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Drive format, OS maintain

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12 replies

by jasminder2

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Is there a way to format my hard drive, keep the XP Home ED OS, and only remove the files on my drive? I'd like to get my HP Pavillion computer back to the same condition it was when it was fresh out of the box. The XP OS was partitioned on the drive, so I have no copy of XP.

12 replies

by titssni

Contact HP for a restore CD. They should be able to send you one. It will bring you right back to the original factory state.

The Suite

by jamesrl

....To boot from the "hidden" partition.
Hit F10 on startup and you should be able to boot from that partition and bring your PC back to factory spec.

James

by philipnewton

When using the hidden partition, is either the original CD or key needed? I was also looking at re-imaging my drive but cannot locate the original CD or Key. Thanks.

by jamesrl

I have the key on the tag on the side of my computer, but never had to refer to it. I suspect that if your computer is relatively recent, you never got a CD - HP didn't ship them.

James

by mommiegeek

I'm going to agree with the other replies. You can get a restore CD from HP or you can fire up the "hidden" boot. This means you will lose all your files (pictures, music, downloads, emails, documents) that are saved on your hard drive unless you back them up first. But this will produce a computer that is "fresh out of the box."

by jamesrl

There are two options in the HP system restore, at least the one on the hidden partition, one is to do a repair(reinstall OS) and the other is to format the drive and start again with a clean install. I highly recommend the later option.

James

by philipnewton

I did receive a CD with a key but cannot locate them. The model is a 520n. I initialized the F10-Restore program (without proceeding) and noticed it had steps where it would request a disk swap. Do you know if it's possible to get another CD and my original key from HP? Can the key be extracted from the registry? THanks.

by dbucyk

If it is a recovery CD, then just do a system restore. Simply, just if you know when the files you have saved on the computer were saved, then just search your computer and narrow the field to the dates to which the computer had saved them.

by bagmaster50

Newer HP computers come with a hidden non-dos partition that maintains all the files for the OS.
Try pressing the F10 key to access the system recovery. You have a choice between a partial which allows keeping of files and documents or a Full destructive recovery that restores the drive to "new out of the box" condition. The documents that you recieved with the computer should explain how to do this if you kept the documents. Either method will require doing all window updates again.

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