Convert 3 recovery dvd's into USB recovery flash drive

[Doug30]

Hi everyone !

I ordered sometime ago the HP recovery dvd's, theres 3. Two  were scratched and I had to use a data recovery (CD Data Recovery Toolbox) which worked amazingly pulling the data from the dvds. When I pulled the data, I created 3 seperate files so how do I combine the 3 into 1 file so I can make a USB Recovery flash drive ? I tried to look up how to recovery multiple dvds and make 1 file but to no avail, theres nothing out there I could find  remotely close.

I have seen HP techs who have worked on my laptop download OS systems and create a ISO from  data being downloaded, so there has to be a logical route in order to accomplish this ? Or how to I create a ISO file from the 3 dvds ? Afterwards I would presume I could drop on USB and use a Rufus to make it a bootable recovery flash ?

Thanks for your time and consideration..

[Lil_Boy_Blue · Accepted solution]

Hi

Could you just copy the 3 DVD's onto a new partition you create of say 16 GB, call it R: for Recovery?

I have an X: for a similar purpose...

X:\>dir
 Volume in drive X is Recovery
29/10/2018  23:48               128 autorun.inf
29/10/2018  23:48           408,074 bootmgr
29/10/2018  23:48         1,452,856 bootmgr.efi
20/03/2017  04:15    <DIR>          efi
09/08/2018  15:55    <DIR>          HP_Drvrs
29/10/2018  23:48            82,440 setup.exe
13/08/2017  12:42    <DIR>          sources
22/11/2018  10:25    <DIR>          support

Then create a USB as you describe.

The Recovery Media Creation makes either a 16 GB USB stick into a Recovery media or 3 x 9 GB DVD's in same.  The difference is that one of the files is over the limit for a standard 4.5 GB DVD, but it fits onto a single large USB.

Concatenation and .iso methods are not necessary, just copy or XCOPY.  Rufus or AnyBurn should suffice.

[Lil_Boy_Blue]

Prego.

[Doug30]

Lil_Boy_Blue ~ 

Now that's what I'm talking about... Thanks for the outline & detailed steps. I really appreciate  well thoughtout responses that not only addresses the issue but deals with the core or underlying  factors. I can only assume from this level you must have a engineering degree.. Job well done sir. I give you Major High Fives & Kudos ! Yes this works - that's why I stop here. Reliable Solutions for all issues.

Doug30

[Lil_Boy_Blue]

thanks.

Happy Amateur at best, but I do have my own 3 DVD set somewhere, so a lucky guess I guess.

This may be handy to have as well...

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

[WAWood]

@Doug30

Have you actually tried this out, yet?

Asking, because the DVD recovery set I have for my HP laptop, the filenames ARE THE SAME across the DVDs; thus, whey you copy those files to a single directory, they will simply ovwerwrite one another.

The ones you have might be different, but check before you do this.

[Doug30]

My apologize for not getting back sooner.  Okay I got lucky on this issue. On the Recovery DVD's, I actually used chapstick and a blow dryer removing the scratchs (it actually worked with heat for a 1 min - the disc material has a low melting point) so I was able to get  it reloaded and partition the drive. On the dvd data prior to refinishing surface, I loaded "CD Recovery Toolbox".  & no issuue retreiving data  which indicated reasonable probablity surface could be repaired. After I ran CD Recovery Toolbox , I made copies of the image for future use. I tried loading 3 ISO's on Easy2boot with no success in launching, may have errored in loading. Also, I made seperate copies of the files prrior to ISO,  all disk (3) have "Preload" files "base (numeric value).swm" format.The first 2 disk held roughly  8.25GB data,  yet the files values were not in sequentiall order, instead disk#1 had a select number of those files and the other disk held the outstanding numeric files . Given these files dont use anything "I coud determine" what thier preolads are,  could I then place all the base.swm into 1 file and still execute as it should?? My concern is the staggering of the  numeric  files are required prior to adding the next file? 

[Lil_Boy_Blue]

Hi

It is my belief that the Recovery System on the DVD's actually don't do the Recovery per se.  They are copied onto a partition, effectively recreating the original partitioning, and then when all are present the Re-Installation takes place.

Mine claimed it takes 2 hours and it was double that.

Then once you have the REcovery partition in place and Re-Installation complete the cloning of that 16 GB onto a USB can happen.

[Doug30]

Hello,

These are the files from the 3 dvds. As you can see each disk has it Preload file and the files run numerically but not seqeuntially instead staggered between the 3 disk. 

