Fixing Recovery Partition [ Edited ]

[piwifrut]

I have hp dv6-3037tx

I recently installed a new motherboard in my computer. Ever since, I have not been able to boot into the recovery partition.

E.g. I press F11 at startup and nothing happens, it just boots directly to the Windows 7 Home Premium  OS. I already have physical recovery disks (which do work) so I guess it may not be important.

3 questions:

1. If I do a system restore using my recovery disks, will the recovery partition be effected in any way?

2. Anyone got any ideas how to fix my recovery partition?

3. Do I really even need the recovery partition if I have the 5 HP Recovery Disks in a safe place?

Thank you all

[erico · Accepted solution]

If the Esc ad then F11 sequence no longer works then your BIOS sees that a change to the original partition scheme has happened. That is why th F11 no longer invokes the Recovery manager.

Unless you have a need to do a recovery just leave the recovery partition as it is. If you need to use it, set the partition to an active status. When the partition is set to active then upon powering on the notebook the recovery manager should begin. 

Unfortunately,  usb thumbdrive recovery media is far more reliable and faster than the recovery disks. CD\DVD media is not as durable as a USB thumbdrive.

[piwifrut]

Thanks for the info erico

I know you said to leave it as it is unless I need to recover, but I wanted to be sure. So I did what you said just now and it worked  it's not corrupted after all!

For anyone else reading this: I had seen this on the forum before and knew I wouldn't be able to boot windows after I set RECOVERY as active, so I used the command prompt available in the Recovery Manager menu to set the SYSTEM reserve partition back to active again.

To do that I entered this at the prompt:

diskpart

list disk

select disk [# of my HDD]

list partition

select partition [# of system partition (200Mb size)]

active

Cheers, now I have peace of mind knowing I have two recovery methods up my sleeve

[erico]

Great job. I was uncertain as to how much you knew about the recovery manager.

It is good to know that you know how to back out before an unintended disaster occurs.