Author Topic: HP Pavilion a1012x Recovery Problem - Windows XP (Read 55999 times)

Shane · « **Reply #50 on:** July 30, 2014, 03:25:58 pm »

I am not sure on that one, sometimes you can get to the recovery option by hitting the f12 or f9 (Cant remember which it was on HP) to bring up the boot menu. Normally they have a option to recover or test. That would be the place to try the restore from.

Shane

Boggin · « **Reply #51 on:** July 30, 2014, 03:33:17 pm »

Quote from: backtolife on July 30, 2014, 02:40:15 pm

Just one more note. I've been playing with the idea of trying to trigger the recovery process from the cloned hard drive. The recovery partition should have the original recovery files that came with the computer on it (not the recovery disks I purchased). I used the Mini XP application on the Hirens disk to access files on the recovery partition, found an application called restore, and double clicked on it. The expect HP restore program started. I'm at the point where I can just click the button and see if it will actually run the restore... shall I go ahead?

Have you backed up all of the photos etc that your friend's wife wanted and are able to recover them, as you will lose all of those with a factory reset.

Shane · « **Reply #52 on:** July 30, 2014, 03:34:57 pm »

Quote

Have you backed up all of the photos etc that your friend's wife wanted and are able to recover them, as you will lose all of those with a factory reset.

Thats why we cloned the drive. Old drive has all the data and is untouched. With the clone we can do what ever and worse case we clone it again and start over.

Shane

backtolife · « **Reply #53 on:** July 30, 2014, 03:39:42 pm »

I can't get to it via the function keys Shane, F10 should but doesn't start the Recovery application. I'm thinking, if it doesn't work, I just need to re-clone the original drive and start again...

Boggin · « **Reply #54 on:** July 30, 2014, 03:42:52 pm »

Quote from: Shane on July 30, 2014, 03:34:57 pm

Quote
Have you backed up all of the photos etc that your friend's wife wanted and are able to recover them, as you will lose all of those with a factory reset.

Thats why we cloned the drive. Old drive has all the data and is untouched. With the clone we can do what ever and worse case we clone it again and start over.

Shane

I wasn't sure if individual files can be restored from the clone or if it was an all or nothing as the Windows system image is, but as there are two HDDs to play with then I would go for the factory reset - the idea was to get back into Windows somehow.

Shane · « **Reply #55 on:** July 30, 2014, 03:43:29 pm »

Might have to. Before you do that go ahead and try like you planned, but I think that recovery partition is able to be booted off of. And see if you can bring up the boot menu from the bios instead and see if it has the recovery option.

Shane

backtolife · « **Reply #56 on:** July 30, 2014, 04:05:30 pm »

I think I'm back to where I started this odyssey. Running the restore application as detailed previously resulted in the machine going through the motion of restoring (though it did not start by re-writing the recovery partition). At reboot, the following message appeared:

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt

<Windows root>\system32\hal.dll

Please reinstall a copy of the above file.

backtolife · « **Reply #57 on:** July 30, 2014, 04:47:03 pm »

OK, the computer is back. Here's the reference I used to fix the HAL.dll message:

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/findbyerrormessage/a/missinghaldll.htm

I skipped down to #4 and followed the link...

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/fixtheproblem/ht/repairbootini.htm

The bootcfg /rebuild worked fine. Restarted the computer and it went through the remainder of the Windows setup. Windows starts and runs and the original applications are back as well.

Shane, there was no recovery option in the bios.

Anyway, Boggin & Shane, I'm sorry I wasn't able to fix this by using disk tools but I guess sometimes its more productive to go with a hunch. I'm glad that the recovery partition was intact on the original hard drive. I appreciate the time and information you provided to help me fix this.

BTW, I've ordered a motherboard with an Intel processor to see if those recovery disks I bought will work with it. You may recall I indicated that this series of HP computers came with both AMD & Intel processors. I thought the reason why I couldn't get the recovery disks to work was because the sellers offered only a single set of recovery disks for this series and I think originally HP provided two sets, one for machines with an AMD processor, the other for Intel processors, based on the model computer you had. I'll let you know the outcome.

Boggin · « **Reply #58 on:** July 30, 2014, 04:56:28 pm »

Well, the Hiren's disk must have fixed something unless it was one of the chkdsks you ran because previously you only had a black screen with Error on it - but glad you've managed to restore it.

Edit - the OEM disks I have for my Toshiba also have AMD and Intel drivers on it and while once it started to install Intel but changed to AMD during a factory reset, as it's supposed to detect what you have installed - so that may not be it.

Now that you have the computer back up and running, clone it again and retry the XP disks on that or clone the other HDD with the new clone and try it on that one.

Shane · « **Reply #59 on:** July 31, 2014, 09:05:40 am »

Good to hear you got it working

What made this situation different is the fact that you where trying to keep the system as it was for her. Where as normally we would have just blown away the install and installed a nice fresh copy.
But when you are trying to keep things the way they are for a user it becomes a lot harder, and so we have to find and try what ever we can to get it going.

Which looks like we did. When a system gets broken like that there is normally no direct goto fix as we dont know what was actually broken. All we can do is try the fixes we known, look for new ones, and handle it as it comes. By being able to make a clone image allowed you to do that freely without worrying about the data.

Now that it is fixed and up and running, get her setup on a proper backup to an external drive! lol

Shane

backtolife · « **Reply #60 on:** August 04, 2014, 10:09:11 pm »

So... here's the story. The HP a1000 series computer came in twenty different models with a variety of processors. Those processors came from AMD and Intel. Three different motherboards were used. I found that the recovery disks I purchased (that were supposed to work on any of those 20 models) did not work on my machine (a1012x). I surmised that it was because the disks I received were intended for Intel based machines. To try to prove my point I purchased the same Intel-based motherboard that HP put in its Celeron based a1000 models and attempted to load the recovery disks that would not load on my AMD based machine. Well, the recovery disks worked fine on the Intel-based motherboard with only one caveat. I got a "Code Purple" warning just before Windows started. I did a little web research to find a workaround and after that, the machine worked fine.

I guess the bottom line is, if you have a HP a1007w, a1012x, a1017c, or a a1022n, you may find that your HP 5070-0329 Recovery Disks will not work.

Thanks again for the advice and help.

Shane · « **Reply #61 on:** August 05, 2014, 04:48:51 pm »

No problem and I hope she will be happy with the machine

Shane