal non-preinstalled devices
from the PC, except the monitor, keyboard, and mouse.

2. Turn on the computer.

3. When the initial blue HP screen opens, press the F10 key repeatedly
until a recovery menu appears. The progress indicator that first
appears does not indicate that a recovery is taking place. The
progress indicator represents the time before the recovery process
is started.

4. When the Recovery screen opens, click Next.

5. Click Advanced, and then click Yes to perform a destructive
recovery.

After the System Recovery is complete, and the computer starts
successfully, update the computer software by visiting the Web sites
below:

* Update the system virus definitions

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?cc=us&docname=bph07130

* Get the latest critical system updates using Microsofts Windows
Update

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?cc=us&docname=bph07159

* Update the HP software on the system

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?cc=us&docname=bph07165

This will reinstall the Windows XP Operating System and all the other
preinstalled software and drivers.

If the destructive recovery is succesful than you can create a recovery
CDs as well as can be assured that the recovery partition is not
affected.

I hope the information that I have provided is useful to you. If you
need
further assistance, please reply to this message and we will be glad to
assist you further.

Have a Wonderful Day!!

You got to be kidding me, first of all like I said I'm no expert, this is way over my head, plus I dont want to erase everything is what he is suggesting, plus what if it doesnt work than I have nothing to fall back on especially if I corrupted the d drive in some way by defragging it.

So I am asking anybody that knows anything about this subject, could have I done some damage here or am I just worrying about nothing, sooner or later I will do the making of my own restore disc's and hope for the best, and I even read hp doesnt give out restore disc's cause of some deal they made with microsucks, whatever, anyway, like I said before, to sell computers without restore disc's is really asinine. Can anybody give me some advise please, thank you.

 

hp also sells recovery disks for ye computer model.
input ye model number or product name/number
check at there web site here if disks are available

hp-Support & Drivers
http://welcome.hp.com/country/us/en/support.html

 

the micro-partition used for recovery is a PITA. get yourself a regular copy of windows and second hard drive. back up your data to the hard drive and reformat your main drive to get rid of that pesky waste of space. then just ghost your drive or copy files as you choose to the second hard drive, keeping it as a backup of your main drive. this is a much better system, IMHO.

 

I have an HP computer as well and also have the extra drive for restore, but when I bought my computer I was instructed to make my back up disks as soon as I was able to do so....This is the first thing I would do before I did anything else to the computer....It in no way hurts the computer to make your restore disks and if you have ever got to order the disks from HP it will cost you 100 dollars or more.......

 

ddp, your right, it either gonna work or not, I downloaded the restore disc,s, didnt have a problem, now if they will work or not if the time ever comes I dont know, I think the only way to tell for sure is to do a complete restore and see if it works, something I dont want to do right now, it was complicated enough to get everything back after my drive crashed last month.

Ireland, yeah I know, the problem with HP they fight you on trying to get a set, why I dont know, they will only give it after you exhasted every other method, which I can always said I did, there are also several sites I visited that sell them also, if they are reputable I dont know, one way or another I will get a set just in case the one I made fails.

Auslander, I purchsed a program called perfect image, its suppose to be even better than acronis or ghost, reading it man is it complicated, but will figure it out sonner or later, I want to make a backup over a backup, will not go thru what I went thru last month.

meame, I dodnt know if you have the same model I do, I got this used, it has that slot that you can insert another drive in the front, I tought hp would charge like $300 for it but no, I saw one at circuitcity for $129, gonna get one of those also, and restore disc's are averaging around 40 bucks from other sites, what hp wants dont know yet.

And most of all, thanks to all of you in responding, I really appreciate it, I never started a thread before, I couldnt find one that pertained to this kind of question, after looking there was like 500 threads to chose from, I didnt think I would get a responce from the general discusion thread for a month at least let alone the next day, and from who, the people that I see on the 7 threads I visit daily, thanks so much again.