BleepingComputer.com: System Recovery Fails with hp Supplied Recovery Disks

The 500 GB Samsung Hard Drive on my HP Pavilion a6500f PC running on Windows Vista Home Premium (64-bit) crashed. I bought and installed a new 500 GB Western Digital Caviar Blue model WD5000AAKS hard drive on the PC. I ordered recovery disks from HP using the computer's serial number and confirmed that the Build ID on the recovery CDs and the sticker on my computer match. However when I attempt to recover the system Windows loads the recovery files and then I get the error:

"This PC is not supported by the system recovery discs. You will not be able to recover this system with these discs."

I have tried 2 sets of recovery discs from hp and get the same error. I have attempted to use the Cyberlink Recovery Disk Utility from hp http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareDownloadIndex?softwareitem=pv-80183-1&cc=us&lc=en&dlc=en but it fails. This Utility only supports Windows 7 per the hp page.

I would appreciate any help on how to move forward. I am new to this site so if I broke any rules please feel free to correct me. Thanks.

NYATI

This post has been edited by hamluis: 27 December 2011 - 12:24 PM
Reason for edit: Moved from System Building to Vista.

How much did you pay for your recovery discs and is it refundable? If you the recovery disc costs more then $100, you would be better off purchasing a copy of Windows 7 which is far more stable and a less of a memory hog.

I paid US $15.95 for the recovery disks.

HP reference, http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&docname=c00881405&product=3740339 .

You may want to look at Links Regarding HP Recovery Problems

Louis

I have seen something like this happen. Normally it happens when restore disc set finds a different motherboard model then it was expecting.

On Toshiba laptops as an example when the motherboard is changed the shop has to use a utility to set the Model, the Model part number and the serial number into the new motherboard using a Toshiba utility.

Lenovo has the same process as I remember it.

The computer will run normally with no problems until you need to do a System Recovery. Then the recovery will fail.

I had that happen when the Motherboard was replaced on my Toshiba fortunately it was still under warranty and corrected.

I would look at the HP website and make sure that your motherboard matches the one shown on the HP website.
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01357119&tmp_task=prodinfoCategory&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en&os=2093&product=3740339&sw_lang=#N31

Does the one they show match your?

Cheers

It looks like you have a mobo thats not the same one as it should have been. You are not sol just yet though. You actually have a few options still available to you.

1) You can contact hp and tell them the problem and see if they will ship you free cds because the problem is on their end. It may or may not work. Just contact customer service.
2) You can get a recovery disk from a third part http://www.newrecoverydisk.com might have them.
3) You can try to use the recovery feature for windows vista then doing an upgrade to windows 7 which might be what you need.

Thank you for your help. After looking through the links suggested by Louis, it was obvious that the hp recovery CDs could only work on a hard drive that had the recovery partition intact - which makes you wonder why you would need the CDs in the first place if you already have a recovery partition. Following are the steps I took to successful recovery.

1. Using a different working computer I made an image of the recovery partition from the crashed hard disk using the free Macrium Reflect program which I downloaded from Cnet. http://download.cnet.com/Macrium-Reflect-Free/3000-2242_4-10845728.html?tag=mncol;1 I used an external USB hard drive enclosure to access the crashed hard disk. While the System partition was completely inaccessible, the recovery partition was intact.

2. Using the same computer and USB hard drive enclosure I recovered the recovery image on my new Western Digital hard drive using Macrium Reflect. I then installed the new hard drive on to the hp Pavilion a6500f PC. I attempted to recover the system with the recovery disks but still got the same error "This PC is not supported by the System recovery discs....."

3. After reviewing more suggested links form Louis I decided to recover the PC WITHOUT the disks by pressing F8 on startup and selecting "Repair PC" option. On the recovery menu I went to "Advanced Options" and selected to restore computer to factory settings. The installation proceeded successfully but when Windows Vista started I got "CODE PURPLE" error. "Your System has encountered configuration error. Please call your customer care..."

I was getting frustrated at hp but I googled the purple error and got help at this link: http://www.billoblog.com/?p=152

Reply number 128 on that topic:

"If you have Vista installed on your HP machine that is throwing a fit with this there is a real easy fix which I found. When the error dialog box appears press Shift+F10 to pull up the command line, type the following command without the quotes “edit C:\hp\bin\checkdmi\checkdmi.cmd”, then after the REM lines add the following code without quotes “goto cleanup”, save the file and exit the editor and restart with the following command without quoates “shutdown -r -t 0″ then your set and done."

The edit command failed with this error: ""'edit' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file."

Being in a 64 bit environment "edit" was not available. I was able to work around that by replacing "edit" with "notepad" in the command.

"notepad C:\hp\bin\checkdmi\checkdmi.cmd"

The system now works fine. Thank you for all your help.

NYATI

Well done on your part...happy computing .

Louis

Sounds like the DMI string that the Recovery media checks is wrong. I'd still want to get HP to fix that for future need.

However Glad to hear it is working.

Cheers