Restoring the Windows Vista™ operating system
Your workstation has a several methods to restore your Windows Vista operating system to a near-
factory state, or to the state of the system at a predefined restore point. Your system has a recovery
partition on the system hard drive that contains software and data required for the restore process as
described in the following sections.
The HP Backup and Restore (HPBR) process
The Window operating system and device drivers (for devices shipped with the system) are reinstalled
using this process. The HPBR process can be executed from DVD, CD, or from the recovery partition
contained on your system hard drive. Select Start > All Programs > HP Backup & Recovery > HP
Backup and Recovery Manager to launch the HPBR.
CAUTION:
Windows partition will be deleted when you perform a system restore using the HPBR process. However,
the recovery partition on the system drive and other partitions should not be affected.
Creating system recovery DVDs or CDs
You can create a set of the DVDs or CDs from your system if you have a DVD/CD burner. After launching
the HP Backup and Restore Manager, you can create ISO images of the factory image, or burn them
directly to CD or DVD media. You can also create a supplemental HP Backup and Recovery Manager
CD. (There may be additional CDs you can create depending on the options you purchased.) You also
have the option to move images of the CDs to another location, such as a network share, to be burned
to DVD or CD at a later time or from another system.
Restoring from HPBR DVDs or CDs
To start the system recovery process, boot from the previously-created DVD or CD and carefully follow
the online instructions.
Restoring directly from the recovery partition
Follow these steps to start the HPBR system restore process from the Recovery Manager::
1.
Boot the workstation.
2.
Press the F11 key when prompted on the boot splash screen to enter the Recovery Manager.
3.
Follow the prompts to restore the system to a factory-like condition.
Reclaiming hard disk space from the recovery partition
The recovery partition can be removed to reclaim the hard drive space. If the recovery partition is
removed, the
data on the recovery partition will be lost. Any recovery images contained in the recovery partition will
be deleted. The ability to create a recovery media set will be lost.
To free up disk space, you can remove just the recovery partition, or you can completely uninstall the
HP Backup and Recovery Manager application.
●
The recovery partition can be removed using Remove HP Recovery Partition in the HP Backup
& Recovery program folder. The recovery partition is deleted, the user partition is extended to
reclaim the unused hard drive space, and the F11 boot prompt is removed. The HP Backup and
Recovery Manager application remains and can be used for data backup and restore.
●
The HP Backup and Recovery Manager application can be uninstalled using the Windows Control
Panel > Programs and Features utility. The application is uninstalled, the recovery partition is
16
Chapter 2 Installing or restoring the operating system
Backup your data before you attempt any operating system restore. All data on the
F11
Emergency Recovery function is not available. The ability to recover the system from
ENWW