System recovery

OK, thank you I will try this later.... I'll post back.

Here's the caveats re HP from that last link I provided:



Special notes for HP owners:

On newer models HP System Recovery may offer a Minimized OS Recovery option. This retains only the OS, Recovery Manager, HP Support Asst, HP Wireless LAN, drivers and activation, and is as close to a clean reinstall as you can get without doing one yourself. I would uninstall HP Wireless to use Win7's superior wireless manager.

If you format and reinstall only to C leaving all other partitions intact, F11 Recovery key should still work later if you need it. The helpful hardware diagnostics also listed on the ESC or F9 boot menu may also run after reinstall, so if they will run now from boot, I would save the small HP Tools partition to see if they remain bootable after install.

Problems with volume control lighting and HP Quick Launch buttons have been dealt with here and here.

Specific HP software which might be worth reimporting is discussed in HP Bloatware, or useful system utilities?

Some HP Recovery disks can have their files extracted to access favorite program installers using Accessing HP Recovery Disc Files.

Once again I am indebted to you for your help - I only hope the .iso image I am downloading and then having removed the .cfg file that the license key I have on the COA works so it will let me install it ?
As I read it you would obviously need the 32 or 64 bit versions to match your hardware but the removal of the .cfg file makes the image generic so any key would work - is that correct ?

ibshaw said:

Once again I am indebted to you for your help - I only hope the .iso image I am downloading and then having removed the .cfg file that the license key I have on the COA works so it will let me install it ?
As I read it you would obviously need the 32 or 64 bit versions to match your hardware but the removal of the .cfg file makes the image generic so any key would work - is that correct ?

I'm assuming based on what I've heard that that tool will allow you to install any version (Ultimate, Pro, Home Premium, etc) and activate it with your key that would otherwise be restricted to activating only ONE version.

Of course, you have to burn the ISO. That can go bad. If so, try again with another disc or burner.

Yes, I'd assume that you'd still have to download a 64 bit ISO if that's what you wanted to install.

You might also look at the last 2 posts in this thread, where I mentioned your problem. Note the final post from SIW2, which has another link that might be worthwhile.

Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7

I don't understand exactly what MS is up to by making these ISOs hard to get.

Ibshaw:

You can look at a discussion of what's going on with these ISOs here:

Digital River Win7 ISO servers taken down again