Member Avatar for bikunj

Product Name G71-329WM - System Recovery does not work, using Discs or Hard drive.
Product Name and Operating System - G71-329WM; originally came with Windows Vista and was then upgraded to Windows 7 Home

The note book was acting funney like it had a virus so I wanted to use System Recovery to restore it to its original state.

When I use Recovery Manager on the hard drive, it will reformat the hard drive, load the files, and then it will say, "File Instatlation Incomplete".

I have tried this twice with the same result.
In the diagnostic log I get 0601

When I used my recovery discs I got this message

RECOVERYMGR.EXE-APPLICATION ERROR - The instruction at 0x400e764f referenced memory at 0x00000000. The memory could not be read. Click on OK to terminate the program.

When I click on ok it takes me to "Windows loading files, of the recovery disc, and I get the same error again, so it is an endless loop. I have 2 sets of recovery discs, because I have 2 of these laptops and I get the same error message with both.

So I can't use my recovery discs and I can't use Recovery Manager. Thanks HP. Is there a work around for

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by johnruelle

Dani AI

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Summary and targeted troubleshooting for ’s G71‑329WM: the factory recovery (hard‑drive image and recovery discs) repeatedly fails with “File Installation Incomplete,” diagnostic code 0601, and a RecoveryMGR.exe memory read at 0x00000000. Replies from , , and correctly point at a corrupted image or failing disk, but the next steps should be methodical to prove which it is and to recover data before more writes occur.

Recommended sequence (prioritized, non‑destructive first)

  1. Run full hardware diagnostics (HDD SMART + surface/long test, and extended memory test). Use the laptop’s built‑in diagnostics or a bootable vendor tool. A bad SMART attribute or surface errors strongly indicates a failing drive.
  2. Verify the recovery media/drive independently. Try the recovery discs from a different PC or from a USB DVD drive. If both sets fail on different hardware, the media/image itself is suspect.
  3. Capture SMART and surface data and then attempt safe repairs: from Windows RE/PE run
    chkdsk C: /r

    and from a Linux/live USB run smartctl -a /dev/sda to inspect attributes (bootable smart tools like smartmontools or vendor utilities recommended).

  4. Test RAM (Memtest86 bootable) for at least several passes; a RAM failure can produce the null‑pointer memory read seen in RecoveryMGR.exe.
  5. If hardware checks pass, attach the HDD to another PC (SATA or USB enclosure) and try to mount/extract the factory image files (.wim/.swm or HP image files) to confirm they are readable. If the image is intact it can be applied manually (DISM/ImageX) or used to build USB recovery media.

Practical recovery paths if the image is bad

  • Clean‑install Windows 7 from official install media (use the COA product key) and then download HP drivers—this avoids broken recovery tools.
  • If the drive shows bad sectors that chkdsk can’t fix, clone it to a new HDD/SSD and retry restore on the clone.
  • If cloning/repair fails, request replacement recovery media from HP or use OEM install media.

Notes: as observed, repairing disk sectors before imaging often lets imaging complete. Salvage any important files first by mounting the drive on another machine.

Recommended Answers

All 4 Replies

Member Avatar for SoftBa

Your recovery media contains Vista or Win7 files?

If you can't use those CD media I suggest you to try some other LiveCD distribution with AV scanner on it or Win7 repair tools.

Member Avatar for rubberman

This is either a recovery system bug or the results of a corrupted image (such as a failing hard drive). I would guess the latter. Bug HP for new installation media and a new hard drive. If the system is still under warranty it may not cost you anything. If not, then... In any case HP has some pretty decent diagnostic tools so you may be able to determine if the hard drive is really failing or not.

Member Avatar for cgeier

It is probably a bad hard drive as stated. However, not all diagnostic tools will necessarily find the issue--even the HP ones. I've had the best luck using Acronis True image. Try to make an image and if the hdd has bad sectors it will error out. I believe that both Seagate and WD offer a version of it for free--providing your hdd is a Seagate or a WD. The quickest way to find out if the hdd is the issue though, is to test the restore using a different hdd.

Member Avatar for johnruelle

I had a problem imaging a HD using acronis TI home 2010. The work-around was to run scan disk to fix some bad sectors. Acronis TI worked fine after that.

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