The 1st pic is the boot files from #1, the 2nd pic is of all 3 disk with the  "Preloads" includung the 'Info" file, as you stated in prior post unlike your set these do not share the same name across but given your awareness of these files, would you care to venture if I could take all the Preload files and place them in 1 file and then drop onto a USB  would the system still acknowledge the order or would it cause a crash based on not following  the order dictated by utliziing the specfic path  of orgianlly designed  ?  Or could I keep the folders and "label" Preload 1, Preload2 , Preload 3 in the thought the system would stay to the course by working on file order rather than deviate by reading the entire  string of code ? 

Thank you for any thoughts you have, greatly appreciated.

[Lil_Boy_Blue]

Hi

As I said earlier it matters not.

My 2 DVD's are like this....

 Directory of S:\Recovery DVD\Disc1\PRELOAD
10/08/2015  06:58       629,146,763 BASE14.SWM
10/08/2015  06:58       624,283,246 BASE16.SWM
10/08/2015  06:57       628,665,836 BASE17.SWM
10/08/2015  06:57       628,663,870 BASE18.SWM
10/08/2015  06:57       629,007,320 BASE19.SWM
10/08/2015  07:00       626,558,027 BASE2.SWM
10/08/2015  06:57       628,827,027 BASE20.SWM
10/08/2015  07:00       627,127,385 BASE3.SWM
10/08/2015  07:00       627,381,378 BASE4.SWM
10/08/2015  06:59       588,424,765 BASE5.SWM
10/08/2015  06:59       598,108,442 BASE6.SWM
10/08/2015  06:59       629,047,192 BASE9.SWM
10/08/2015  07:05                 6 INFO.DAT
31/07/2015  13:56           438,732 Install.log
18/06/2012  23:53                21 LANG.INI
10/08/2015  07:05               456 lang.list
10/08/2015  07:05                68 MARK.MD5
10/08/2015  07:05               261 SSRD.DAT
21/07/2015  06:05                34 Sysid.log

S:\Recovery DVD\Disc2\PRELOAD>dir
 Volume in drive S is Storage
 Directory of S:\Recovery DVD\Disc2\PRELOAD
 10/08/2015  07:00       460,532,378 BASE.SWM
10/08/2015  06:59       566,695,110 BASE10.SWM
10/08/2015  06:58       587,135,296 BASE11.SWM
10/08/2015  06:58       574,751,659 BASE12.SWM
10/08/2015  06:58       585,694,920 BASE13.SWM
10/08/2015  06:58       465,753,958 BASE15.SWM
10/08/2015  06:57       415,455,700 BASE21.SWM
10/08/2015  06:59       488,957,794 BASE7.SWM
10/08/2015  06:59       440,187,915 BASE8.SWM
31/07/2015  13:56       416,390,355 BUILD.WIM
10/08/2015  07:05                 7 INFO.DAT

And if the script creates a single partition and copies them into it then the order will sort itself out.

S:\RecoveryDVD>dir
 Directory of S:\RecoveryDVD
10/08/2015  07:00       460,532,378 BASE.SWM
10/08/2015  06:59       566,695,110 BASE10.SWM
10/08/2015  06:58       587,135,296 BASE11.SWM
10/08/2015  06:58       574,751,659 BASE12.SWM
10/08/2015  06:58       585,694,920 BASE13.SWM
10/08/2015  06:58       629,146,763 BASE14.SWM
10/08/2015  06:58       465,753,958 BASE15.SWM
10/08/2015  06:58       624,283,246 BASE16.SWM
10/08/2015  06:57       628,665,836 BASE17.SWM
10/08/2015  06:57       628,663,870 BASE18.SWM
10/08/2015  06:57       629,007,320 BASE19.SWM
10/08/2015  07:00       626,558,027 BASE2.SWM
10/08/2015  06:57       628,827,027 BASE20.SWM
10/08/2015  06:57       415,455,700 BASE21.SWM
10/08/2015  07:00       627,127,385 BASE3.SWM
10/08/2015  07:00       627,381,378 BASE4.SWM
10/08/2015  06:59       588,424,765 BASE5.SWM
10/08/2015  06:59       598,108,442 BASE6.SWM
10/08/2015  06:59       488,957,794 BASE7.SWM
10/08/2015  06:59       440,187,915 BASE8.SWM
10/08/2015  06:59       629,047,192 BASE9.SWM