G62 - recovery media and recovery partition

[bnzss]

Hi all,

I've looked around a bit and can't find any specific answers to the problem I am having, so I'm wondering if anybody here has any experiences... basically, I am trying to create recovery DVDs because I want to get rid of the recovery partition (I want to dual-boot with ubuntu but the HP creates a mess of partitions for some reason) and it won't burn. 5 DVDs so far have been ruined because it seems to burn about 0.000001% of the disc then spit it out. The DVDs in question are middling quality and are DVD-Rs. I could understand if they were RWs or some off-the-back-of-a-lorry blank DVDs, but they're decent, so it confuses me... especially since I am as we speak backing up some data using the standard windows 7 explorer burning thingy, and it's burning the DVD with no problem whatsoever

But anyway, given that I'm unsure anybody can help me with getting unruly software to accept these blank DVD, my plan is to install ubuntu on a dual boot with windows 7, which should be easy as pie to do, but I need to get rid of this partition to do that (or I'd prefer to do it that way). I should point out that HP_TOOLS I've backed up already, as it was pretty **bleep** small. So I'm wondering:

1) What exactly is IN the recovery partition?

2) If it's just windows 7 and a few drivers and HP bloatware then that's fine (I could certainly do without the latter), but is there anything special which, if deleted and not backed up, will render this laptop unusable entirely [n.b. I have another copy of windows 7, so I'm not too worried about that]?

Thanks for reading, hope it wasn't too much of a tl;dr!

[DavidPK · Accepted solution]

Hi,

You're correct that the Recovery Partition just contains the files to reinstall Windows, all the drivers and all the software that originally came bundled with your notebook - deleting it will not affect the notebook in anyway other than you would no longer be able to reinstall the OS using Recovery Manager.  You can always order a replacement set of these discs at a later date if you find you need them - there is a small fee for this.

Regarding creating a set of Recovery Discs, generally I've had better luck with DVD+Rs - also it may be worth booting into Safe Mode and try to create them as this can sometimes help.

Regards,

DP-K

[bnzss]

Hi DavidPK, thanks for your words of wisdom; before going mad with the partitions I'll follow your advice and go into safe mode first and give it another go.

Thanks again!

[DavidPK]

Hi,

You're welcome - hope you have better luck in Safe Mode

All the best,

DP-K

[bnzss]

Your advice was good, safe mode did the trick - i now have 4 DVDs full of backed up goodness, so can now go crazy.

Thanks for your help...will now try to set this as 'solved'...

[DavidPK]

Hi,

You're welcome, I'm glad it worked.  One thing to note is that if you use these discs to reinstall the OS, they will re-create the Recovery D Partition again as well

All the best,

DP-K