HP File Backup Program does not recognize media

[DrCluster]

I am recovering my daughter's virus ridden Win 7 Pavilion P6200Z (without the luxury of a set of recovery media - I repent!). After running Windows Defender from a CD to clean up the legion of sundry parasites, the system will no longer boot. While I would love to not have to revert to factory image and reinstall everything (oh the Adobe stuff and MS office serial key call-in transfer ritual), but will do so if needed. At least, at this stage, I want to back up some files, pictures, etc., before doing any destructive recovery. I have tried using the File Backup Program a few times with DVD-R and DVD+R (as suggested in the pop up dialog in the tools) to no avail. After taking a long time to create the backup image for burning then running the blue horizontal burn stripe across the GUI, I get a pop up that say the media is not supported. Any helpful advice is appreciated. Picture backups are most critical (to maintain domestic tranquility) but any ideas about a possible repair option rather than reimaging are most welcome. It was after the full scan with the Windows Defender discovered the last two (of ten) viruses that the trouble started and the system no longer booted.  When the DVD+R failed with the File Backup Program, I went out and bought DVD-R but that did not work either – maybe I need DVD-R-W? Thanks in advance for your advice.

[Speaker4theDead]

When it comes to a virus infected computer no error message can really be trusted. Your particular infection coudl cause outside media to not be able to be used, or programs not to run properly.

Your best bet is to try to boot the notebook to safemode and do a good ole fashion copy and paste from the HDD to your external media (flash drive, ext HDD, etc) I don't believe you'll be able to burn a disc in safe mode but haven't tried so worth a shot if you want to use a DVD to back up the data.

Copy and Paste method would be safer anyway that way you may not grab a system folder that has a file thats infected.

To get into safe mode, power down the notebook, then power it back up and immediately press the F8 key repeatedly until you see a screen that will ask how you want to boot windows, Safe mode or Safe Mode with networking will both work.

Give this a shot if the notebook seems to be brick walling you on your backup efforts.

Call HP for further assistance on booting to Safemode and Recovery through the partition if needed.

Good Luck.

This message will self destruct in 5 seconds

[DrCluster]

Hello necrospokesman; Breeze of the Centuries by Mike Reeves may interest you as he speaks for many dead greats from Irenaeus of Lyon to Athanasius of Alexandria to Augustine of Hippo - a great read.

Thanks for your advice, unfortunately, I tried Safe Mode and the system cannot boot at all - including safe mode. If you are able to channel any insights from my dead computer to my obuse brain I am all ears.

Cheers, Dr C

[Speaker4theDead]

Further divinations fail me at this point.

However I think your best bet at this point since we'd be troubleshooting external devices til were blue in the face, is actually run the recovery partition. (keep reading, it's all....part of the plan)

You see some HP computers will have a recovery partition preinstalled that have the recovery media loaded on there. Ususally labeled Recovery D:

Now if you computer has this and you can boot into it by jamming F11 on boot instead of F8 for safe mode, you'll have options to even try a restore here which might get around somethings.

However the REASON we go here is that the recovery partition will ask if you WANT TO BACKUP BEFORE PERFORMING RECOVERY? This utility may work properly since it's running off a different partition, and thus give you a back up options to grab things.

[DrCluster]

Thanks again; that option still rendered the infamous pop up "The disc inserted is not supported in Recovery Manager, please insert a blank DVD+R or DVD-R (4.7GB capacity) disc."

I tried using an RK bootable CD and could see all the files but not the terabyte USB storage device to which to backup all the files. I wonder if installing a little Linux partition to work from and copy files to the USB device backup will be the quickest way out of this.

You mentioned HP support as an option, but isn't there a 150$ charge for a single out-of-warranty call? If so, I would sooner drive it to the nearest Best Buy and get personal service for that price. Of course, while there, I would end up buying something not on the budget because my tech-envy has made me, among other nefarious things, tablet incontinent.

Cheers, Dr. C

[DrCluster]

In an effort to backup the needed files off of the unbootable drive, tonight I bought an Apricorn USB to SATA cable, pulled out the SATA drive, plugged it into my laptop USB port and tried to move the files with my laptop.

So far I am unsuccessful as the SATA drive is not accessible. The cable is recognized but not the SATA drive. I am ready to take the plunge on this little project and do the factory restore to the chagrin of family members who will be losing a lot of data.  There may be another way but I have not found it yet.

Cheers, Dr. C

PS: I did get out of Best Buy without buying a tablet however.

[DrCluster · Accepted solution]

At risk of carrying on a dialog with myself at this late stage, (or rather a monologue as coined by the venerable Augustine of Hippo) I will close this thread with the drastic solution of (having returned the Apricorn cable which only works with laptop drives) buying a Thermaltake Black Widow Hard Drive Docking Station which I used to safely transfer all the precious (not really) content from the SATA WD drive to a USB storage device prior to reverting the system back to the factory image after a disc format. Now I just need to get to put all the pieces back together and to task my little virus-downloading-urchin with home office cleanup for the next year as payment for all this superfluous labor and expense.

Thanks for the advice.

Cheers, Dr. C