System Image on System Restore Disk Not Reading After Crash

[DRamsey]

Using preinstalled Win 7 Home Premium 64bit on an HP 6813w Pavilion. The original hard drive, a Hitachi HDS721010CLA332 1Tb crashed.

1) System Recovery discs was made along with a System Recovery with System Image disc.
2) A more current System Image was made on an external hard drive.

The Hitachi was replaced with the same model. Checked bios to make sure it was installed correctly.

Under System Recovery, Image Restore, Select a System Image Backup there is nothing in the table to choose from as far as a source (disc drive or external drive).

A) System Recovery (3 discs) has the HP preinstall file folder on the 3rd disc but is not read by the System Recovery program.

B) Under System Restore, Image Restore, Advanced, it asks for a network or driver to be installed. That opens up the directory of C: which is the external hard drive. Under WindowsImageBackup the computer name is identified followed by three entries:

File: BackUp 2012-09-30 180450 containging three (3) entries of
4f370bc3-d042-11e1-b73a-806e6f6e6963.vhd

File: Catalog contains BackUp Global Catalog, Global Catalog

Doc: MediaID

B) System Image is on the external but is not accessable through the System Restore menu. Verified the external was readable by run command. The external in dos was given the C: drive designation.

It seems to me the Recovery and System Restore discs are not functional. Am not a technical person but I have taken this as far as I know how at this point.

Printed out all the instructions from HP and Microsoft to follow step by step but the failed discs will not allow me to move forward.

I have the OEM number for the Windows software that was preinstalled and it has was validated by Microsoft when I first bought the computer.

Is reinstalling the OS software the easiest way to get this back up and running again? And if so, could someone please direct me to the correct webpage in Microsft to do so. I have spent a lot of time trying to track it down but find nothing regarding obtaining preinstalled, registered replacement.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[johnebadbak]

Looking for Recovery Discs? HP Pavilion a6813w Desktop PC - HP Customer Care (United States - English)
info at hp for recovery. the recovery partition on the old hdd is not on the new drive.

 

[DRamsey]

Resolved

Appreciate your reply but did push forward and resolved the issue.

HP no longer provides recovery kits for Win 7 Home Premium 64bit but as stated in the original post, recovery and restore discs were created upon setting the machine up initially but didn't appear to be working using the restore/recovery process.

Found the System Recovery discs actually are functional. My mistake was in using the restore disk to reach recovery.

Once the hard drive was seated, confirmed in bios (F10), and restarted, I put Disc 1 (of 3) of the Recovery Discs into the drive at the prompt for a bootable disc from the newly installed replacement hard drive. Immediately, Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit began loading. After all three processed, the OS was restored to factory condition. From there, I was able to use the System Image created during backup to restore my system to it's previous level the day of the fail.

Lessons learned: Pays to 1) follow the guidelines in setting up a new computer, 2) doing backups and creating SystemImages, and (3) the difference between "Recovery" and "Restore" in setting up a new hard drive.

Thank you for taking the time to forward the HP link but, again, HP no longer provides a recovery kit for my particular model/software.