Missing HP recovery disks, can I burn new bios image for my HP with mobo MS-7184 and MS6553

[wiking7000]

Hello

My problem is with 2 computers, that are HP and COMPAQ, I hope and quess if I can get answers for both

questions from here; problem with

HP 1st;

model: EG760AA-ABX

prod# : a1200.fi

My harddisk had problems with bad sectors and I had to format it, then when I was trying to RECOVER

it I found out that my recovery cd:s has scratches and I´m tryin to make full recovery or I thought that could

to burn my bios again with a non HP- bios image, can I do that and will windows xp install normally if I burn not HP bios on my MS-7184 ?

another way is to try to recover my recovery partition from my HD with Active Partition Recovery, it founds out some old partitions, question is that

what size is the original recover partition which came from factory installed (HD is samsung SP0802n 80gb) ?

2nd

COMPAQ

Presario 6000 Where I foun exact model number?

mobo: MS-6553 (K7 system board compaq spares no. 261671-002 n2124 sticker on mobo)

60 gb HARD DRIVE ST360020A( sticker n2124)

This one have same problem, someone low level destructive formatted ( not me ;>) the hard disk and cannot find recovery disks.

 Can I burn bios and will Windows Home install from normal,( not COMPAQ ), CD after that ?

Please help me, Thank you in advance.

[CharlesHP]

I wonder if you are mixing bios with disk images. Even if someone low level formated the hd, your bios should still be ok. So I don't understand why you want to burn bios for a different system, most likely will not work. You should be able to directly insgtall an OS from CD, may be need to download a few drivers after the installation.

[wiking7000]

Yes, you´re right; I mixed some words with bios flash and drive img. sorry for that

Yes my bios is ok, but there is that RECOVERY option (and I think a lot of other stuff

HP uses for their own systems) which I thought I could flash my bios and it may work

with normal windows instaallation CD after that the?

Anyway it wont install xp from ordinary home or xp -edition installation CD, tried both

and many versions of manufacturers own cd set´s and "bulk" aswell

It´s very hard to try to find exact windows installation with all

the drivers my HP asks for, it don´t even work with linux; always stops

responding in some part of installation or while installing windows it 

shows blue screen with some oem-error and stops responding.

If you think I could install windows on my HP a1200.fi, then

please tell how to fix installation and which way to do it.

I was going to flash my bios, because I think problems R there

and that windows installation would only work with recovering

it to factory state, which is not possible now because of missing

recovery CD set; is my PC ready to throw in trashcan or anyone has 

any idea how to fix this?

[dannistories]

I can't answer your original question, but I have an old Compaq Presario 1200 which runs Win98, and I have lost my original Win98 discs. I am researching flavors of Linux, if I can find Linux drivers for all the hardware. You mentioned you tried Linux; according to what I've seen so far, the particular flavor of Linux and type of machine makes a big difference. You might try

https://help.ubuntu.com

and search the forums for your machine. For older machines, Ubuntu seems to be a good flavor on Compaq Presarios, but you would need to check out your model. Some experienced Linux folks like Red Hat, but it doesn't seem to agree with my old Win98 laptop; Ubuntu is recommended for beginners. It's been many years since I knew enough UNIX to operate a minicomputer, so I'm sticking with the easier operating systems. The nice thing about Linux is that it's free, and there are similar freewares to most PC softwares. The site I gave has lists of combos that did work, and those that didn't. There are probably similar sites to all the kinds of Linux.

I would flash the BIOS with the newest update, and ditto all your device drivers/firmware, whether you stick with Windows or migrate to Linux. The advantage to Linux is lack of viruses [if you don't dual boot or use Wine to run Win software], though there are anti-virus programs for Linux. HP is beginning to get a lot more supportive of Linux, and other manufacturers as well. But, the Linux forums will give you an idea of whether x version of Linux will work on your machine. And, you can burn the OS to a CD and test it before formatting your HD and see if it works with all of your computer's parts.

When  you installed your Linux, did you run the checksum hash? For Ubuntu, it is here:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HowToMD5SUM

It is critical that you check your download with this Windows utility before burning it to CD, and that you follow the instructions to burn the .iso file to CD-Rom.  If you did all this, I apologize, but I saw on the forums that a lot of people were new to Linux in general, and did not know the differences in the operating systems that use Linux kernels. There's a lot to know, which stopped me once before, but I am afraid of the security holes in Win98, which is no longer supported by Microsoft. I don't think my machine will upgrade well to WinXP, but a version of Linux might help me optimize my now-tiny 5 GB hard drive and squeeze a little more usefulness out of it as a spare for when we visit relatives once a year. Our next newer spare, a Pavilion 2100, now has a cracked LCD screen. We are sharing this spare because my new PC and my daughter's new PC are both out of commission, hers from a cracked LCD, mine from a virus. As for mine, I have to reformat my HD and dread it; I'm juggling files and consoladating them to make room for the others and am having big-time trouble getting my 1200 to recognize the spare hard drives without that Win98 OS disc! I did find a driver, but want a backup, so I'll just burn an Ubuntu CD and add the Win98 driver for large hard drives.

This post is too wordy, so I'll quit, already. Good luck to you!