Backup restore partition?

[RichS]

I've been busy over the summer. One of the jobs I've been doing is taking in donated computers and other equipment, fixing/cleaning them up and putting them to use in other places or giving them out to people who need them.

One of my donations is a HP Pavilion 503n - took a hard hit to the front of the case, but after I replaced the optical drive and added some memory, it's a decent computer.

The problem I have, though, is one that I hate manufacturers doing - not providing restore CD's but having a restore partition on the hard drive. This one's even worse - there is no HP Restore CD burning utility that came with the machine, and, of course, the discs are not available from HP anymore.

So, is there anyone who has come up with this that was able to backup the restore partition to (possibly bootable) CDs/DVDs? What I'd like to do is make restore CD's, DBAN the hard drive to delete any info from the previous user, and restore the system. I've got the perfect place for this computer - a church that needs it's old AMD Athlon system replaced - but I want have the OS backed up for them in case the hard drive fails.

[crashhelmet]

If the partition exists, you can use Ghost to make a backup of it. i had to do that with a friend's Lenovo laptop. HDD was chowed and it wouldn't burn discs from the restore partition.

I couldn't get it to mirror the drives, so I had to make a Ghost Image of the drive and copy it to one of my drives in my desktop and then put it onto the new drive. From there, I was able to run restore utility to make everything work right.

CH

[RichS]

My old workplace has a copy of Ghost - I'll have to try that.

Thanks!

[Eric the Grey]

I recently picked up an Acer netbook for my wife, and in order to restore the drive, I had to hit a certain combination of keys while booting up. I found that combo on the Acer web site. You may try the HP site and search for the make/model # and see if you can find it, or any information about it.

The software may well be there, just no longer available in the OS.


Eric the Grey

[RichS]

The software may well be there, just no longer available in the OS.

Oh, I can restore the system from the partition, either in Windows or by the F10 key.

The problem is that, since the computer was made before June 2002, there is no utility to make backup CD/DVD sets of the partition, and it's of the age that since the warranty has run out the restore discs aren't available for purchase. Again, it's why I hate manufacturers who don't include actual restore discs or a copy of Windows with the computers they sell. I mean, what does a few CD's or 1 DVD cost? And, since the OS is still supported, it shouldn't matter if the computer is out of warranty, I should still be able to buy the restore discs, or have the ability to make my own!

Sorry that turned into a rant. I'll try Ghost after I take care of another problem *sigh*...why don't users do what I tell them???

[Chromatix]

Another solution that I can't resist mentioning: install Linux, and provide your own restore CD for that.

[Hibble]

Dose it have the windows licence sticker on the back. if so download a windows disk for the same version and just reformat the pc. Entering that licence key when asked.

just use a linux live cd to image the hard-drive.https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DriveImaging i use the dd comand and make a image on a usb hard drive.

Gost for linux is another recommendation http://sourceforge.net/projects/g4l/

[Chromatix]

If you use Linux to image the drive, there are some tricks to make it take up less space on the backup disk. If you want to try that route, I may have some ideas.