HP Support Forum

[#1]

I have a problem with my hard drive that has already been trouble shot by HP.  They have sent me a replacement hard drive.

Here is my dilemma.  I am trying to figure out how I can do a restore to put me back to my last backup (I backup nightly using the Backup and Restore Center on the Control Panel).  I have also created my backup disks, but that was prior to upgrading to Vista Ultimate (64-bit) from Vista Home Premium (64-bit).  I also backed up my computer using the Backup and Restore Center on an external hard drive this past weekend as I knew this day was coming.

What I want to know is what should be my restore methodology?  Should I restore from the disks, then restore my computer from the Backup and Restore Center, then restore from my most recent incremental backup?  I'm thinking that should put me most current.  The instructions that come with the replacement hard drive are not that great.  They tell you to restore from the backup disks, then re-install all of the applications you have on your machine.  I have invested a few bucks in external hard drives and have everything backed up and would like to use it.  

What should my methodology be for restoration?  Any help with the procedures would be greatly appreciated.  

[#2 · Accepted solution]

if you are getting a new hard drive and want to have the operating system installed on the new hard drive,,,why don,t you buy acronis true image, i have it and it works great-

http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/

[#3]

Well, it's like this.  HP ships a computer with all of this backup and restore software, to include Microsoft's backup and restore, so I wanted to try to force HP's hand in providing detailed procedures for the restoration of a new hard drive.  They have some procedures, but not to put your computer to its current state. 

I searched HP's website as well as Microsoft's and didn't really find anything that would put my computer to its current state.  I'm only making an assumption that the methodology I described in my initial post would do the trick.  

It's Saturday.  I have beer. Nobody else has responded, so I guess I'm on my own.  If my methodology doesn't work, I'll try your suggestions and download Acronis.   I will detail the procedures I used and will post them on the other side.  Hopefully I'll be back up and running before midnight tonight!

[#4]

This isn't going so well.  The recovery discs didn't boot.  I got an error, No bootable device - insert boot disk and press any key.  I powered off and powered back on and got the same error.  The recover disc just wouldn't boot.  I got on-line and chatted with HP's tech support and they are having me test the new hard disk.  Of course the test takes well over an hour to complete. 

When I opened up the computer to install the new hard drive, I found that there is a second slot for another hard drive.  I was wondering if I couldn't put the faulty hard disk in the A Slot, put the new hard drive  in the B Slot, then boot to the faulty hard drive as it still does work.   I thought that maybe I could execute a disk copy to the new drive, then remove the faulty drive and move the new drive to the A slot.  Wouldn't that work?

I would appreciate any guru out there to jump in and give me some advice.

[#5]

You da man!!!!!

After going through several hours of HP nonsense, I decided to go ahead and download Acronis.  Three hours later I'm typing this on my new hard drive.  

Let me go through what happened today.  

First, the instructions that came with the new hard drive were incomplete.  The instructions had me reference the inclosed instructions for physically installing the new hard drive.  There were no other instructions.  I didn't want to just start unscrewing screws, so I used the on-line Chat tech support to get me through that little inconvenience.  Time wasted = 1hour.

Next, feeling pretty good about myself, I had my new hard drive ready to go, my back up disks from last November, a complete backup from last weekend, and a fresh incremental backup from last night.  I just knew I would be able to put myself right back where I was.  I powered up with my recover disc 1 and nothing.  I got any error that said "No bootable device."  That was weird.  I powered down and tried again and got the same error.  Evidently, the recovery disc didn't have a boot sector.  I got back to on-line chat and the HP tech support lady had me do a hard disk test.  This test takes every bit of 2 hours and it wasn't the disk that was the problem.  I ran the test and two hours later I found out that the new hard drive they sent me was good, go figure.  I tried copying the old disc to the new disc and ran into problems.  So, I gave HP another chance. I called the 800 number they gave with the instructions and talked to a live body (after several iterations with a computer chick) and after more testing, they determined that I needed new recovery discs.  I went through the process of getting them ordered and once I hung up, I put my old hard drive back in my computer and went to www.acronis.com and downloaded their software.

I installed the software on my old hard drive and ran a back up, created a single back up DVD disc then powered down.  I changed my bad hard drive with the new hard drive and booted to the acronis boot disc, ran the complete restore and presto, after about two and a half hours, I'm back in business.

The only reason I'm documenting this is I hope anybody else who has this problem will find this post and go straight to aconis.com come instead of wasting the eight hours I wasted.  Ronss, you are the man.  I really appreciate your posting and I wish I would have just listened to you right from the gitgo. 

Cheers!

[#6]

great....glad i could help ya solve your problem...its sort of tough trying to solve folks problems here, but i give it my best try...not allways right, but at least i give suggestions that one can try here. i had been at dells forum for years, they changed it to the worse, and said-bye bye.  so i bring my experience here, because this forum is like dells old forum, and i like it....i have noticed that some of the users here seem to be a bit more technical than on the dell site...just my 2 cents worth though.....i have acronis too,  and i know it works....hope things go well on your new drive.

Message Edited by ronss on 02-23-2009 02:15 AM

[#7]

there is nothing wrong with hp restore disk!! you need to give it its time, mine took 5 hours to completely restore on a new hard drive, this is because the restore disk program is trying to repartition the hard drive on windows since it is putting back the recovery partition. give it its time. once the recovery parition is done, next time when u reinstall windows it wont be that slow, believe me.