Problem with system recovery and HP Pavillion 700

[Who Cares]

Ok weird stuff going on here but I came home from work and my computer
says on the screen "please insert the windows disk ....or some such. "
Computer was running Windows XP home. I shut it down and now all it
does when I boot it up is I get a blank screen with a blinking curser
in the top left of the screen. I tried the F10 deal upon booting, got
the system recovery menu and chose to get it to boot into windows to
do the system resore, no suck luck, still got the blinking curser. I
shut down, hit F10 again upon startup, and got into the HP PC system
recovery menu again, this time I chose to do a HP sytem recovery. All
it did is gave a error message after a minute or so saying "cannot
format user partition!" "System recovery cannot continue!" Any ideas
how to get this up and running? Note - the computer did not come (new)
with a recovery or windows xp disk. Any help with this much
appreciated - WC

[terry_b17]

call hp customer care at 208-323-2551 . they should be able to ship
you a recovery set .
good luck,
terry

[Just mee]

It sounds to me like you probably have a harddrive failure... Is the
computer out of warranty? You will need to get a set of recovery
disks from HP, and if the computer is out of warranty, you will most
likely have to buy a new harddrive, and have it tatooed to accept the
recovery disks...

My .02 cents..

JM

On 30 Jan 2004 22:25:38 -0800, itreallydoesntmatter2003@yahoo.com (Who
Cares) wrote:
Ok weird stuff going on here but I came home from work and my computersays on the screen "please insert the windows disk ....or some such. "Computer was running Windows XP home. I shut it down and now all itdoes when I boot it up is I get a blank screen with a blinking curserin the top left of the screen. I tried the F10 deal upon booting, gotthe system recovery menu and chose to get it to boot into windows todo the system resore, no suck luck, still got the blinking curser. Ishut down, hit F10 again upon startup, and got into the HP PC systemrecovery menu again, this time I chose to do a HP sytem recovery. Allit did is gave a error message after a minute or so saying "cannotformat user partition!" "System recovery cannot continue!" Any ideashow to get this up and running? Note - the computer did not come (new)with a recovery or windows xp disk. Any help with this muchappreciated - WC

[Who Cares]

Ok I tried a couple things tonight. I got the 6 floppy set of boot
disks for windows xp and booted it up. I then hit r to do a resore.
Then typed in bootcfg /rebuild, it failed then asked me to do a
chkdsk, tried that and failed also, then i tried the bootcfg /rebuild
again, and again failed. I then typed in fixboot and that worked
...kinda. It booted up and I got a screen saying "NTLDR missing, please
reboot" etc. I then tried the resore that comes with HP , and it got
so far then a box would keep coming up "cant open XXXXX.hlp" etc etc
on about every file. SOOOOOOO now what ? I have no Xp disks or Resore
CDs. Where can I get the missing NTLDR file? Ballpark how much does HP
charge for thier restore Cds? and are those restore Cds any good?
Note about the drive...it hasnt failed that Im aware of, i can hear it
spin up when I start the computer...... I do believe all this trash
happened because it has NEVER been scandisked or defraged... ever, and
it has been in operation for the past 14 months. Any help much
appreciated - WC






Just mee <me@mydomain.net.invalid> wrote in message news:<c7c087f20fced3b9da33c32311748349@news.teranews.com>... It sounds to me like you probably have a harddrive failure... Is the computer out of warranty? You will need to get a set of recovery disks from HP, and if the computer is out of warranty, you will most likely have to buy a new harddrive, and have it tatooed to accept the recovery disks... My .02 cents.. JM On 30 Jan 2004 22:25:38 -0800, itreallydoesntmatter2003@yahoo.com (Who Cares) wrote:Ok weird stuff going on here but I came home from work and my computersays on the screen "please insert the windows disk ....or some such. "Computer was running Windows XP home. I shut it down and now all itdoes when I boot it up is I get a blank screen with a blinking curserin the top left of the screen. I tried the F10 deal upon booting, gotthe system recovery menu and chose to get it to boot into windows todo the system resore, no suck luck, still got the blinking curser. Ishut down, hit F10 again upon startup, and got into the HP PC systemrecovery menu again, this time I chose to do a HP sytem recovery. Allit did is gave a error message after a minute or so saying "cannotformat user partition!" "System recovery cannot continue!" Any ideashow to get this up and running? Note - the computer did not come (new)with a recovery or windows xp disk. Any help with this muchappreciated - WC

[Quaoar]

