Can reinstall Windows 7 from recovery disks

[Paul_2281]

I have an hp pavilion HPE desktop from 2012. It came with Windows 7 Home Premium. I recently upgraded to a new PC with Windows 11 and would like to give this one to a recycler. Before doing so I would like to reinstall Windows 7 to erase everything on the hard drive. I have the recovery disks I made based on the instructions I received when I first got this computer. It also has a 😧 drive called HP_RECOVERY (D:). I can't get it to reinstall Windows 7 from either. It always boot normally instead. I have tried changing the boot order, but the change won't take. I still have the 25 character product key from the original Windows 7 Home Premium installation. How can I get this reinstall accomplished?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

The only suggestion I can offer is in order to use the Recovery D image, is to tun on the PC and immediately tap the F11 key to get the recovery menu and from there, follow the on-screen instructions.

To boot from the recovery DVD, have disk 1 in the DVD drive.

Restart the PC and immediately tap the F9 key to get the boot options menu.

Select the DVD drive from the boot options menu, and press the Enter key.

Watch the screen for the message, to 'Press any key to boot from CD/DVD, press any key and the PC should boot from the recovery disk.

[Paul_2281]

I restarted the PC and tapped F9 with the first recovery disk already in the DVD drive. That gives me the boot menu where I can "select boot device." I used the arrow down key to get the white triangle pointed to "ATAPI CD/DVD Drive" and I hit "ENTER to select boot device." Nothing happens. That screen remains on the screen. It never gives me the "Press any key to boot from CD/DVD" message. 

Under "ATAPI CD/DVD Drive" there's a sub-item called "SATA 2." I tried selecting that and hitting enter. It returns,

"Non-System disk or disk error"

"Replace and press any key when ready"

I took out and replaced the recovery  DVD and hit enter again. Then it says:

Intel UNDI, PXE-2.0 (build 083)

Copyright (C) 1997-2000 Intel Corporation

For Atheros PCIE Ethernet Controller v2.1.0.9 (08/12/11)

Check cable connection!

PXE-MOF: Exiting Intel PXE ROM.

ERROR: No boot disk has been detected or the disk has failed.

[Paul_2281]

I also tried your suggestion to tap F11 after starting the PC. I get "Welcome to Recovery Manager."

Under that there is a box titled "I need help immediately." In it there are three choices:

Microsoft System Restore

Microsoft Startup Repair Tool

System Recovery

The first two are greyed out so I can only select the third, System Recovery. When I do I get a message "Restore your computer to its original factory state. This process reinstalls the original factory shipped software." (which is what I want to do). So I click Next.

It briefly looks like it's going to start the process, but then a dialog box comes up that says, "Recovery Manager could not restore your computer using the factory image. Please contact HP support. Error coce: 0xe0ef0003.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Unfortunately, I don't have any other suggestions for you to try.

I would just make a bootable W10 installation flash drive, delete all partitions on the drive, and install W10.

Download Windows 10 (microsoft.com)

[Paul_2281]

I have a bootable W10 installation flash drive from another PC. I created in the process of reinstalling W10 on that other PC so it could be recycled as well. Can you tell me how to go about the process of deleting all partitions on the C: drive of this W7 machine and making it boot to the USB and install Windows 10? I have no attachment to this PC having W7 on it. I just want the drive wiped clean before I turn it in for recycling.

[Paul_2281]

I tried this approach again today. When I went to change the boot order, I noticed there was a second option to boot to the DVD drive labeled

hp     DVD RAM

I selected that one and it seems to have worked. It asked for Disks 1 through 4 sequentially and seemingly re-installed Windows 7. However, when it was all done instead of presenting a set up screen, it went back to the Windows 7 desktop I had before. When I open Explorer what I see is that it added two new partitions to the hard drive. The previous partitions labeled OS (C): and HP_RECOVERY (D:) are still there, but now two more are there labeled OS (E): and HP_RECOVERY (G:). What's more the second hard drive in this computer (which I used for backup) no longer appears in Explorer. I think it was previously mapped as (E:), so now it's as if it disappeared. And it doesn't feel like the old information was all over-written, which was the goal. It just looks like another version has been installed next to it. I don't feel like this has accomplished my goal.

I also tried booting to a USB stick with Windows 10 on it. I can't find a boot option that will make the PC boot to the USB stick.

How can I be assured everything I had on this PC before is over-written? And it would be good if the extra HDD re-appeared! It's not usable if it isn't mapped in Explorer. 

[Paul_2281]

I have to amend my previous reply. In fact what happened when I was able to restore from the DVD rescue disks is the computer installed Windows 7 on the extra HDD, so it's not that it disappeared after all. But this is not what I wanted because it left the first installation of Windows 7 intact instead of writing over it. How do I tell it to re-install Windows 7 using the rescue disks on the main drive and leave the extra HDD alone?

[Paul_2281 · Accepted solution]

@Paul_Tikkanen - Just wanted to close the circle here because I finally figured this out. It turns out that what I needed to do is:

1. Open the computer box itself and unplug both the power and the wiring to the secondary internal HDD. The computer was treating this as a peripheral and not allowing the re-install process on the primary HDD.
2. When I restart the PC there's a screen that says “press ESC key for startup menu."
3. When I have done that, I see the Starup Menu in blue. Instead of changing the boot menu to adjust the boot order I needed to select "System Recovery" from that Startup Menu.
4. When I had previously tried this with two internal disk drives installed it would not let me proceed. But with the secondary HDD unplugged I was taken to the full recovery menu and from there it let me reinstall Windows 7, and it didn't require the recovery disks. It did the re-install from the Recovery partition on the primary HDD.
5. After that I had to re-connect the secondary HDD and restart the PC.

Thank you for your help. Your suggestions ultimately helped me get there. But when the re-install of W7 from the recovery disks resulted in W7 installing on the secondary internal HDD I realized that was the source of the problem.