*sighs* HP support stinks. Let me just start there. They didn't help me one iota and were gone before I could read him the riot act for reading me the same documentation I had used twice already to attempt a recovery.. but anyway.

This weekend my spare PC decided to lose some of it's DLLs. Knowing the the PC was full of adware and other unknown crap because of ex-roommates I opted for using the system recovery CDs and doing a full format and reinstall.

It went through all 7 CDs and then tells me it can't create the USER partition and gives up.

HP documentation indicates that happens because the system recovery partition still exists... EXCEPT my system recovery partition is FUBAR as well, it runs, gives me a BLUE screen and a mouse pointer (not the blue-screen-of-death, but the windows blue) and just stay there eternally.

I tried putting in my WIndows XP OS CD but it doesn't seem to recognize it at all and just kicks out to the floppy.

At the request of the moron-support-guy I created a DOS boot disk but from there I can't do a FDISK or a format.

What I need to know is:
- Is it possible to format the recovery partition and remore the partition in the state the computer is in now? (no O/S, only bootable with boot disk and Recovery CDs) If so, how?
- Is there another way to get Windows installed or the recovery program to finish?

Anything you can provide in the way of useful information is appreciated.

Thanks,

-= Tara =-Try setting your cdrom as 1st boot device in bios then booting to your xp disk.Hi Tara, Let me make quite sure on this point first of all. You have the seven recovery CDs and you do NOT need the recovery partition to stay on the drive. Right?

Then try the boot re-director bootdisk to save you changing your boot sequence and try booting to the XP CD directly so that you can partition and format the drive stopping the install and then using the 7 recovery CDs you have.

I would recommend that you make a copy of those 7 CDs on good quality CDRs whenever you can and keep them safe.The recovery partition hasn't ever worked on that PC so it's wasted space as far as I'm concerned. So no, I don't need that partition any more. It's USELESS the way that it is.

I have all 7 CDs. I have guarded them with my life since the misery that it took to get them in the first place is something I don't wish to repeat.

I am not sure what the "boot redirector" bootdisk is. I have a MS-DOS boot floppy that it will pick up on and read just FINE. It also picks up CD1 of the recovery series fine but it won't read the Windows CD I have. I am starting to wonder if it's the CD I've got...

Thank you for your patience. I've dealt with some stubborn computers before but this one is stretching my patience. And to think the only reason I'm doing this at all is because my main PC's power supply fried and it's not coming back to me for 2-3 weeks! That's too long to be on a laptop!Quote

It also picks up CD1 of the recovery series fine but it won't read the Windows CD I have. I am starting to wonder if it's the CD I've got.