Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

General discussion

HP_RECOVERY partition

May 8, 2005 9:28AM PDT

I have partitioned my hard drive with partition magic 8, but now i couldn't access the HP_RECOVERY partition. I got the message of "no recovery partition found". I have contacted HP customer service. They only say that the partition is corrupted and want me to purchase a recovery dvd with them.

here is how my hard drive look from magic partition before
[D:\ ][C:\ ]

and after
[D:\ ][C:\ ][G:\ ]

the drive D:\ is a recovery drive which is allocated in front of everything. I couldn't believe how it could have been damage. I think it might be the drive letter mapping problem or something else since I can still browse through the HP_RECOVERY files and folder using magic partition browser (I can't use window's explorer because they are protected files and folder)

If it did or as a future reference, I really the recovery partition because it's quite convenient to have it on there instead of running around trying to find the recovery dvd, would I be able to make a recovery partition of my own that can be run from BIOS (like HP_RECOVERY partition, you can press F10 from the bios boot up screen) perhaps with the recovery dvd from HP or recovery cd of my own.

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
Save yourself some trouble
May 8, 2005 10:19AM PDT

and buy the recovery DVD. If you have a hard drive failure or you can't access the recovery partition, you are stuck. Don't think it can't happen because it has. The money will be well spent. And, you could spend more time and money trying to fix the problem than you would just buying the recovery DVD/CDs.

- Collapse -
RE
May 10, 2005 4:51AM PDT

Get the Recovery CD. The problem is, by partition magic, you have changed the mbr. To get that back to factory specs, Partition magic would have to undo the changes it made, and there is no guarantee that will work. I have a 160gb drive in my HP. I'll never in my life use 160gb. I could have used the partition utility in any nix distro to repartition my drive so I could install linux, but like yourself, I like having the recovery partition there. I did make recovery DVDs for my machine when I first got it, but I still like having the recovery partition. So I added a second a hard drive for linux, probably intitial cost was a bit higher($40 for a 40gb drive on sale), but I also place a value on my time. In the long run, I saved money.

- Collapse -
reply to RE
May 13, 2005 9:37AM PDT

Partition Magic does NOT alter your MBR.It was using Linux and replacing the MBR with either LILO or GRUB to dual boot on a single hard-drive that did it instead of using Boot Magic which comes coupled with Partition Magic. I have used Partition Magic for years,V6,v7&v8. I have also been using different Linux distro's for 5years. I found that using the 2 OS's on a partitioned hdd was a pain when I wished to replace one Linux distro with another so finished up by having 3 removable hdds.I keep WinXP Pro on one,Libranet (semi-permanently) on another and use the third for installing & removing various new Linux distro's to review them. Just grabbing the cradle's handle, sliding it out & sliding in another hdd encloed in it's own cradle is so quick and easy. Much,much better than dual booting and thereby leaving your Window's MBR untouched.

- Collapse -
HP's Recovery Discs
May 13, 2005 9:59AM PDT

Yes I agree, if you're stuck with HP's awful version of WinXP Home edn. then you really should get their recovery disc.I switdhed to XP Pro edn. and use the Win built-in recovery facility which is really good.