I am trying to create recovery discs on a Compaq 615 running Windows 7, but I can not find the Recovery Manager that is supposed to be used for this purpose. See this official page for reference. It is a Swedish laptop, so most programs have Swedish names, but there is nothing even resembling "Recovery Manager".
There is a recovery partition, but I can not find anything useful there. How do I create recovery disks in this situation?
The HP Recovery Disc restores you computer to its initial state, erasing any changes and all of your data. It's really only to be used only in case of absolute necessity. Only one copy of the recovery disk can be created, so your first attempt to create it must succeed.
In English, the Start menu entry is called something like HP Backup and Recovery Manager. If you enter "HP" you should find it in the list. Another possible name is the "PC Help and Tools" menu group. If you still can't find it, go to C:\Program Files (or whatever it is in Swedish) and search for a directory whose name starts with "HP" and may look similar to one of the above names, where you can find this program.
The Windows 7 Recovery Disk is much less destructive and can recover some computer errors. It's best to have both discs, just in case.
From Create a system recovery disk in Windows 7 :
System and Security, and then click Backup and RestoreCreate a system recovery diskCreate Disk.
Usually, you can create recovery disks of your system with a CD/DVD provided with the laptop. I mean should have got a disk when you bought the laptop. But this is not a general rule, so if you don't have a disk for "Recovery Manager" probably HP/Compaq thought that you don't need one. This usually happens when you have that recovery partition, so you don't need a recovery manager to do a recovery disk for yourself.
However, Windows 7 install disk may have an option for creating for you a recovery disk, I don't know for sure, if you have a Windows 7 install DVD, try to boot from it and see if you have an option.
Search your hard drive for "CDCreator.exe" then execute it.
It may be found here C:\Program Files (x86)\Hewlett-Packard\Recovery
If it is not on your hard drive then you cannot create the discs.
You can download and attempt installation of Recovery manager.
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareDownloadIndex?softwareitem=ob-75985-1&cc=us&lc=en&dlc=en
If this does not work, order a set of recovery discs http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c00810334&cc=us&lc=en&dlc=en
If HP cannot supply them, then contact this company http://www.computersurgeons.com/Default.aspx
.
Try looking inside the recovery partition. It's possible that it has been wiped out.
Furthermore, the site you linked to (http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?lc=en&dlc=&cc=us&docname=c01867124) refers to Windows 7. A previous poster noted that the laptop did not originally have Windows 7 so the instructions on that page do not apply to you.
I suggest following the steps outlined by harrymc and outlined in detail at http://forums.techarena.in/guides-tutorials/1114725.htm.
Is this a new laptop? Sometimes when you buy a new laptop, the place you buy it from will advertise services for your new laptop like "removing unnecessary software" and "software optimization". If you accepted these services, they may have deleted the link to the recovery manager or the executable itself in order to "serve your needs". You can check the recycle bin for the link. Also look around in c:/Program Files and c:/Program Files(x86) for anything that relates to HP or Compaq. The recovery manager executable might still be lying somewhere in there. You might also like to try recuva to see if it was deleted from the recycle bin (and still recoverable).
If it is completely gone, I would recommend doing a disk image backup with something like Acronis, Macrium Reflect, Norton Ghost, or CloneZilla.
