NotebookForums.com › Forums › Notebook Manufacturers › HP, Compaq and Voodoo Notebook Forums › HP, Compaq and Voodoo Notebooks › How to do a FRESH XP install, make your OWN recovery partition.
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

How to do a FRESH XP install, make your OWN recovery partition.

post #1 of 5
5/24/06 at 7:35pm
Thread Starter 
How to do a FRESH XP install, make your OWN recovery partition.


Gentlemen / Ladies,

As shipped Hp laptops come with a "Recovery" partition. What allot of you may not know is that you can make your own recovery partition, either disc's... Or via a hidden partition on the hard drive itself, just like HP does.

Imagine a fresh install, drivers, firewall installed... all your favorite apps... ALL installed, configured the way YOU like them..... on a partition on the hard drive, just like HP...

My question is this... By using programs such as Acronis True Image, you can create your own recovery partition on the disc. (I would assume this is possible with other "imaging" programs as well such as Ghost 2003 v 8.3.)

What I'm interested in hearing is HOW the HP partition is set-up... If anyone has an idea on what program they use to enable access to the recovery partition by pressing the F11 key.

What I'd like to do is to create my own version of the "recovery" partition, Fresh install, all patches, drivers, apps installed configured... and be able to access them with the F11 key (Or some other key press)..... To be able to restore the hd directly from the hd.... NO disc, or program required.


Anyone here used Acronis True Image? Used this feature? Know of what program HP uses that allows access to the recovery partition via the F11 key?
Reply
Reply
post #2 of 5
5/24/06 at 10:49pm
http://www.notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=149197
Reply
Reply
post #3 of 5
5/25/06 at 2:57am
Thread Starter 
Thanks!... Interesting reading.... I'm wondering if a stripped down version of GHOST 2003 , v 8.3 would apply to HP laptops as well.

I just got thru installing XP PRO +apps, used Arconis to make a recovery partition on the hd via their recovery manager.... a prompt comes up just before the XP OS loads saying to press F11 to run the recovery process... Haven't tried it... but it appears it "should" work.

Would be nice to know if HP uses a stripped down version of GHOST as Arconis "adds", or added some info to the MBR


http://www.notebookforums.com/showpo...9&postcount=21

Quote:
Originally Posted by PcGeek04
I believe the problem is with Symantec vs. Acronis images. THe pointers in the acronis images are not compatible with the symantec versions of the .gho files. THe System Restore feature DELL uses is a stripped down version of Ghost.

THis is what i have come up with but I have not done extensive research into it. If you find out a way to get Acronis TI to work please let us know and PM me as well. that would be a bonus for alot of folks i imagine.
Reply
Reply
post #4 of 5
5/25/06 at 7:06am
The Acronis F11 is not like a HP recovery partition!

Acronis use a partition called secure Zone (SZ) which is a Linux source and protected from access by windows but can be seen if booted using linux, (Acronis Boot Disk or F11) it is the repository Acronis use to store images mirrored from your HDD this can be a single partition, many partitions or the entire HDD, To recover the entire HDD together with the SZ would be interesting.... normally you would put the SZ on a external USB HDD or second drive if in your computer.

HP's F11 which will conflict with Acronis F11 as they both modify the MBR will allow a number of things to happen... a destructive restore which formats the HDD then reloads the drive to factory condition.

A repair which is like using a windows CD for an install repair function where the OS will repair its self to a level of the OS installed ie SP1 or SP2 then you have to do the updates up until that point of time, some of your loaded applications may survive this repair some may not.

Reloading of HP's programs and removal of the recovery partition if you want..

The advantage to use Acronis is that you load everything back including all your programs to an operational system with only the time from event to backup missing.

The disadvantage is that if ever the backup becomes corrupted for any reason your screwed because your HP recovery partition is gone.

So yes you can delete the HP partition and just use Acronis, but if you ever need the OS for some reason your screwed unless you have miorrored the entire drive which is time consuming.

Also HP now Tattoo their drives with some data, this is why you can only ever make 1 set of recovery disks and that if you alter the size of the recovery partition it will no longer work. And..... dare I say QP2!

