Recovery Disc Creation "We are experiencing errors in recovery media creation. Please try again"

[DPM81]

I have a HP Envy TouchSmart 17-j011sa. Prod  Number :F4C20EA

I have tried the following but I can’t get HP recovery disc creator to start burning disc 1. :

-          burning recovery discs with 2 different types of DVD+R manufacturer.

-          running the recovery manager in Windows 8 safe mode and it refuses to acknowledge that the laptop is charging

-          turning off internet and closing all applications.

-          running a diagnostic check on the optical drive using HP Support Assistant but I only seem to have network and battery check. Optical drive check is not available

-          I have successfully burnt music to a blank dvd using windows 8 copy, paste and burn.

-          turning AVG off

It does the “prepare data” but can’t get to step 2 “burn data” or step 3 “verify disc”. It says “ We are experiencing errors in recovery media creation. Please try again”. However, looking at the DVD player activity light when it transitions from preparing data to burn data it looks like it does not even try to spin the disc

When I try and run in safe mode workaround suggested :

If I try and launch the HP Support Assistant I get :"HP Support Assistant has stopped working" please close. This always works in normal windows running mode.

I then do a search for “Recovery manager”. This launches. I choose to create a recovery disc and it presents me with a screen saying:

“Please install battery”

“Battery must be installed and the computer must be connected to its power adapter to continue this process. “

When the battery is installed and the laptop is connected to the mains. The above screen appears before I can even tick the box saying I acknowledge that only one set of discs can be created. So in safe mode I don’t get as far as I could when in normal running!

Strangely I could only get word pad to work not word (it just wouldnt launch...no error messages?) when in safe mode.

Any advice on how I can resolve this would be greatly appreciated short of ordering the discs at my own expense.

Thanks,

Dave

[CherylG · Accepted solution]

Contact HP Support in your country /region and report the problem using the software. Usually they will send a set free if you are still in warranty. Worldwide contact info here>>Contact HP

[DPM81]

It is not possible to email this problem to HP Support. It says this option is not available to the HP Envy Touchsmart laptops when I go through the wizzard . The link you suggested would not recognise the laptop prod number or name. I went round in a circle till I go to the support wizzard which stated I need to use HP Customers Care instead. I assume this means I need to remote desktop or an online chat window. I must say I think the support web pages need to be more joined up. I should not have to keep bouncing round pages till I get to one that accepts my prod number but tells me the type of support I need is not available.
Forgot to mention earlier I have all the latest patches from Hp and Microsoft .

[DPM81]

Thank you for the suggestion though . I will try my luck at the weekend to use the HP care option to get a solution or the discs sent out, as I can't use my laptop during the hours of UK support this week. Shame this could not have been done via email.

[DPM81]

Rang HP Support and they said that I would have to pay for the recovery media. After going through to the complaints department and explaining that I am still under warranty I was able to get the discs sent for free.

[kimmy1307]

OMG - I have suffered all the exact same things as yourself with my hp 15-n096sa notebook. I have posted but think I am going to be told the same thing - contact HP for recovery discs (hopefully, I should get these free as the laptop was only bought 2 months ago!!).  I don't know whether anyone has mentioned to you if there would be an issue after downloading the windows 8.1 upgrade.  Stupidly, I didn't try to create the restore discs befoe I did the upgrade from Windows 8 to 8.1. The update thankfully does not seem to have adversly affected anything on my laptop but I do wonder if the update is the reason I can now NOT create the recovery media.  You didn't mention whether you have actually used the recovery discs sent from HP and if they worked?

[DPM81]

I have received the discs but I have had no cause to use them. I wanted them just in case something happened to my laptop hard-drive. I did upgrade my laptop to Windows 8.1 against the advice of others. Sure enough I had nothing but problems with Windows 8.1 (wouldn't work with multiple users, touch screen would stop working) despite downloading all the HP patches. So I restored the computer back to factory settings (using f11 on boot if memory serves) using the recovery partition that was set up on the laptop (Drive D). Problems went away.  The only issue I have had since then is that HP Support Assistant did not work correctly when I wanted to contact HP Support.  I then used the recovery manager utility to reinstall "drivers and apps" for the Support Assistant it and that worked.  NB when you upgrade to windows8.1 it should leave a C:\windows.old file

[OliverTambo]

I had the same problem with HP Spectre XT corei5, I looked for a solution on the internet but could not get one, but finally I tried out something that worked for me without necessarily going for the option of the bootable flash disc.

Search for the Recover Media Creation tool and right click on it, select the properties menu, then go to the compatibility tab, select the checkbox for 'Run this application in compatibility mode for:' then select a slightly lower version of the operating system you are currently running, however, you can also check the checkbox for the privilege level so that you run the program as an Administrator, hit the apply button and OK, run the application. It should be able to complete the process without any more errors. That's what worked for me! Hope it does for you too....