Member Avatar for lucky101va

HI I am wanting to restore my Compaq Presario V2000 Laptop. However I do not have the restore disk or any disk that came with the computer for that matter. Is there a way any one knows that I can restore without spending money? I know some compaqs you can press and hold either F10 or F11 at boot, I just havent tried this yet. ANy help would be most appreciated.exmje

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— useful suggestions from and already point in the right directions. A couple of clarifications and practical steps will help decide the cheapest, safest route: the factory restore is either invoked by an OEM recovery boot path or by separate recovery media. The BIOS cannot "boot a partition" directly; the recovery partition only works if the OEM boot code and recovery files are intact.

If Windows still starts: open Computer Management -> Disk Management (or run diskmgmt.msc) and look for a small hidden partition (no drive letter) labeled RECOVERY/HP/COMPAQ or a few GB in size. If you find it, use the installed Recovery Manager application to create recovery discs or USB media now (Start -> All Programs -> Recovery Manager or similar). Create those media before doing anything else, and back up personal files.

If there is no recovery partition or it won’t launch, a free way back to a working system is a clean or repair install from a Windows XP CD using the product key on the COA sticker (under the laptop or in the battery bay). Boot the XP disc, use the Repair option (if you want to preserve programs) or a full install, then download the Presario V2000 drivers from HP/Compaq support and install chipset/network/audio/video drivers.

Troubleshooting notes: disconnect USB devices (they can confuse boot), ensure the hard drive is first in BIOS boot order, and if the recovery key won’t fire check/fix the MBR with the Recovery Console (fixmbr / fixboot) from an XP disc — but backup first, since these operations affect disk boot records. If the recovery partition was removed, official recovery media may be purchasable from HP; otherwise the clean-install-with-COA route is the no-cost option.

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Member Avatar for HoustonIT

In Disk Manager, do you see a restore partition? If not, you will need to restore from the CD's. Compaq usually keeps image CD's on hand for newer PC's.

Member Avatar for FlamingClaw

wake up the restore partition.
If you have got restore partition then when you jump in the BIOS
you need set that it will be the first boot device...and restart your pc..I think that it will automatically install :)

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