Recovery partitions

[jmt356]

What are Recovery partitions on laptops? Are they the same as recovery cds? In other words, rather than making recovery cds each time I buy a new computer, can I simply boot up to the D drive (recovery drive) if my hard drive crashes?

[HansV]

It's similar, but since it is a partition on your hard disk, not a separate disk, it won't work if the hard disk containing the recovery partition crashes. So it's still a good idea to create a set of separate recovery disks.

[jmt356]

What if the hard drive did not crash and all of the hardware is in good condition, but I made a software change that is preventing booting up? Is it possible to tell DOS to boot up from the D partition? Among the files contained on the D drive are Boot / hp / preload / Recovery.

[HansV]

You have to press a key during startup to get into the boot menu. I think it's the F11 function key for HP laptops.
One of the options in the boot menu is to boot into the recovery partition.

[StuartR]

I think it might be the F10 key to get to the HP boot partition

[HansV]

Thanks, Stuart.

[jmt356]

F9 gives me the option to boot from the Notebook Hard Drive / Internal CD/DVD Rom Drive or external USB hard drive. It does not give the option to boot from the D drive.

F10 gets me to the Windows Boot Manager, which tells me that “the boot selection failed because a required device is inaccessible.”

F11 takes me to System recovery, but all I get are some white hyphens quickly moving across the bottom of a black screen.

[HansV]

Sorry, I can't help you with this. I hope someone else will have a suggestion for you.

[viking33]

Sorry, I can't help you with this. I hope someone else will have a suggestion for you.

Like the HP tech support line?
Have you tried to contact them at all?

[jmt356]

My laptop is out of warranty, but I was able to fix this by simply restoring the whole image (all disk partitions) to the new hard drive simultaneously. I think what was causing the problem was that when I was restoring each disk (partition) individually, I was not correctly selecting whether each one is primary, active or logical under the Acronis settings. But when restoring the entire image to the new hard drive (i.e., by overwriting anything on the old hard drive), Acronis did not ask me about primary, active and logical drives so whatever I may have been entering incorrectly was no longer an issue.

[viking33]

My laptop is out of warranty, but I was able to fix this by simply restoring the whole image (all disk partitions) to the new hard drive simultaneously. I think what was causing the problem was that when I was restoring each disk (partition) individually, I was not correctly selecting whether each one is primary, active or logical under the Acronis settings. But when restoring the entire image to the new hard drive (i.e., by overwriting anything on the old hard drive), Acronis did not ask me about primary, active and logical drives so whatever I may have been entering incorrectly was no longer an issue.

Did you make one huge image of the entire HD or make individual images of each partition? Restoring a partition, blows away that old partition and creates a new partition.
Also, even if your warranty has expired, you can still contact the manufacturer to ask questions and for help. They won't supply new hardware at no cost, but will still assist you.

[jmt356]

I made one huge image of the entire HD, which included 4 partitions (C, D, E, F). Restoring via a partition-by-partition approach did not work (my computer did not boot up), but restoring the entire hard drive in one shot did.

I believe HP charges something like $30 per episode for out-of-warranty technical support. For another $25 I could buy a new hard drive.

In any case, the problem was fixed when I restored the entire clone at once (rather than partition by partition) to the new hard drive.