Question about Resetting to Out-Of-Box condition ..

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  1. Posts : 31
    Windows 7 Home Premium x64
       #1

    Question about Resetting to Out-Of-Box condition ..


    Actually i have no problem currently ,
    But i'm confused about how this happened .
    I have a an image disc for recovery of windows 7 home edition
    So i did reset the windows to the out of box condition , i had a backup for everything expecting everything to be erased , but nothing got erased , everything stayed except on the drive C .
    The recovery should have partitioned my hard drive to 2 drives : one large containg the windows system files and another one smaller drive .. that was the expected because it was the condition when i created those recovery discs . But instead i have now 3 drives ; one for windows system files which isn't as large as the previously mentioned one , and another 2 larger drives , this is the condition of my drives before i did the reset to out of box ..
    But the windows seems like it is new and the windows drive is like the new one .
    So i'm wondering what is right and what is wrong .
    Please enlighten me
    Thnx
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  2. Posts : 469
    Win 7 Pro 64-bit
       #2

    Welcome to the forums. Sounds like the OEM software chose to leave your corrupted filesystem intact and make you a NEW "original version" partition. Did I read that right? Sounds like a good deal to me, as users who don't have a backup as you do, would want to recover their files from the corrupted software partition.
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  3. Posts : 12,012
    Windows 7 Home Premium SP1, 64-bit
       #3

    Post a screen shot of Windows Disk Management so we can see what is going on.

    Disk Management - Post a Screen Capture Image

    Like you, I'm wondering why a recovery to supposed out-of-the-box state apparently did something else. But HP can be a bit peculiar.
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  4. Posts : 31
    Windows 7 Home Premium x64
    Thread Starter
       #4

    soho1 said:
    Welcome to the forums. Sounds like the OEM software chose to leave your corrupted filesystem intact and make you a NEW "original version" partition. Did I read that right? Sounds like a good deal to me, as users who don't have a backup as you do, would want to recover their files from the corrupted software partition.
    Thanx for your quick reply
    But this is not the case here
    No corrupted system files are left
    The windows system files are new but the condition of the other partitions are not the original out of box condition , and the other partition's contents are not erased , i thought the recovery would reformat the whole hard disk .
    I'm not talking about the system files here , i'm talking about the other partitions of the hard disk
    Sorry if i wasn't clear about that
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  5. Posts : 31
    Windows 7 Home Premium x64
    Thread Starter
       #5

    ignatzatsonic said:
    Post a screen shot of Windows Disk Management so we can see what is going on.

    Disk Management - Post a Screen Capture Image

    Like you, I'm wondering why a recovery to supposed out-of-the-box state apparently did something else. But HP can be a bit peculiar.
    Thanx for your reply
    Here it is .....
    U can see C drive is 85 gb and there are 2 other partitions 151 gb and 227 gb and my personal data on These other 2 partitions are not erased with the formatting that was supposed to happen
    The original out of box condition was not like this
    It was about 400 gb C partition ( which has the windows system files ) and another small partition
    I'm really confused
    That means the recovery only formatted the C partition ??!!
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Question about Resetting to Out-Of-Box condition ..-disk-management.jpg  
    Last edited by Dr Amr; 29 Jun 2014 at 11:44. Reason: adding
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  6. Posts : 12,012
    Windows 7 Home Premium SP1, 64-bit
       #6

    Your first post is confusing.

    First, you state "i did reset the windows to the out of box condition".

    Then you state "The recovery should have partitioned my hard drive to 2 drives : one large containg the windows system files and another one smaller drive .. that was the expected because it was the condition when i created those recovery discs."

    Disks that are intended to restore you to out of the box state would NOT restore you to "the condition when I created those recovery discs" UNLESS you made those recovery discs the minute you started the machine for the first time. Did you do that?

    You also say "image disc" which is a confusing term.

    An image of the C partition would be expected to take up a bunch of DVDs, not a single disc.

    Offhand, it appears that whatever disc you made only restored you to the way the C partition was at the time that disc was made. That's what you'd expect of an "image restoration" if C was the only partition contained in the image file. As opposed to the way the entire hard disc was at the time you bought the machine "out of the box". But, as I said, I would expect a true image file to take up much more space than a single DVD.