Who Cares wrote: Ok I tried a couple things tonight. I got the 6 floppy set of boot disks for windows xp and booted it up. I then hit r to do a resore. Then typed in bootcfg /rebuild, it failed then asked me to do a chkdsk, tried that and failed also, then i tried the bootcfg /rebuild again, and again failed. I then typed in fixboot and that worked ..kinda. It booted up and I got a screen saying "NTLDR missing, please reboot" etc. I then tried the resore that comes with HP , and it got so far then a box would keep coming up "cant open XXXXX.hlp" etc etc on about every file. SOOOOOOO now what ? I have no Xp disks or Resore CDs. Where can I get the missing NTLDR file? Ballpark how much does HP charge for thier restore Cds? and are those restore Cds any good? Note about the drive...it hasnt failed that Im aware of, i can hear it spin up when I start the computer...... I do believe all this trash happened because it has NEVER been scandisked or defraged... ever, and it has been in operation for the past 14 months. Any help much appreciated - WC Just mee <me@mydomain.net.invalid> wrote in message news:<c7c087f20fced3b9da33c32311748349@news.teranews.com>... It sounds to me like you probably have a harddrive failure... Is the computer out of warranty? You will need to get a set of recovery disks from HP, and if the computer is out of warranty, you will most likely have to buy a new harddrive, and have it tatooed to accept the recovery disks... My .02 cents.. JM On 30 Jan 2004 22:25:38 -0800, itreallydoesntmatter2003@yahoo.com (Who Cares) wrote: Ok weird stuff going on here but I came home from work and my computer says on the screen "please insert the windows disk ....or some such. " Computer was running Windows XP home. I shut it down and now all it does when I boot it up is I get a blank screen with a blinking curser in the top left of the screen. I tried the F10 deal upon booting, got the system recovery menu and chose to get it to boot into windows to do the system resore, no suck luck, still got the blinking curser. I shut down, hit F10 again upon startup, and got into the HP PC system recovery menu again, this time I chose to do a HP sytem recovery. All it did is gave a error message after a minute or so saying "cannot format user partition!" "System recovery cannot continue!" Any ideas how to get this up and running? Note - the computer did not come (new) with a recovery or windows xp disk. Any help with this much appreciated - WC

I am convinced that your HD is gone. If chkdsk won't work, that about
sums it up for me. If this HD has not be repartitioned or formatted
since purchase and the HP recovery cannot access the HD image recovery,
then the disk has likely failed. About the only thing that might help
is to try rebuilding the master boot record, but you can't even get
chkdsk to acknowledge the HD so I doubt that will work. You can review
some of these options by Google: fdisk /mbr.

Q

[Ben Myers]

You must have access to an internet connection thru another computer, else you
wouldn't be able to post a message here. Open up the chassis of your computer,
and determine which company manufactured the drive: Maxtor, Western Digital,
Seagate, or other. The drive is probably a Maxtor, now with the reputation for
drives with a non-trivial failure rate, and favored by HP for its low cost. Go
to the web site of the drive manufacturer, download the manufacturer's utility
software to run diagnostic tests on the drive. The manufacturer's diagnostics
give the final answer as to a drive's health, far better than anything Microsoft
has cobbled together and unencumbered by layers and layers of Windows software.

You will need to prepare a bootable floppy diskette from whatever you download,
following the usually clear instructions for doing so.

But it does seem as though the hard drive has failed from what you've described
thus far... Ben Myers

On 30 Jan 2004 22:25:38 -0800, itreallydoesntmatter2003@yahoo.com (Who Cares)
wrote:
Ok weird stuff going on here but I came home from work and my computersays on the screen "please insert the windows disk ....or some such. "Computer was running Windows XP home. I shut it down and now all itdoes when I boot it up is I get a blank screen with a blinking curserin the top left of the screen. I tried the F10 deal upon booting, gotthe system recovery menu and chose to get it to boot into windows todo the system resore, no suck luck, still got the blinking curser. Ishut down, hit F10 again upon startup, and got into the HP PC systemrecovery menu again, this time I chose to do a HP sytem recovery. Allit did is gave a error message after a minute or so saying "cannotformat user partition!" "System recovery cannot continue!" Any ideashow to get this up and running? Note - the computer did not come (new)with a recovery or windows xp disk. Any help with this muchappreciated - WC

[Who Cares]

Ok, say if the HD IS gone, how hard would it be to install the HP
restore disks on a new hard drive? Any "tricks" I have to do to get
the new hard drive to accept the HP Restore CDs?



I am convinced that your HD is gone. If chkdsk won't work, that about sums it up for me. If this HD has not be repartitioned or formatted since purchase and the HP recovery cannot access the HD image recovery, then the disk has likely failed. About the only thing that might help is to try rebuilding the master boot record, but you can't even get chkdsk to acknowledge the HD so I doubt that will work. You can review some of these options by Google: fdisk /mbr. Q

[Roy Smith]

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Who Cares wrote:

|Ok, say if the HD IS gone, how hard would it be to install the HP
|restore disks on a new hard drive? Any "tricks" I have to do to get
|the new hard drive to accept the HP Restore CDs?
|
|>I am convinced that your HD is gone. If chkdsk won't work, that about
|>sums it up for me. If this HD has not be repartitioned or formatted
|>since purchase and the HP recovery cannot access the HD image recovery,
|>then the disk has likely failed. About the only thing that might help
|>is to try rebuilding the master boot record, but you can't even get
|>chkdsk to acknowledge the HD so I doubt that will work. You can review
|>some of these options by Google: fdisk /mbr.
|>
|>Q

If I'm not mistaken, you should be able to replace the hard drive with
any make and size drive you desire. The restore CD's look at other
things (such as BIOS, etc) to determine if you're trying to use them on
a HP PC or not.


- -=-=-
.... A day without sunshine is...NIGHT!
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[Just mee]

In order to use the system restore disks, the replacement hard drive
must be at least as large in storage capicity as the original.. That
is the only stipulation I know of..

JM

On Sun, 08 Feb 2004 08:14:29 -0600, Roy Smith
<rasmith1959@charter.net> wrote:
If I'm not mistaken, you should be able to replace the hard drive withany make and size drive you desire. The restore CD's look at otherthings (such as BIOS, etc) to determine if you're trying to use them ona HP PC or not.