damnyank

First of all - if this is a dumb question to all the XP-erts here -
I am sorry for being so stupid!

I continue to see folks talking about the "XP CD".

Well, I have an HP 750n and XP came as OEM on it - and as most(?) of you know - HP in their infinite wisdom does not provide a Recovery CD with the system.

They have System Recovery pre-loaded on a hidden partition on the hard drive.

"Windows XP can be recovered by running the recovery program available in Window's system tools, or by pressing the F10 key repeatedly when the computer starts up."

Then they go on to talk about ordering a Recovery CD:

"A system recovery from the hard drive may not be possible in some circumstances. A recovery CD set is needed for the following three reasons:

The computer's hard drive has failed
The computer's had drive has been upgraded
The computer's hard drive has been formatted or re- partitioned."

Then they throw in a "NOTE: When you run the Recovery CD set, the hard drive will be re-formatted. Any files or new software that you have saved or installed on the computer will be removed."

Okay - people talk about using various functions on the XP CD - like this option and that option and this and that choice.

Where do I stand with my " recovery program" in my "hidden partition"?

What I am afraid of is not being able to correlate this OEM "hidden partition recovery" to what is suggested on this forum!

Hopefully this will make sense to someone and I can get an answer.

Overall I guess the bottom line is - do I need to purchase a Recovery CD Set from HP - the $9.95 they rip you off for it is not a problem - the question is - is this (Recovery CD from HP) the XP CD ya'll are talking about???

Lonman

No, it's an image file of your hard drive. The way you have your computer set up when you first got it home is the way it will be restored. You can't run a 'regular' installation.

damnyank

Excuse my ignorance - is that good or bad??

Does that mean I do not and never will have the same options as with the "XP CD"??

Iceman

The Recovery CD from HP is not the same thing as the XP CD we are talking about.

your Recovery CD from HP probably has a copy of XP on it, and then it has all those nice liitle features from HP (biting tongue hard).

If I owned that machine, I would be very worried about your chances of recovery anything.

my opinion

damnyank

So what options are available to me???

I guess Norton's Ghost or something similiar used on a daily basis??

Iceman

I would make regular back ups on a weekly basis, no u don't need to back up everything.

Programs u already have a cd for this
XP u have a cd for this or can get one from HP

the only things I would back up would be Word documents, address books, things that have changed, favorites or bookmarks stuff like that u don't need to backup programs unless u don't have a cd for them like freeware or shareware, those u want to backup or make a copy of it.
any regular CD-rw software will do this u don't need Ghost, just make copies on CD-R Media don't waste your time with CD-RW media.

Lonman

Are you happy with what you have? Then it's good. Do you know what you're missing? Then it's bad. For me it would be a bad thing and i'd never buy a system that only came with restoration disks/partition unless i consciously made the decision to do so. Personally, I think it's a rip-off because new users don't really know what they're not getting. You won't see many experienced users buying a system that doesn't provide each of the software titles on their own cds.

To get back to your original question, you'd have a difficult time upgrading say your motherboard or your hard drive... as long as you leave those two alone you should be fine.

damnyank

Lonman - thanks for your honesty - I don't think I was "taken" because I was not smart enuf to know the difference - certainly my in XP-erience showed thru - did it not?? Am I happy with what I got? - sorta - it hasn't blue screened in over 4 months (knock on wood) - and I really do not want to get into the upgrading of the motherboard or the HD - I wouldn't know what I was doing anyway! I am a rookie - but learning (trying to) all the time! I guess this was an expensive mistake!

Iceman 38 Thanx for your advise on the "work around" for my situation - also agree CD-RW is a waste - I'll CD-R thru NERO.

Thankx again for all the help - I got the answers I was afraid I would get and now it's just chin up and press on and hope for the best!

I really do appreciate all the honesty on this forum - I believe in calling a "screw-up"a "screw-up" and I guess this was well beyond an "oops"!!