    What tool or what menu choices did you use to make that disc?

    "Recovery" discs to take you to "out of the box" state would typically be made via a menu that accessed some type of HP application.

    An "image" would typically be made by either Windows built-in imaging capability or a third party tool such as Macrium or Acronis.

    How did you make that disc?

    I've never made "recovery disks" on an OEM machine, so there may be a choice in the process that would restrict the recovery to just the C partition---not "out of the box" state for the entire hard drive. I'd be surprised by that, but I don't know the details of those things.
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  7. Posts : 31
    Windows 7 Home Premium x64
    Thread Starter
       #7

    It seems i've confused so many terms together , sorry about that .. I'm not a professional
    I'll try to be more specific .
    I have recovery discs ( 7 dvds ) that i made after i got my laptop , i made them through an option in the windows that said " make recovery discs " or something like that as i can remember .
    I also have to say that i used them before , and the result was different from this once , that is why i'm confused .
      My Computer


  8. Posts : 12,012
    Windows 7 Home Premium SP1, 64-bit
       #8

    Dr Amr said:
    It seems i've confused so many terms together , sorry about that .. I'm not a professional
    I'll try to be more specific .
    I have recovery discs ( 7 dvds ) that i made after i got my laptop , i made them through an option in the windows that said " make recovery discs " or something like that as i can remember .
    I also have to say that i used them before , and the result was different from this once , that is why i'm confused .
    OK.

    The term "recovery disks" usually means "restore to out of the box" state. These discs are usually made by using a special built in partition that HP put on the hard drive. Not sure, but I don't think this method requires more than 1 or 2 blank DVDs.

    What you most likely did is use Windows (not HP) own built-in "backup" capability to make an image of your system, which would have included C partition, System Reserved partition, and any other partition that happened to include any part of Windows. This method would NOT restore you to out of the box state. It WOULD restore the "system" to the state it was in at the time you burned the disks.

    I'm not highly familiar with Windows backup, but I think you can choose to either include or exclude data partitions when you burn the disks. It would take a lot of disks to do that, so most people use a hard drive, not DVD discs.

    I do not know why you might have had different results on different occasions if you used the very same set of burned discs.

    You WOULD get different results if you burned recovery disks on 2 different occasions and happened to make different choices when you walked through the disc creation process. One set of disks might restore your entire hard drive. The other set might restore only Windows (C)---all depending on the choices made as you prepared the disks to be burned. I understand the Windows backup interface can be confusing in that regard.

    I urge you to save your image backups on a hard drive, rather than on DVDs. Preferably to a totally different disk, probably external.

    And you might want to look at Macrium Reflect Free Edition, an imaging program, with tutorials on this site. It's excellent and much more easily understood--less possibility for error and confusion. It is NOT a "restore to out of the box" application. It images whatever partitions you specifically choose and you normally store the image file on an external drive. You make a single "recovery" disk (CD) within the application and then use that burned disc to boot from when you want to restore the image file you previously created. Most users would make an image file every couple of weeks or couple of months and keep the last 2 or 3.
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  9. Posts : 31
    Windows 7 Home Premium x64
    Thread Starter
       #9

    WOW , that was intense ..
    The phrase "restore to out of the box state " was the item i selected to go on with the progress but the end result was confusing
    I'll take a look at that program , thnx for recommending it
    Anyways , it was a strange situation but i guess no harm done
    Thnx for bearing up with me
      My Computer


  10. mjf
    Posts : 5,969
    Windows 7x64 Home Premium SP1
       #10

    I also think it looks like you did a Windows System image restore (not a factory or out of box restore). So the first system reserved and the operating, C partitions have been restored.
    As far as I've seen HP partition their systems into 4 partitions - a system reserved; a factory restore, an OS, and a Tools partition. This very inflexible but that's the way HP seem to do it.
    It looks like the factory restore has been removed and you have an OS partition and an extended partition containing 2 logical drives. Did you or someone else repartition your PC?
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