Pavilion DM1 - System Restore Problems

[hamacardo]

I purchased a brand new Pavilion DM1 from Amazon a couple of months ago and love it!  Initially the system came with Windows 7 Home Premium

However, I messed around with the drive letters of the recovery partitions.  Obviously the F11 restore failed to work when I ran into OS difficulties and wanted to do a restore...

I own a legitimate copy of Windows 7 Professional, and here is what I did to reinstall my system

1) Created a bootable usb pendrive containing windpows 7 install files

2) Formatted the hard drive, but left the x2 recovery partiions intact (Recovery & HP_Tools)

3) Dowwnloaded and installed all of the relevant drivers for my laptop

My system works perfectly... however here is my problem.  When I eventually come to sell the laptop, I would want to install it to its default state.  Here's what I attempted

1) Downloaded the Recovery Disk on a USB Flash Disk app

http://5gl0.sl.pt

2) Sucesfully managed to use this utility to create a bootable usb drive for re-installing the system to defaults.

However here is the problem.... the pen drive refuses to boot!  I've tried setting is as the 1st boot drive.  I've tried the 'select boot drive option' at startup...

What could have gone wrong with the creation of the usb bootable drive?  Obviously you can't run the backup twice

Again there was no errors on the creation of the usb drive.  I know that I can boot from usb drives, as I sucesfully created a win7 usb boot drive to re-install windows 7

To summarise...

1) I have created a Recovery Disk on a USB Flash Disk, which won't boot

2) I have a properly working version of Windows 7 Ulitimate installed at present

3) The original recovery and hp_tools partitions are still in existence and have the original files

I guess what Im needing is

a) A way to diagnose and fix the usb drive, so it boots

b) Another method of using the recovery partitions to restore the laptop to factory defaults

Sorry for the long winded thread, but I needed to explain the dilemma properly

[Mumbodog]

Since you damaged or deleted the restore partition installing W7 from a non restore disc, I doubt the program loaded anything to the pen drive, the program takes the restore partition files and puts them on the drive.

You would be better to order your restore discs here

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c00810334&cc=us&lc=en&dlc=en

.

[hamacardo]

Hiya, thanks for your reply. However, the restore partitions are still intact... still have all of the data within them... and the usb creation procedure seemed to run flawlessly.

Below is a screenshot of the root contents of my usb pen after the tool finished creating it...

and here is the size of the contents now on the usb drive...

and finally another screen showing the existing partitions (drive letters)

Surely someone must have a procedure to either tell me why the usb won't boot, or a method for using the contents of the recovery parition somehow....

Not ready to give up just yet and order disks, when I technically still have the recovery information...

[Mumbodog]

All I can suggest is to try another go at making the recovery pen drive. For some reason it is not seen as a bootable device.

It will take a while before I can see your images, they must be approved by a moderator first.

Here is another method to getting it to restore off of the hard drive partition when it is broken, problem is this is a no return type of fix, once you set the restore partition as "Active" or cancel the restore when it loads, your Windows 7 won't boot anymore either. This procedure works in most cases where the restore is broken due to an overwritten MBR such as your case.

http://www.ehow.com/how_5643882_restore-recovery-partition-boot-problem.html

While you are in W7 next time, make your Windows System Repair Disc.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c02058933&cc=us&lc=en&dlc=en

.

.

[hamacardo]

Again many thanks for your reply.  Before posting I did several hours of research and had already tried the partition active procedure... it failed unfortunately.  With regard to creating the usb recovery again, it seems as though HP restrict the creation of backup images to just the once!

[Mumbodog]

Well I guess we are down to ordering recovery discs from HP

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c00810334&cc=us&lc=en&dlc=en

If HP cannot supply them for some reason. then try this place, they are the exact same discs, just cost a little more.

http://www.computersurgeons.com/Default.aspx

Now there could be one issue with using recovery Discs from either of these places, see this article.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareDownloadIndex?softwareitem=pv-80183-1&cc=us&lc=en&dlc=en

Resolves an issue where Recovery Discs sent from HP do not work on a new hard drive or one that has been fully cleaned or "wiped".

Enables the creation of a bootable CD that can be used with a set of Recovery Discs sent from HP to install software on a new or "wiped" hard drive.

.

[hamacardo]

Hmmm looking that way.  Another question if I may... what are the default "drive letters" for the

Recovery - partition

HP_TOOLS - partition

[hamacardo]

Another thing which is at the back iof my mind.... Disk Managment reports that the hard disk is running as dynamic as apposed to basic.... would this cause problems with the restore process?

[Mumbodog]

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hamacardo wrote:

Another thing which is at the back iof my mind.... Disk Managment reports that the hard disk is running as dynamic as apposed to basic.... would this cause problems with the restore process?

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Not sure, it would if you are trying to boot from that partition. not sure how to convert it back to basic without losing data.

My default drive letters are

Recovery D:

Tools E: