recovering the hard drive of a Pavilion a1720n

[norman16]

I have Vista home premium (32 bit) operating system. The computer would not boot up.

I have gone through system restore & system recovery with no boot success, so I removed the hard drive and replaced it with an extra one that I had installed as additional storage.

I loaded the first of two recovery discs and initiated system recovery. It did not ask me to put the second disc in.

I got to the recovery screen on the monitor, but got this error massage: "Program:X:\windows\system32\restore7.exe abnormal program termination."

I am now at a loss over how to proceed next. Any ideas?

[Hanspuppa]

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norman16 wrote: I have Vista home premium (32 bit) operating system. The computer would not boot up. I have gone through system restore & system recovery with no boot success, so I removed the hard drive and replaced it with an extra one that I had installed as additional storage. I loaded the first of two recovery discs and initiated system recovery. It did not ask me to put the second disc in. I got to the recovery screen on the monitor, but got this error massage: "Program:X:\windows\system3\restore7.exe abnormal program termination." I am now at a loss over how to proceed next. Any ideas?

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Hello norman16, Have you checked the first boot device as the CD\DVD Group in the BIOS. This would be required in order to boot from the CD\DVD drive.

The reason you are getting the error on the other system is that the Recovery restore7.exe is checking the system to insure it is the same system that the Recovery restore disks were made for, and failing to validate this, if stops the recovery.

[norman16]

Dear Hanspuppa, thanks for the reply. I did check my working DVD drive at the BOOT prompt (hitting ESC to get to it) and I got the same error message.

My original DVD drive stopped working, so I installed a new one below it, so now I have two, but one does not work (the original one).

You may ask why I left the original one installed; well when I took it out, I lost sound, so I put it back and the sound returned.

If I understand your point in your reply, I should remove the old non-working DVD drive and install the working one in it's place, and then try system recover again. Is that correct? Norman

[Hanspuppa]

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norman16 wrote: Dear Hanspuppa, thanks for the reply. I did check my working DVD drive at the BOOT prompt (hitting ESC to get to it) and I got the same error message. My original DVD drive stopped working, so I installed a new one below it, so now I have two, but one does not work (the original one). You may ask why I left the original one installed; well when I took it out, I lost sound, so I put it back and the sound returned. If I understand your point in your reply, I should remove the old non-working DVD drive and install the working one in it's place, and then try system recover again. Is that correct? Norman

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Hello norman16, Now that you have determined the original DVD drive was faulty, and replaced it, you might try to delete the partiton for the other hard drive that you installed, and then make a new partition and format this new partition.

Then try to recover the software with the HP Recovery Restore disks. Sometimes the HP Recovery Restore disks will not install on a hard drive that was not in the system when the software build was made. It assumes this is another system and not the original system that had the original software.

By deleting the partition and formatiing the partition of the added hard drive, there would be no data that would suggest to the Recovery Restore disk that this is a different hard drive and/or different system. If that makes any sense.....

[norman16]

I cannot even boot up the computer properly, so I do not know how to do the partitioning without a proper bootup. When I hit F10 and go into CMOS setup facility, Drives 1-4 all display as NONE, which means that the hard drive is not being detected, I think. even though I connected the new hard drive inside the computer. Any further help? Or are we at a dead end?

[Hanspuppa]

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norman16 wrote: I cannot even boot up the computer properly, so I do not know how to do the partitioning without a proper bootup. When I hit F10 and go into CMOS setup facility, Drives 1-4 all display as NONE, which means that the hard drive is not being detected, I think. even though I connected the new hard drive inside the computer. Any further help? Or are we at a dead end?

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Hello norman16, You might recheck the cables going to the hard drive and make sure both of them are inserted correctly.

If this does not work, you might try resetting the BIOS. Just remove the CMOS battery for a few seconds and then reinsert it in the holder, boot them system and see if you can enter the BIOS and check the day, time and year. This would assure you the CMOS battery is not weak.

[norman16 · Accepted solution]

I installed & uninstalled both hard drives, and found that I could not get a response at all with the new hard drive; so I put the old one back, took out the non-functioning DVD drive and replaced it with the new DVD drive, and miraculously the computer is now recovered. At some point I will add in the second hard drive, but I am going to do some research first on any problems that I may encounter. Thank you so much for your halp