Reinstall on a HP

[snidy1]

I need to reformat and reinstall on a HP. I've done this many times, just not on an HP. It has the restore disk and back-up drive. Is it any differant from a regular system?

 

[mechBgon]

If it's WinXP and the restore CD will take it back to WinXP gold or WinXP SP1, then it would be good to keep it un-networked while you install SP2 from a CD or USB drive. Offline SP2 installer

Also, if the restore will take it back to some obsolete antivirus software, consider getting something current. AntiVir looked like the best of the free ones judging by Schadenfroh's writeup, if you need something free.

 

[thegorx]

I don't know about HP but older compaq computers I've worked on had not much on the recovery disk it was all on the drive itself.

so don't wipe the backup partition if your system has one

and make sure you have your product key on the case or somewhere before you start anything, because you can get it from your current registry maybe if it's actually the unique product key not a generic one that some systems ship with.

 

[Larcher]

Most HP's you have to press F10 to get to the windows install screen on a Hidden partition. Most hp's don't come with an install disc they make you reinstall the OS from another partition by pressing F10 upon boot and then it should take you to the Windows install screen.

 

[Dahak]

Like Larcher said, all hp's now ship with a recovery partition that you have to access from boot up by pressing F10. which will allow you to do a repair recovery, without losing data, or a full restore, which will wipe all data off and bring it back to factory default

If you want to format it and not have all the hp crap on it, if the unit came with a DVD or CD burner is go into the Start-Programs -> PC Recovery(think that is the folder) and create yourself a recovery media set. that way you can recover it back to the way hp shipped it if needed.