Can I clone the partition containing the recovery software on an HP computer with a bad hard drive to a new hard drive and then use it to install the original software on the new hard drive? The old HD suddenly developed several bad sectors and the BIOS reports that failure is imminent. It is only 2 months old and normally I would just take it to be repaired under warranty, but this is a bad time of the month and the unit cannot be gone for an extended period of time.
Any tips, suggestions, help will be appreciated tremendously.

Zeusfan

>>>>Can I clone the partition containing the recovery software on an HP computer with a bad hard <<<<
Here we go again, more info, bad HDD??? why would you want to use a bad HDD
what is the size of the HDD's in questions.

If you clone a HDD bad sectors will be cloned thus damaging a good HDD

I would suggst you to try to recover as much data as you can from your bad HDD and then do a clean install on the new one.
As you say that BIOS warned you that "failure is imminent", I d do it ASAP before the inevitable happens and you loose the data as well.

Raj

I suggest you use SpinRite, as it might be able to fix you hard drive long enough for you to back up the data in it. But I've always had those hdd error codes on some of my hard drives and they haven't failed yet.

Dont think so. Tried it on a dell but most recovery partitions and CDs seem tied to the hard disk (by serial number i presume)

I am going to clone the recovery partition ony onto a good but used HD. The recovery partition does not have any bad sectors or bad data. I accomplished this without any problems but after running the recovery program I receive a "code purple" error message telling me that there is "a system configuration error" and to contact HP customer service. Like another poster wrote this has something to do with trying to use a different hard drive. I just need to figure out how to get around this. By the way the original HD was a SATA 400GB Hitachi, the new one will be a 1 TB Seagate. Called HP and they are sending me a free replacement HD and a complete set of install disks for FREE. The tech guy had no idea what a code purple error was. He told me there wasn't any info he could find on it.

can your system handle 1tb

I think so, 4GB of memory (a little above 3Gb not being used) until 64 bit stuff is more widely available, 512mb PCIE video, and a AMD Athlon 64 FX-55 Processor (ClawHammer). It was a screaming machine until the HDD decided to fubar. I just don't understand why they put such a small hard drive into it to begin with. I currently have (4) 500Gb Seagates running in my goof off machine. I use them for storing my movies etc.

cool, i was just shceking. Some pcs dont like drives over a certain amount (i think its 650?),