F10 does not work for restore

[chuckj5]

I have been trying to restore the operating system from the hidden partition. I can access the D: drive, there are a lot of files there. At startup I held down the f10 key to initiate system restore when the logo screen appeared. No recovery screen. Then I tapped the key repeatedly while the logo screen was up, then from the time I hit the power key, every varation I could think of. Is there anyway to initiate Windows setup on the restore partition from a cmd prompt, a XP floppy startup disk or some other aproach. I'm perplexed. The HP web site was no help to me. This is a Pavilion Desktop from 2002.

 

[chillaxinb4u]

try hitting f11 at startup or try each one if not this might help

Got me favorite Kubuntu 7.04 CD, started de laptop, then, at the Kubuntu Intsalation screen, hit F6 to add one more command at the end of the command line -- noapic
When Kubuntu started, I installed it with minimal space:

Left all this huge NTFS space free (hda0) -- Got a 3GB partition for root here ("/", ext3 format) (hda2) -- Got a 900MB partition for SWAP here (hda3) -- Left this 6GB Vista Recovery partition here (hda1)

After less than 10 minutes, Kubuntu was installed, and as soon as GRUB screen appeared, it showed something like this:

- Kubuntu
- Kubuntu Recovery Mode
- Windos XP
- Vista Recovery

Select Vista Recovery to start, then you will get to the Recovery mode, and select the recovery option that formats the laptop just as it was from the factory.
Then, you have your laptop back with Vista.

 

[chuckj5]

Never did get a workable answer to the problem. I replaced the hard drive and installed Win XP from a different HP- PC using the serial number from the HP I couldn't access. I don't think much of having the system restore on a partition you can't access, this has been my first true dissapointment with HP and it is a big one.

 

[jp4576]

You can normally gain access to the hidden partition using command prompt from recovery tools.

1 When in Command prompt. type in disk part then press enter.
2 Next type in List Disk then press enter
3 you should now be shown your hard drives in your computer.
Choose your primary drive normall 0, type select disk 0 then press enter.
4 type list partitions then press enter.
5 you should see a list of maybe 3 or 4 partitons, your recovery partiton is normally the first partition or it will be labled something like recovery.
6 type select partion 1, which ever partition is the recovery partiton.
7 type active then press enter
8 now restart your computer and then recovery manager software should launch.

Hope this helps...