[Knox18]

hey guys, i just recently installed xp home on a new laptop which came preinstalled with vista. Unfortunately i was dumb enough not to check if all the drivers were available before downloading, and so am now stuck with a laptop with no audio and DVD capabilities. i did not make any recovery disks either, but i do however have a recovery partition on the laptop, the only thing is i dont know how to access it. i cant get into it at startup, cos when i press f11, absoloutely nothing happens, any help would be appreciated, thanks.

[uhaligani]

What make and model laptop?
Try holding down the control key and repeatedly pressing F11 on boot up.

[Knox18]

no change, still logs into windows instead of recovery mode.

My laptop is a HP Pavilion 2405tu/dv2000 if it helps.

[Noyb]

Welcome to the TSG forum.
To make your recovery DVDs in HP, It's something like Programs > PC help > Recovery CD/DVD creator.
Use a good quality DVD, you can only make one recovery set.

Since you've installed XP, You'll probably have to get the Vista recovery's from HP.
Last I heard, this was about $35

In my XP-MCE .... You can also access your HP recovery routine here ... (System Restore)

[Wonka77]

Greetings. Now I'm started to get worried!!

I did the SAME thing with a HP Pavilion dv6215us.
It's not mine!!!!
A friend wanted XP, I did it, now nothing works!
No audio and such!!!!

Please, can I make a Image from the recovery partition and try to start from the dvd created??
Anything at all I can do to have Vista back???

[Noyb]

If the friend didn't make his own Vista recovery DVDs when he got the Laptop ...
You'll have to contact HP and have them send the recovery DVDs.

Sounds like you're missing the drivers and some software for XP.

And ... Welcome to the TSG forum

[Wonka77]

Thanks for the welcome Noyb!

Well, it's done
Vista is back from XP!
And all thanks to Kubuntu.
This is what I did:

Got me favorite Kubuntu 7.04 CD, started de laptop, then, at the Kubuntu Intsalation screen, hit F6 to add one more command at the end of the command line -- noapic
When Kubuntu started, I installed it with minimal space:

Left all this huge NTFS space free (hda0) -- Got a 3GB partition for root here ("/", ext3 format) (hda2) -- Got a 900MB partition for SWAP here (hda3) -- Left this 6GB Vista Recovery partition here (hda1)

After less than 10 minutes, Kubuntu was installed, and as soon as GRUB screen appeared, it showed something like this:

- Kubuntu
- Kubuntu Recovery Mode
- Windos XP
- Vista Recovery

Select Vista Recovery to start, then you will get to the Recovery mode, and select the recovery option that formats the laptop just as it was from the factory.
Then, you have your laptop back with Vista.

Hope it helps!

Later all!

Wonka.

[Noyb]

All that was way over my head ... but glad it worked.
Have you tried to make the Vista recovery DVDs yet ???

FWIW ...
After I got it setup the way I wanted it .. I would have made an Acroins True Image recovery file ..
and stored it in an external HD.

[Wonka77]

I guess I was so happy to recover Vista, that I forgot to burn the DVDs and returned the laptop :P
I'll tell my friend to do that.
By the way, my brother was able to IMAGE the Vista Recovery partition while on XP, but we didn't have the high definition DVDs to burn the 6GB, so I don't know if that's an option for sure (burn the partition and try to start from the DVD).
By the way, thanks to Jhon James F. for the "noapic" command Didn't know how to start Kubuntu from a laptop.

Wonka.

[Zarovan]

i had the same problem with a compaq presario c500 when i decided to downgrade to XP. What i did was download Super Grub burn it to a cd, boot from the cd and it detects all the partitions even the recovery. you need to read the help from Super Grub to get to it but is very easy. Now the computer is back to normal and running i hope this helps somebody because it took me hours to find a way to run the recovery partition.

[Elvandil]

Originally Posted by Zarovan

i had the same problem with a compaq presario c500 when i decided to downgrade to XP. What i did was download Super Grub burn it to a cd, boot from the cd and it detects all the partitions even the recovery. you need to read the help from Super Grub to get to it but is very easy. Now the computer is back to normal and running i hope this helps somebody because it took me hours to find a way to run the recovery partition.

You have no idea how good your idea is! Many, many people in this forum have made the mistake of somehow altering the partition tables and MBR so that they have no access to their recovery partitions. They are non-standard, manufacturer-specific, and can't be fixed with partitioning tools. Up till now, the only advice was to get recovery CD's.

But, yes, your idea is a great solution since SGD can boot to any partition and bypass the MBR altogether.

Thanks for the info. You've saved a lot of people.