System Recovery; Creating Recovery Discs; Choosing Recovery Discs - HP TouchSmart dx9000 Reference Manual

System Recovery

After you have tried the previously mentioned methods of repairing your computer, you can run a system
recovery as a last resort to reinstall the factory-shipped operating system, software programs, and
hardware drivers.
System Recovery—System recovery completely erases and reformats the hard disk drive, deleting all
data files you have created. System recovery reinstalls the operating system, programs, and drivers.
However, you must reinstall any software that was not installed on the computer at the factory. This
includes software that came on CDs included in the computer accessory box, and software programs
you installed after purchase.
You must choose from the following methods for performing a System Recovery:
Recovery Image—Run the system recovery from a recovery image stored on your hard disk drive. The
recovery image is a file that contains a copy of the original factory-shipped software. To perform a system
recovery from the recovery image on your hard disk drive, see
disk drive on page
NOTE: The recovery image uses a portion of the hard disk drive that cannot be used for data storage.
Recovery Discs—Run the system recovery from a set of recovery discs (CDs or DVDs) that you create
from files stored on your hard disk drive. To create recovery discs, see the next section.

Creating Recovery Discs

Complete the procedure described in this section to create a set of recovery discs from the recovery
image stored on your hard disk drive. This image contains the operating system and software program
files that were originally installed on your computer at the factory.
You can create only one set of recovery discs for your computer. Furthermore, the recovery discs you
create can be used only with your computer.
After creating the recovery discs, you can delete the recovery image if you want to make extra space
available on your hard disk drive.
NOTE: Do not delete the recovery image until you have made recovery discs.

Choosing Recovery Discs

There are several advantages to using DVDs instead of CDs when creating recovery discs:
DVDs have greater capacity than CDs, so there are fewer discs to record and store.
DVD recovery discs take less time to create than CD recovery discs.
To create recovery discs, your computer must have a CD or DVD Writer drive, or other drive that can
write to CDs or DVDs.
You must use high-quality discs. Because making a set of recovery discs is so important, there is a very
high verification standard for this process. You may see error messages such as Recording failure
when writing disc or Error detected during disc verification.
Your discs may be rejected if they are not defect-free. You will be prompted to insert a new blank disc
to try again. It is normal that some of your discs may be rejected.
40 Chapter 4 Repairing Software Problems
41.
Starting system recovery from the hard