My girlfriends computer crashed today. She has a
Hp Pavilion 523w. How do you reformmat your computer and get Windows XP
installed again when you don't have any disks? No disk came with her
computer.

Thanks,
Sandy

There's a recovery partition on the hard drive - all you have to do is
restart the pc & tap the F10 key. You should get a message saying
"entering hp pc system recovery". Click on the following link
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/g...cname=bph07145

That link should take you to a document titled "HP Desktop PCs - Performing
a System Recovery in Microsoft Windows XP" Now when you do the recovery you
will have 2 options - destructive(lose everything & start from scratch) or
non-destructive(keeps data files but loses any 3rd party programs that you
put on the pc) This is very important - before doing any recovery unhook
any printers/scanners/camera's & if you added any extra ram/hard
drives/video or sounds cards. You have to do this because the recovery
process will get screwed up if you don't. I know this becuase I use to
support these crappy pc's before HP moved everything to India. If you can't
access the recovery partition you will have to call HP India(lol) & ask for
a set of recovery cds. Where you pc is out of warranty they will probably
charge you for the cds. However if you kick up a fuss & speak to a
supervisor - you can probably get them for free. Hope this helps!

JG



"Sandy W" <sandeeww@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:UWQXc.102816$TI1.65660@attbi_s52...
> My girlfriends computer crashed today. She has a
> Hp Pavilion 523w. How do you reformmat your computer and get Windows XP
> installed again when you don't have any disks? No disk came with her
> computer.
>
> Thanks,
> Sandy
>
>

There's a recovery partition on the hard drive - all you have to do is
restart the pc & tap the F10 key. You should get a message saying
"entering hp pc system recovery". Click on the following link
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/g...cname=bph07145

That link should take you to a document titled "HP Desktop PCs - Performing
a System Recovery in Microsoft Windows XP" Now when you do the recovery you
will have 2 options - destructive(lose everything & start from scratch) or
non-destructive(keeps data files but loses any 3rd party programs that you
put on the pc) This is very important - before doing any recovery unhook
any printers/scanners/camera's & if you added any extra ram/hard
drives/video or sounds cards. You have to do this because the recovery
process will get screwed up if you don't. I know this becuase I use to
support these crappy pc's before HP moved everything to India. If you can't
access the recovery partition you will have to call HP India(lol) & ask for
a set of recovery cds. Where you pc is out of warranty they will probably
charge you for the cds. However if you kick up a fuss & speak to a
supervisor - you can probably get them for free. Hope this helps!

JG



"Sandy W" <sandeeww@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:UWQXc.102816$TI1.65660@attbi_s52...
> My girlfriends computer crashed today. She has a
> Hp Pavilion 523w. How do you reformmat your computer and get Windows XP
> installed again when you don't have any disks? No disk came with her
> computer.
>
> Thanks,
> Sandy
>
>