[Peter Antimatter]

Hi All, I did an idiotic thing last night. It all started when I had to reboot my laptop to install some windows updates (I'm running windows 7 on a HP pavillion dv7). Anyhoo, after the reboot my computer was acting funny. My sound was not working, my tool bar was different and stuff like that. I then remembered that a couple of days earlier I had switched off some start up programs so that my computer would start up faster. I was careful not to deactivate neccessary hardware but I thought that since my computer has been behaving fine up to that point I must have deactivated something important.

So all I wanted to do was to find a default option button which would reactivate all the neccassary devices; that's all. I thought that this is what the HP recovery manager would help me do but instead I found myself reformatting my C drive and configuring my laptop to factory condition. Luckly I did a backup of my files before this (I hope). I found what I beleive to be my back up file. It's in a driver called 'recovery E'. Inside this driver is a file called 'recovery' but I do not know how to re-install it on my C drive.

I have no problems activating this E driver as instructed above but I do not know how to proceed from there.

In the recovery Manager there are three main options.

1-(I need help immediately)
2-(I'd like to identify any problems)
3-(I'd like to take prequations)

Could some one please help me (step by step) on how to proceed from here so I can re-install all the contents contained in the 'recovery file' back into my C drive.

Thank you very much for taking the time to read this.

Peter

[Peter Antimatter]

Hi Again.

I just came across what alecks2010 said which was,

'The following is for guys who has two partitions: primary and recovery, primary has been deleted, and F11 or ALT+F11 keys don't work. Someone advice to delete primary partition and to make recovery partition primary, well ... that's not enough, you also need to make such partition bootable.
1. Delete primary partition: I used windows 7 DVD to delete such partition, of course there are others methods
2. Make recovery partition primary: Use this link
3. Make partition bootable: I used Ubuntu live CD, I run GParted then I saw only one partition, right click in that partition, choose 'Manage Flags' and select 'Boot'
When I rebooted the computer I didn't have to press F11 or anything, it goes right into the Recovery partition'

It seems that this case applies to me but I can't be 100% sure.

In my 'Computer' directory I have a recovery E drive and in this there is a file called 'recovery'. This file is about 21 Gig. Am I correct to assume that if I deleted the 'new' C drive and replace it with the E recovery driver that my computer will be set back to the way it was before? Because that is exactly what I would like.

If someone could respond it would be great because I have my thesis to complete.

Cheers
Peter

[kris23]

hello and welcome to HH!

the recovery partitions usually tend to be a form of a bootable image that can repair/reinstall windows (and any useless crap that the PC OEM throws in)

it is recommended that you figure out how to get your computer to boot from the recovery partition and run it from there. if you run it, it should reinstall windows and you should be back up and running.

as long as you do not format your C partition, any data that has been stored in there should be fine.

personally, i do not use recovery partitions as they tend to be full of the trash apps that the computer manufacturer bogs the system down with.

i just go out and find a genuine copy of the windows OS i use and install that instead of anything the OEM gives me.

saves me from any hair-pullingly frustrating situations.

as for the options visible in your first post, i dont know what those relate to since i never seen that particular utility... but you should be fine with any sort of recovery method as long as it doesn't actually format your C partition (youll lose all data on that partition).

just try them and see if it can repair the missing files, if it can't do it, have it reinstall the OS completely.

good luck! if you need anymore help, i will do my best to provide you with anything you need to know.

[Peter Antimatter]

Thank you for your help.

Regards
Peter

[Judas]

Just to clarify..

you DID or DIDN'T do the factory recovery?

If you DID do the factory recovery (restore).... your files are gone.... as the drive is formated and using a "deleted recovery tool" will usually show nothing useable because the files that were there would be overwritten with the recovery data (they don't seem to write to the same place as before all the time)

Either way... as stated.. the Recovery drive and such mentioned are nothing more then a drive image.. your old files will not be located there... typically you can't even write anything to (copy paste files or save files to that drive)