Electronically Assigned Recovery Media

[JulianASmith]

Greetings H-P Forum Community Members, 

I have two questions regarding system recovery media and system hardware changes/upgrades.   I would like to change the original motherboard in my H-P Pavilion Dv7 for a different H-P motherboard that is completely compatible  with my Pavilion but which has superior graphics hardware.  However, I have heard that my original recovery media—which consists of five recovery CD’s, created when my Pavilion was first purchased—won’t  work with any other motherboard, even if that board is compatible with the rest of the system.  My questions are:  (a) Is it correct that the recovery software is “electronically assigned” to only one motherboard, and  (b)  If one set of recovery media will only work with one particular motherboard—is there any workaround for this issue?  Thanks Forum Community.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

That is correct.

The recovery media will detect that it is being installed on a different model motherboard and not work but I suppose that you have nothing to lose by trying it in the outside chance it will work.

A workaround would be to clean install Windows 7 if you can still read the W7 product key on the PC's case but if you had upgraded the old motherboard to W10, you can't do a free upgrade from W7>W10 anymore.