My HP pavilion 440f HDD totally failed and all I have is RECOVERY disk

and do not appear to have an INSTALLATION DISK and all I have is a RECOVERY DISK which I understand is to re-load Windows OS only and the BOOT SECTOR is already on.

But, anyone know the process or software that will initialize a NEW HDD for Windows 7 with the BOOT Stuff?

 

well,if your hdd is totally dead and the recovery disk is what you have,run it.dont you have another thread on this topic?if this doesnt work you will likely have to buy a new os licence.

 

I can't believes this thread has such naive and poor advice.

 

fine smart guy.you figure it out.you come to us with minimal info and expect miracles,for no cost it seems.then you decide that while you havent a clue how to proceed,our advice is "naive and poor"?if i had your machine in my hands it would be up and running in a day,but i dont,and so have to rely on you to do what i would do.therein lies the rub.

 

It was naive because why would any intelligent person pay for Windows 7 TWICE? I HAVE a lic as stated but is OEM and having one of the first PC's made by IBM (depends if you consider the Commodore Pet a PC and yes, had one of those too) as the first PC and had DOS 1.0. But first computer I operated was in 1964.

How long have YOU been doing this?

Since we had so many problems recently with UPDATES on 7, wanted one with SP1 and some of the newest upgrades BUT did not want the OEM restriction as if you find the image, the OEM KEY will still work AFTER you get it loaded and installed.

Only issue is, Microsoft wants to pay TWICE, once when you bought the PC and again if you have issues. AND HP supplies what this forum calls BLOATWARE and will not even TALK to you without your Credit Card number if your warranty has expires. We used to call it a Catch 22.

Not all us are little rich boys that can keep paying for Licenses due to these rules they set up. WE SHOULD only have to pay for a license ONCE for each release, Smart Guy.

 

I suspect aldan wasn't referring to a win 7 license as win 7 isn't a new OS & he mentioned "other" in the closed thread.

you could if required use a torrent & find an "untouched" (no cracks added or stuff removed) OEM version of the OS you have & then use your key.Is it risky ? yes ! if your not careful however not every torrent is bad,Other option grab any version of win 7 & use daz loader on it,this will protect the key as you won't need it.This is all irrelevant if recovery disc/s work as they should.Once sorted start making backup images on 2 separate drives.Easeus in the downloads section is free. v5.8 (look for older versions once your there) is i think the last version that allowed compression lower than normal the rest wouldn't unless you had the paid version.The version i mention is fully functional with no restrictions

License keys for windows were originally meant to be subscription based or something like Apple