I voluteered to fix my aunts pc. it is an HP Pavilion 751n machine. They don't come with the actual install disks, rather, they have a partion on the hard drive that is supposed to run all the recovery files. Well, this part is corrupt too. Tech support for HP was terrible. No one can even tell me which recovery CD's to order for it.

Does anyone out there have recovery CD's for this or any HP computer? What about a copy of the WinXP home retail version. I have the license agreement, just not the media. Maybe it is possible to zip the CD and upload to my website.

I need to get this going ASAP, so thanks in advance for any help.

Before you do anything else, ask your Aunt to see EVERYTHING that came with the PC! My step daughter had a problem with her HP pavillion, and came with a HP recovery disc set, but she didn't know she had them.

If the PC was bought locally at a shop, they should supply the actual discs, since you have the license agreement. Actually, weather the PC was bought locally or on the internet, contact the vendor, those discs belong to you and are licensed for that machine only.

I have been told by HP that I can get recovery disks. It would take two weeks to get them, so I am trying to speed up the process.

Z-man, I have an HP 551w, when I purchased it I went around and around with them regarding a recovery disk, They told me too that I could order them but I refused to pay again for software I already purchased. To make a long story short, I bitched enough that they sent me 2 "free" copies. You are welcome to one of them if you think they will work for your machine. Let me know.

worth a try. do you think it is possible to zip one of those and upload it to an FTP site? Does the disk recover you to WinXP home edition.

[This message has been edited by Z-man (edited June 12, 2004).]

It is XP home recovery labled "only for HP pavillion" don't know about uploading it. It consists of 8 cd's I'm open to suggestions, or I could fed ex them tomorrow.

[This message has been edited by JOHNYREB (edited June 13, 2004).]

A word of caution: the recovery disks will contain drivers for peripherals that are on that PC. Thus, the modem, sound card, video card, etc. MAY be different between Model X and Model Y from the same manufacturer. HP, Compaq and others do this a lot. I'd make sure I had the EXACT recovery disk or just do a clean generic OEM load on the O/S and deal with collecting the necessary drivers. It takes more time and can be a PIA, but I think you actually end up with a more stable system, since you don't get all of the overhead-hogging "convenience" applications that will run in the background that you'd get from the manufacturer's recovery disk. By the way, and I'm sure you all already know this (but I've found it's impossible to over-estimate the potential stupidity of the average end-user (you know, you all have customers!)) with recovery disks, most of the time to do any real good, they will reformat the hard drive. You WILL lose everything on the hard drive with this. If possible, make sure you get whatever you can from the drive before running the recovery disk.

if ya got a copy of dos laying around, just do and fdisk and reload windows...

would you believe i still have copies of MSDOS3.1 laying around...

Thanks for the replys. I was able to locate a retail version of Windows XP home and the reload was a success. thanks for the help.