Help with HP System Recovery partition

[Rexter]

I will try and cut this short:

So i have this HP pavilion DV5-1987 laptop, that came with windows vista home premium 32bit. A couple of months later i installed a 64bit version, and about a week ago i installed Windows 7 x64 RTM. Both installations was a fresh install on the C partition, leaving the recovery partition intact and alone.
Now i have regrettet and want the original os to be reinstalled. But it doesnt work.
The bios options does nothing, i press ESC to get to boot options, choose F11 for boot to recovery partition, and it goes straight to windows 7.
i search the internet for options and try these suggestions:
Mark drive D as active partition (the rec partition). it still boots to win 7.
boot to super grub from a boot cd, and press "AUTO MAGIC BOOTER" (something like that). it then shows me two identical "vista boot loader" to choose from, and both goes into win 7, and a third (other OS) that gives me and error and returns to grub loader.

there a several other suggestions but either they wont work in my scenario or are another iteration of what i have already tried.

So uh... help? please? if you need anymore information please ask.

 

[BroBQ]

do you have a Windows.OLD folder on the C: drive?

 

[Rexter]

do you have a Windows.OLD folder on the C: drive?

No, both with the x64 vista installation, and the win 7 installation, the C drive was completly formatted.

 

[BroBQ]

Is the recovery partition still there?

 

[Rexter]

Is the recovery partition still there?

Yup, like i said, ive done my best to not touch it, and it appears as D: in windows 7, and the OS' before it.

 

[BroBQ]

you can use HP Recovery Manager from within your current install of Windows

 

[Rexter]

you can use HP Recovery Manager from within your current install of Windows

On the D drive there is only one file and one folder ""something".bak"(forgot its name) and "RECOVERY" folder thats empty. Though the partition is 10gb large, there is only 1,7gb free. Even with "show hidden folders enabled" i cant see any of the files.

 

[BroBQ]

Well, if you don't have the HP recovery manage, then you can't restore that. Do you have any of the recvoery utils CD that should have come with the laptop?

 

[Rexter]

There werent any cd's supplied with the laptop when i bought it, thats the point of a recovery partition. There are som files on the partition, there only one file and one file, that takes up 168kb of space, yet the partition uses 8,3 gb.
After having read many forums about people who has done the same as me, several managed to boot into the recovery partition, its just that i wont work for me. Im wondering if its windows 7's fault.

 

[BroBQ]

Maybe you can see if this helps... or someone else has any ideas...

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...cc=us&product=18703&dlc=en&docname=c00809678#

I do know that you need the HP recovery manager to recovery the backup

 

[Rexter]

Maybe you can see if this helps... or someone else has any ideas...

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...cc=us&product=18703&dlc=en&docname=c00809678#

I do know that you need the HP recovery manager to recovery the backup

Already looked though that, nothing of use, thanks for the help though

I found this http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsuppor...61280-2&prodTypeId=321957&prodSeriesId=471753 which looks promising, downloading as of writing, so hopefully it will work. Though i somehow doubt it.

 

[jaydeejohn]

Should have been an option for burning a tools and recovery cd. It only restores to a given point, but you should have burned them

 

[Rexter]

Should have been an option for burning a tools and recovery cd. It only restores to a given point, but you should have burned them

yeah, i really regret that now typical me. Well, im the kind of guy who reads the manual AFTER the device broke.

EDIT

So installed hp recovery program, it works, but it says there arent any recovery partitions and asks for the cd's. Need to find a way for the program to look at the D: partition.

 

[jaydeejohn]

Order one from HP for your model, thats about maybe it at this point

 

[BroBQ]

well the recovery partition is meant to be burned to cds with the HP recovery manage...

 

[Rexter]

dangit... why cant i boot into the recovery partition? ive tried all the tricks i could find. And by using total commanders function of diplaying ALL files, the D drive is full of files, so theres no way its been deleted.

EDIT

This thread has most of the tricks to boot into the recovery partition: http://www.vistax64.com/vista-general/149723-need-recover-boot-options-hp-laptop-recovery.html

should give an idea of the options