Hard drive crashed and have no recovery disk

[SmokieT]

So my neice called me a few days ago and asked if I could stop over and chek her computer out.   When trying to start the pc she was getting a no bootable device found.  After doing the usual troubleshooting and a few unusual ones, I concluded the drive is dead.  The PC is past warrenty so I ahve ordered a new hard drive for her but there is still one small problem.  She has no backup disks.  She doesn't think it came with any disks and with a dead drive, the recovery partition is out of reach. Does HP have any options to help her out in a situation like this such as downloading or ordering the original set up files? 

Another thing she is concerned about is her personal files.  Pictures, saved games, other documents.  Does anyone have any crazy tricks for recovering files from a dead disk?  I pulled it from the PC and installed it in an external enclosure and tried a couple different pc's with Windows and 1 with Linux and nothing. 

[erico · Accepted solution]

From the specifications for her notebook:

HP Recovery Manager: Recover, restore, and create recovery media for, your PC.; HP Launch Box: Group key apps in the taskbar for fast launch and customize your own.

It was delivered from the factory with the ability to create recovery media. Unfortunately, she did not create any or forgot to do it.

HP does not provide downloadable recovery media. If the hard disk crashed, recovery solutions are usually quite specialized and expensive. The cost of professional recovery would exceed the value of her notebook from even when it was a new product in the box.

Normally, I would suggest using Computersurgeons.com. Unfortunately, they do not sell recovery media for her notebook.

Because the notebook is past the three-year release to market point, HP no longer sells or stocks recovery media for her notebook.

If the twenty-five character license key for the operating system is still visible on the Microsoft certificate of authenticity, you may be able to use a downloadable ISO from Microsoft to reinstall Windows 7. Use the following Microsoft link.

Use the following Microsoft link.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows7

Recovering files from a crashed disk:

Take a read of the following article. There is no success guarantee. That is why I have a NAS on my home network for the three of us.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/how-to/a3086/hard-drive-recovery/

[lasvegaswireman]

Computer Surgeons does indeed have Recovery Media available for the HP 2000-369WM /
QE339UA#ABA. Please see Windows 7 64B Recovery Kit 667564-001 For HP Notebook PC Model Number 2000-369WM to order this media from Computer Surgeons.

If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

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[SmokieT]

Thanks for the reply.  I have the Windows 7 ISO downloading now and her new drive should be in Tuesday morning so she will be up and running again soon.  Hopefully she learned her lesson and knows why backups are a good idea. 

[erico]

@lasvegaswireman

I have no idea why it was when I checked yesterday, that Computersurgeons.com search reported 0 results.

@SmokieT

The link that @lasvegaswireman posted is really a great idea for $27.00. It doesn't get any cheaper. All of the required drivers for the notebook are also included.

http://www.computersurgeons.com/p-22037-windows-7-64b-recovery-kit-667564-001-for-hp-notebook-pc-mod...

[lasvegaswireman]

@erico,

I initially tried the search with "HP 2000-369wm" and "HP2000-369wm" but came up with nothing... Then tried it with just "2000-369wm" and it came up with the result. I guess the way the search parses the data is at fault.

If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

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[erico]

@lasvegaswireman

Yes. Pretty weird.