Am I able to go back to the factory image?

[FattysGoneWild]

I went ahead and done a clean install of WIN7. I left the factory image in place. I also have the recovery discs from HP. I was just curious about it. I attached a picture and as you see with D. If I marked that as an active partition. Would it go through and recover? Not sure if it would since the MBR has been erased and replaced? Even though I have the recovery discs. I probably could have just deleted it. But decided just to leave it. The PC in question is a Compaq/HP CQ5210F. Also. When it boots. It says I can hit F11 for a recovery. But. I imagine that will not work any more since the fresh install of WIN7.

 

[Johnathan Lyman]

I went ahead and done a clean install of WIN7. I left the factory image in place. I also have the recovery discs from HP. I was just curious about it. I attached a picture and as you see with D. If I marked that as an active partition. Would it go through and recover? Not sure if it would since the MBR has been erased and replaced? Even though I have the recovery discs. I probably could have just deleted it. But decided just to leave it. The PC in question is a Compaq/HP CQ5210F. Also. When it boots. It says I can hit F11 for a recovery. But. I imagine that will not work any more since the fresh install of WIN7.

It's been a while since I've dug this deep into HP machines for something like this but from what I remember, as long as you have the small partition at the beginning of the drive [before C: ] and the FACTORY_IMAGE you can hit F11 and have fun. Beyond that, I have no clue what would happen if you marked the FACTORY_IMAGE as active. If I can remember right, FACTORY_IMAGE just contains what WOULD be on the computer if you restored it, not the actual restore software itself [where the micro partition comes into play]

Again it's been a while and my ADD was pretty bad when I was being told about how all of that worked. For all I know, there could be bacon involved.

 

[theog]

1) Always backup your data.

2) You can Reinstall with your HP Recovery DVD's.

3) F11 recovery method, would be hit & miss.

 

[gregrocker]

Since you have the disks, you can delete that partition by wiping the HD for cleanest possible install: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/52129-disk-clean-clean-all-diskpart-command.html

I'd do a booted clean reinstall using Win 7 installer for your version to avoid the bloatware built into the Recov disks - just save them for legacy in case you ever want to sell or return to factory condition.

You can actually extract any apps you want to keep from your Recov disks using this method: http://www.sevenforums.com/installa...are-after-clean-win-7-install.html#post488270

 

[whs]

Your active partition is the small 100MB partition because that's where your MBR resides. You cannot set any of the other partitions as "active" - that would make it impossible to boot your system.
Restoring from the recovery partition is done via F11. Here is the HP link for more details.

 

[Johnathan Lyman]

Your active partition is the small 100MB partition because that's where your MBR resides. You cannot set any of the other partitions as "active" - that would make it impossible to boot your system.
Restoring from the recovery partition is done via F11. Here is the HP link for more details.

I knew I wasn't making EVERYTHING up.

 

[FattysGoneWild]

Thanks every one.