Anyway whatever course of action you take good luck... personally I have both
Reply
Reply
post #5 of 5
5/25/06 at 12:41pm
Thread Starter 
2006-05-25
Quote:
Originally Posted by djmorgan
The Acronis F11 is not like a HP recovery partition!

Acronis use a partition called secure Zone (SZ) which is a Linux source and protected from access by windows but can be seen if booted using linux, (Acronis Boot Disk or F11) it is the repository Acronis use to store images mirrored from your HDD this can be a single partition, many partitions or the entire HDD, To recover the entire HDD together with the SZ would be interesting.... normally you would put the SZ on a external USB HDD or second drive if in your computer.

HP's F11 which will conflict with Acronis F11 as they both modify the MBR will allow a number of things to happen... a destructive restore which formats the HDD then reloads the drive to factory condition.

A repair which is like using a windows CD for an install repair function where the OS will repair its self to a level of the OS installed ie SP1 or SP2 then you have to do the updates up until that point of time, some of your loaded applications may survive this repair some may not.

Reloading of HP's programs and removal of the recovery partition if you want..

The advantage to use Acronis is that you load everything back including all your programs to an operational system with only the time from event to backup missing.

The disadvantage is that if ever the backup becomes corrupted for any reason your screwed because your HP recovery partition is gone.

So yes you can delete the HP partition and just use Acronis, but if you ever need the OS for some reason your screwed unless you have mirrored the entire drive which is time consuming.

Also HP now Tattoo their drives with some data, this is why you can only ever make 1 set of recovery disks and that if you alter the size of the recovery partition it will no longer work. And..... dare I say QP2!

Anyway whatever course of action you take good luck... personally I have both


djmorgan,

Thanks for the info, and I'm not trying to argue but HP's recovery partition is good for only (1) thing... putting back the system to as-shipped state so HP's tech support can say in the event they can't figure out a "problem"... Press F11, run recovery.

Problem with that is it puts it back to and as-shipped state.

Using Acronis or GHOST? puts it back to whatever state the system was in when the back-up (recovery partition) was made. You can make multiple backups, images of the OS, apps, data as needed to either the hard drive... Or to DVD, CD, (and I assume a USB flash device.) Unlike the HP disc creator program which only allows (1) set of CD/DVD "recovery" discs to be generated with no modification of the "restore" partition.

Using Acronis, etc allows BOTH a copy of the "restore" data to be on the hard drive... CD/DVD... and a mirror to be keep on a removable hard drive as well so this protects you against a hard drive failure, the "restore" partition getting corrupted, deleted as you pointed out above.... and/or your computer being lost, damaged, or stolen.

Mirroring the drive only takes a few minutes... it is not time consuming to any large degree. Creating the cd/dvd's takes allot longer...Thing is with whatever program you use unlike the HP disc creator you can make as many discs as you want.. Image, or Clone the drive at ANY time.

I don't think HP is using a version of GHOST because the HP "recovery" partition is FAT32.. When I installed a fresh copy of XP pro I could SEE the files in HP's recovery partition... Could delete, modify, etc directly.... It appears HP recovery partition is NOT an image file.

I care nothing about re-creating it per-se, but I'm interested in "what" was used to create it... a way to "recreate" a FAT32 partition in which the files are directly viewable, can be modified, can be loaded by pressing the F11 key without having a prompt come up each time asking if you want to run the recovery process each time. That prompt only stays up for a second or two so it's not a big thing.... Just would like to re-create my version of HP's system...


Maybe it's best just sticking with Acronis... as it does allow for viewing, modification of the files within the image... And I would assume it's not "picky" about partitions being resized, moved around, etc... Doesn't care about the hard drive being "tattooed".
* * * * *

More info for those interested in having a backup of THEIR system.

http://radified.com/Articles/laptop.htm
http://ghost.radified.com/
Reply
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: HP, Compaq and Voodoo Notebooks
NotebookForums.com › Forums › Notebook Manufacturers › HP, Compaq and Voodoo Notebook Forums › HP, Compaq and Voodoo Notebooks › How to do a FRESH XP install, make your OWN recovery partition.