How do I create recovery discs on a Compaq 615

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I am trying to create recovery discs on a Compaq 615 running Windows 7, but I can not find the Recovery Manager that is supposed to be used for this purpose. See this official page for reference. It is a Swedish laptop, so most programs have Swedish names, but there is nothing even resembling "Recovery Manager".

There is a recovery partition, but I can not find anything useful there. How do I create recovery disks in this situation?

Peter Jaric

Posted 2010-09-25T20:49:38.487

Reputation: 1 756

Was Windows 7 the original OS? The Compaq 615 overview on HP's website only lists XP and Vista. The US/worldwide QuickSpec pages include Win7, but the Europe QuickSpec page does not. If HP didn't install Windows 7, their Recovery Manager won't be available.

– Velociraptors – 2010-09-25T21:08:49.977

But lots of other HP programs are installed. The laptop came preinstalled with Windows 7. There's even a sticker saying "Windows 7". – Peter Jaric – 2010-09-26T05:57:23.707

Maybe you can access the boot partition before loading windows via the boot device menu. – Diskilla – 2010-09-28T09:51:57.907

By pressing F11 (or some other F-key) I can get into the recovery partition, but as far as I could see that only gave me the option to recover the system, i.e. wipe it, and not to create recovery disks. Have they replaced the recovery disks with that? – Peter Jaric – 2010-09-28T10:17:59.560

Answers

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The HP Recovery Disc restores you computer to its initial state, erasing any changes and all of your data. It's really only to be used only in case of absolute necessity. Only one copy of the recovery disk can be created, so your first attempt to create it must succeed.

In English, the Start menu entry is called something like HP Backup and Recovery Manager. If you enter "HP" you should find it in the list. Another possible name is the "PC Help and Tools" menu group. If you still can't find it, go to C:\Program Files (or whatever it is in Swedish) and search for a directory whose name starts with "HP" and may look similar to one of the above names, where you can find this program.

The Windows 7 Recovery Disk is much less destructive and can recover some computer errors. It's best to have both discs, just in case.

From Create a system recovery disk in Windows 7 :

  • In Control Panel, click System and Security, and then click Backup and Restore
  • In the left pane, click Create a system recovery disk
  • Insert a blank CD in the DVD, and then click Create Disk.

image

harrymc

Posted 2010-09-25T20:49:38.487

Reputation: 306 093

Are you saying that HP has discontinued their Recovery Manager in Windows 7 since there is a Microsoft version bundled with Windows? But what's up with the page I linked to then? In the screenshots on that page there is an HP logo. – Peter Jaric – 2010-09-28T18:06:06.150

@Peter Jaric: If you want to have both the HP & Windows recovery disks (although that of HP doesn't "recover" but rather destroys), I have added more stuff to the beginning of the answer. – harrymc – 2010-09-29T13:44:01.633

Ah, this is starting to make sense :) – Peter Jaric – 2010-09-30T18:25:21.520

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Usually, you can create recovery disks of your system with a CD/DVD provided with the laptop. I mean should have got a disk when you bought the laptop. But this is not a general rule, so if you don't have a disk for "Recovery Manager" probably HP/Compaq thought that you don't need one. This usually happens when you have that recovery partition, so you don't need a recovery manager to do a recovery disk for yourself.

However, Windows 7 install disk may have an option for creating for you a recovery disk, I don't know for sure, if you have a Windows 7 install DVD, try to boot from it and see if you have an option.

Patkos Csaba

Posted 2010-09-25T20:49:38.487

Reputation: 1 542

Sorry, but I need a far more detailed answer than that... – Peter Jaric – 2010-09-28T16:20:57.707

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Search your hard drive for "CDCreator.exe" then execute it.

It may be found here C:\Program Files (x86)\Hewlett-Packard\Recovery

If it is not on your hard drive then you cannot create the discs.

You can download and attempt installation of Recovery manager.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareDownloadIndex?softwareitem=ob-75985-1&cc=us&lc=en&dlc=en

If this does not work, order a set of recovery discs http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c00810334&cc=us&lc=en&dlc=en

If HP cannot supply them, then contact this company http://www.computersurgeons.com/Default.aspx

.

Moab

Posted 2010-09-25T20:49:38.487

Reputation: 54 203

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Try looking inside the recovery partition. It's possible that it has been wiped out.

Furthermore, the site you linked to (http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?lc=en&dlc=&cc=us&docname=c01867124) refers to Windows 7. A previous poster noted that the laptop did not originally have Windows 7 so the instructions on that page do not apply to you.

I suggest following the steps outlined by harrymc and outlined in detail at http://forums.techarena.in/guides-tutorials/1114725.htm.

Zian Choy

Posted 2010-09-25T20:49:38.487

Reputation: 1 394

As I noted in my answer to that poster, it did come with Windows 7 preinstalled from HP. There is no doubt about that. – Peter Jaric – 2010-09-30T18:26:42.327

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Is this a new laptop? Sometimes when you buy a new laptop, the place you buy it from will advertise services for your new laptop like "removing unnecessary software" and "software optimization". If you accepted these services, they may have deleted the link to the recovery manager or the executable itself in order to "serve your needs". You can check the recycle bin for the link. Also look around in c:/Program Files and c:/Program Files(x86) for anything that relates to HP or Compaq. The recovery manager executable might still be lying somewhere in there. You might also like to try recuva to see if it was deleted from the recycle bin (and still recoverable).

If it is completely gone, I would recommend doing a disk image backup with something like Acronis, Macrium Reflect, Norton Ghost, or CloneZilla.

James T

Posted 2010-09-25T20:49:38.487

Reputation: 8 515