Dv6 Recovery Questions. [ Edited ]

[Cris09]

I have an hp DV6 2174TX. Initially, the laptop had three drives, Local disc, recovery and hp_tools. I partitioned the local drive into two drives, so now I have 4 drives in all. I want to restore the laptop to factory settings, as it has become quite slow and messy. Will recovery work in this case? If it works, will it wipe out the entire HDD, or will it just wipe out the drive in which Windows 7 is installed?

Also, what is the exact procedure for restoring? I did not get any recovery disks on purchase, so I have none.

Edit: Browsed through the site and learnt that there are three types of recovery: System Recovery, Factory Reset and Minimized image recovery. What I want  is factory reset. Is is possible without recovery disks as i have none?  

[kamat_hp]

If you do a Factory reset either through F11 or through recovery disks you would end up loosing any custom partitions which you have created on the Notebook. 

I would highly recommend you to backup all the information before you try to perform any kind of recovery because once the process is initiated there is no way of going back.

Kindly go through below links for more additional info.

Recovery Options Available on HP Notebooks

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c02638587&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en&jumpid=reg_R1002_US...

Procedure to Perform Recovery

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01895783&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en

[Cris09]

Thanks a lot for the reply. I have an external hard drive ready to backup my files. I will reply back here once I am done. Thanks again. 

[Cris09]

No its not working. I tried restoring using Hp recovery manager. It restarts the laptop and then I get this message:

Windows failed to start. A recent hardware or software might be the cost.. To fix the problem

1. Insert windows installation disc and restart computer

2. Choose language settings, and click 'Next".

3. Click "Repair Your computer"

If you don't have the disc, contact system administrator or computer manufacturer for assistance.

Status: 0xc0000225

Info: The boot selection failed because a required device is inaccessible.

Then I deleted the partition I had created and merged it with the original drive, So now my laptop has three drives as before(Local disc, Recovery and hp_tools)

 I even tried to press "Esc" at startup and as directed, pressed F11 for recovery. But that just causes my laptop to start. Recovery never launches!!

Please help!

Edit: I also checked Disk management. There is no option called "Mark Partition as active" when I right click the recovery drive. 

[kamat_hp]

In Disk Management i guess there is a dynamic disk allocated which is causing 0xc0000225 error. Try to convert into basic disk and that should ideally fix it.

If it doesnt work, create recovery disks on a blank DVDs using Recovery disk creation utility and perform a recovery through user created recovery disks. 

[Cris09]

All my drives are dynamic and option to go to basic is grayed out. I will try to create recovery disks. It will take a backup of Recovery drive, right?

[kamat_hp]

The user created recovery disks will create recovery disk from recovery partition and using discs would end up wiping out complete Notebook and putting it back to factory condition. 

[Cris09]

Hmm..There seems to be a problem with my DVD drive too and its not functioning properly. I guess I will have to go to HP service center to get this sorted out. Also my laptop's warranty has expired.