I posted this elsewhere and thought I’d give it a try here also.

I've been working a lady's laptop that was brought to me in sorry, sorry shape (full of junk such as toolbars out the ying yang, P2Ps, malware, trojans, etc.). I've finally got it to a stage where I can, at least navigate around on it.

I found in BIOS that the original OS is supposed to be Vista, but this baby has Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit with the Microsoft COA partially torn off. Methinks someone is trying to pull a fast one for nothing moneywise.

My real problem is that I can't get f11 Recovery to work. There is no Recovery Mgr. in Programs List because, if I understand correctly, the f11 Recovery should do a recovery back to just like she came out of the box (which is what I'm trying to do).

I've tapped f11 til I'm tapped out, ctrl + f11, fn + f11--al to no avail. Disk Management shows the System Reserved partition to be healthy and active (but, at this stage, who knows for sure). I've run full system scans (not quick scans) and removed GBs of trash with:
Malwarebytes
Spybot S&D
Spywareblaster
Spywarehunter 4
online Trendmicro Housecall
Avast FREE 2016 (which I installed myself as all it had when I got it was MS Security Essentials)

I've read as many suggestions for a fix that work for everyone else, but not here. lol I'm sure I've forgotten to include some PERTINENT info, so if you need more, I'll be glad to submit it in further posts.

Would someone please hold my hand and tell me what I'm doing wrong? I'd appreciate it, and thank you in advance if a pc guru can help me solve this. (If it was possible to get away with it, I'd have already kicked this one to the curb, but I WANT to figure the problem out so I can use the solution on the next one that comes to me--if I decide to even work on one of these again).

Laptop is a Compaq CQ60-419WM
Disk Management shows a System Reserved partition (not Recovery) on Disk 0:
100MB NTFS (used space = 30.1MB)
Healthy (System, Active, Primary Partition)
Right click on that partition and “Make Partition As Active” is grayed out
**Don’t know much about this stuff, but it looks like someone has done away
with the Recovery partition?**







System reserved is from the last Win install...it's not a Recovery partition....
Look up the Manual Online on how to use the Recovery Partition...provided they didn't wipe it and it's still there.Used Compaq laptops in the model line are about $150 to $200 on eBay.

My thought is at some point it becomes futile to try to understand what somebody else did to the computer.

If your could get one of these, it could be used to find out what is wrong with the customer's laptop. Later, you might retell the laptop to recover your investment. You did say you are a non-profit - right?

Many thanks for the replies.

pato, u answered a queston I had, but not yet asked. It looks as tho someone before me has wiped the Recovery Partton making my decision to let her have this machine back, as is. I dd get enough junk out of it so that it's now useable. (But I'd rather have been able to get it back to Vsta as the BIOS shows it should be).

Geek9pm, I COMPLETELY agree that (in this case for sure) it's sometimes futile to try to figure out what the other guy has done to it. I've got a bad taste in my mouth about the MS COA sticker being partially torn off and the wrong OS in it anyway.

Thanks to all who read my post. Consider ths thread partly solved, but done. It wasn't a complete loss 'cuz I learned a couple of thngs from you that I can use in the future.

She has another option...order the Recovery Media from the laptop manuf. site...

She may get lucky.lol patio. It'll probably take an act of Congess to get her to pay ME after all the TME I've put n cleanng it up, let alone turning loose of any bucks for recovery dsks.

I've already mentoned that to her, but I detect that she's tght as bark on a tree when t comes to her money. She's gong to get ths machne back the way it is with a gentle piece of advice to keep her kds and every other heathen off it 'cuz I'm not touchng it agan.

Thanks again. Anytime...