Recovery Partition and backups

I have upgraded from Vista to Windows 7 by clean installing.
So now as I can understand my recovery partion will not work.
Should I delete it or is there any way to fix it?
and is there anyway to create similar partion for windows 7?

And question about backups:
As I don't have external HD, can I do backups like this:

Laptop A backup to Laptop B
Laptop B backup to Laptop A

Thank you!

Most recov partitions are disabled after OS install. Find out if yours works by tapping the Recovery F-key given on first bootup screen.

If not, you can delete it and recover the space into your Win7 partition using a bootable partition manager like free Partition Wizard.

You may need to also boot into the Win7 DVD Repair console to run Startup Repair several times to repair or rewrite the MBR if you do this.

I suggest you format a new primary partition on your HD to store your WIndows 7 Backup image. If you format the partition Primary it will be detected by the imaging app and offer to store it there. Then you can copy the image over your network to your other laptop, where it will also be available to reimage your first HD if it ever fails.

To reimage, you boot from the WIndows 7 DVD or System Repair Disk, on the Repair console select "Recover Using an Image" and it will autodetect the image saved in the primary partition, then if you need to browse over the network to the other saved image you will do this easiest by placing that image in the system root to be easily detected. You have to password the storage computer and type in the correct network path to get to it.

It works, but it takes some practice, which is why I test each of my images by cueing them up both from the Primary drive, the external, and over the network. And I have reimaged several times using each of these methods.

ok, thank you I will try it when I got more free time (As it seems it will take long)

btw

You may need to also boot into the Windows 7 DVD Repair console to run Startup Repair several times to repair or rewrite the MBR if you do this.

what is MBR?

Thank you again

Hi again,
Sorry that I am answering to late but just found about some thread where was similar discussion.
As I understand from there that my Recovery partition isn't useless yet. But it can't be booted by recovery function key because of the change of MBR (as you said =P ) and so function key will not load from second partition in my HD (which is Recovery Partition)
But guys there have done small trick: If you put Recovery partition as an active instead of OS partition on normal startup it will load from that partition so it will load recovery manager. And I can recovery my computer to Factory settings..
But problem is If something serious happens and I will need to use Recovery Manager, I will not probably be able to change Recovery partition to active...
They recommended to use recovery manager to roll-back to Factory settings and create recovery disks using HP Recovery Manager and install new OS again.
But that is getting a bit extreme for me as I have already installed OS 2-3 times...
So is there way to create recovery disk without reinstalling OS?

A recovery disk for your previous OS or 7?

If you didn't make your Vista recov disks before installing 7, then yes you can try marking recov part active then restarting to see if it will run, but I would not try this unless I seriously wanted to recover since they can be single-minded about formatting and installing Vista back.

At this point, your option is to call HP and order them, but why not wait until you actually decided to go back to Vista, since almost no one would make that decision unless they were restoring to factory condition to sell and wanted to retrieve their Win7.

Plus, you never need to reinstall Vista to reinstall Win7 Upgrade, and you never need to reinstall either if you make a WIndows 7 backup image stored externally and/or in a primary-formatted partition on secondary or primary HD - you want it backed up off the system drive in case of HD failure, though.

If need to reinstall, instead just boot from Win7 DVD into Repair console to "Recover Using An Image" which will detect your backup image and reimage the HD flawlessly in 15-20 mins.

I thought about it and yeah, actually it seems there is no point of the factory image in my position.
I was just cautious before deleting recovery partition. But anyway in extreme situation if my image won't work aswell and something happens tom my external HD ( I said really EXTREME ) I can just format OS partition and clean install Windows 7.
So no point of Recovery.
Thank you :)