Computer help...

338375

338375

Joined
Nov 4, 2006
Messages
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A couple days ago, my wife was going to remove files and games that are no longer being used.
Well long story short, she removed everything from the computer including Windows XP operating system. :mad:

She called HP to get recovery discs, but they don't sell them any more because the unit is over 5 years old.

Can anyone recommend a place on line that is reputable to order the HP recovery disc set ? She found a place on line that we could get them for 27 dollars, but have never dealt with any of these places, so I'm a little skeptical.

The computer is a HP Pavillion a700n, and we were running Windows XP Home.

I'm a total idiot on computers, so I'm not much help with how to do anything with it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks Mike
 
You're best bet would be to buy a Windows XP install disk.

There are less reputable (read: technically illegal) methods of doing this, but I'm not going to broadcast those publicly.

If you're just trying to get the operating system back, go with an XP install disk. If you're trying to get files and data back, take it to a computer shop. Might cost $100-$200 but it's much less painful then if you're doing it yourself.
 
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareList?os=228&lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&lang=en&product=431075 here are the drivers for your hardware. If you know someone with a dell or something with an xp disk, get it from them and get the product key, its "illegal" but i've done multiple computers this way. All you do is activate it, don't register. I can walk you through some steps to recover if you want. Send me an email at suzukigs750ez@sbcglobal.net. I do this kind of stuff as a second job, so i'll help you out. or do you have a phone number i can reach you at?
 
Thanks for the replies. I'm just heading out the door to go to work.
I won't be home until late tonight, but will take a closer look at the options and start trying to get this sorted out when I get back home.
 
You should have the Windows XP Product Key on the side or bottom of your machine. Or if it's not there, you might have stashed it somewhere. Anyways, once you find it, all you need is a Windows XP OEM install disk. If your key says Service pack 2 then you need a Service pack 2 disk.

Once you have Your key and an OEM disk it's pretty simple. Drivers follow and have already been linked to so no need for me to repost that.

Newegg has XP Home OEM disks for less then $120 that include a new licence code. Thats another option.

Heber
 
wildmanh said:
Newegg has XP Home OEM disks for less then $120 that include a new licence code. Thats another option.
Click to expand...

And there is a HP Pavillon a700n (W/ Windows XP) selling for a whopping $31.01 with 8 hours left on eBay.:p

Edit-Try to fix it but unless you have files on the computer that you need to recover, don't waste your money. You could simply buy a better or the same computer for less money.
 
most HPs of that vintage shipped with a recovery partition. This allows you to set up windows again. This will be one of the options you can access at boot up or off the BIOS screen.

This won't recover your data and will make it harder to recover data.

So recover data first. install the disk in another computer and use some file recovery tools to recover your data.

Then use the recovery partition to reinstall windows. Most of the time, you can create install disks from the recovery partition as well.
 
Another thought. If you don't want to bother with Windows, Puppy Linux is a complete office suit and best yet it is free. It fits on a cd.
 
Thanks for all the suggestions. The wife had tried to reboot it three times, but couldn't get past the accept command.
Then she thought maybe it was because we were using my sons key board hooked up to our computer. So she hooked up our keyboard, and it worked perfectly...

We are now back up and running. Its running better than it has in a long time..
 
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