Hard Drive Question!

[aggiejason]

Howdy y'all. Seems like SWMBO's hard drive is on the fritz. It's an HP and came with Windows XP pre-installed and we do not have the discs for it. What we are wondering is if we replace the hard drive, are we going to have to buy another copy of Vista to put on it?
Thanks!

 

[paulboeck]

Did you purchase the PC from HP? If so, they should provide a copy of XP for you. I'd contact the customer service folks at whatever company you purchase the PC from.

 

[aggiejason]

PC was purchased at Best Buy. OOPS!! PC has Vista on it, NOT XP.

 

[sol92258]

you should still be able to get recovery discs from HP, give them a call

 

[chfair]

agreed recovery disk, they may charge you but they are pretty good about not charging. if the drive is still usable make sure to back up anything you need while you can.

 

[aggiejason]

isn't there a way to make a recovery disk? or is this the same disk you guys are referring to? Also, if this is a virus problem causing the hard drive problem, is there any risk of transferring it to the new hard drive via the recovery disks?
Thanks!

 

[dmnall]

There should be a recovery disc creator on the hard drive.. Hopefully you have at least 3 DVDs and a USB Thumb drive.. Get a tool called ABR *Activation Back and Restore* back up your activation *will back up os serial number as well*.. Replace the Hard Drive and use the recovery discs... And it will restore your new HD back to stock and then run the abr after you have it up, so you do not have to reactivate your license key on the bottom of the machine! PM me if you need help..

Cheers,

 

[airplanedoc]

Agree with the last, if the hard drive is not toast as of yet, make a recovery disc, cd/dvd's are pretty cheap in bulk, probably much easier than trying to get a disc out of HP.

 

[danster.shay]

This is a bit more advanced, but if you can get a hold of some disk cloning software you can get the entire drive (both the user and restore partition) cloned then put the new drive in by itself and if it doesn't boot correctly still (because the old one was on the fritz) you can go through the restore like normal.

Also, if you have your Product Key sticker on the case of the PC, you can borrow the installation media and using your key you'll get at least your Vista back... but not the HP extras (which IMO aren't worth having in the first place.)

There are FREE linux based disk cloning "live cd"s out there in case you don't have access to this kind of tool. One that comes to mind is called PING (I think.)

Let me know if this method sparks your interest and I can help you further if you need it. Just remember, google!

 

[sol92258]

isn't there a way to make a recovery disk? or is this the same disk you guys are referring to? Also, if this is a virus problem causing the hard drive problem, is there any risk of transferring it to the new hard drive via the recovery disks?
Thanks!

yes, you can make your own recovery discs, it isn't too difficult, and certainly faster and easier than dealing with HP and waiting for the mail.
However, you've already laid out some of the concerns I'd have with doing so, which is why I suggested contacting HP.
Not so much a concern with grayware (viruses, trojans, etc.), although that is a potential concern, because the recovery partition is could be targeted, though unlikely. The main concern I'd have would be if the hard drive is going to crap out, are some of the bad sectors in the recovery partition? That would put you in quite the pickle.

Now, usually, since it is on it's own partition, you can use it without the discs, which is the main reason they don't always send discs anymore.
(arguably it's so they can cut costs by not sending discs with every machine, but it is faster from the partition).

Here's a potential attack plan for you:
Backup all your important data.
Make the recovery discs.
Run the recovery from the recovery partition on that old hard drive.
If it runs okay and windows seems fine, then there's probably not a problem with your recovery partition or the discs, and you can install the new drive and go with it.

 

[aggiejason]

I am in the process of making the recovery discs now. I will back up all the data later and try to do a full sytem recovery and see how it goes. The comp is just a bit slow now and it runs. This is the first time the error was detected on the HP hardware diagnostic screening. Hopefully it will fix the problem. Thanks for all of the help.

 

[mretzloff]

Good to see you have solved your problem. Hard drives are unreliable. I cannot wait until flash memory becomes most cost efficient.

 

[SiBurning]

Will that recovery software reinstall everything? I thought it just backed up your registry, and a few critical system things.

 

[_JP_]

I am in the process of making the recovery discs now. I will back up all the data later and try to do a full sytem recovery and see how it goes. The comp is just a bit slow now and it runs. This is the first time the error was detected on the HP hardware diagnostic screening. Hopefully it will fix the problem. Thanks for all of the help.

OK, what exactly is the error? you might not have to replace the drive.

And you should go to the support section of the HP website to look up information about your computer, some of your questions are probably answered there.

 

[aggiejason]

Error msg is: HD535-2W