Original system image for new computer is GONE?

This is a refurbished PC I bought less than a week ago. It's an HP Compaq, with Windows 7 Pro (32-bit) on it. I dutifully told it to create a system recovery disk, and a system image, when I first got it, almost before I did anything else to it. I did at least one other image back up using the control panel… Now when I use the recovery disk and I ask it to revert the hard drive, it doesn't show me my original "factory" system image. I don't even remember the date of it. But there should be at lease TWO images on the external drive, and it is only listing one, the most recent one. Where did the original image go? There is a TON of space on the Seagate 750 GB external HD. I don't think I erased it. I'm in a wee bit of a panic. I haven't been getting enough sleep, and I'm scared I've screwed up this new computer. Is anyone out there well versed in Windows 7 "system images" and how they're stored and how to get back to the original one so I can reset the hard-drive to almost what it was when I got it from the store (bought it at Microcenter)? I think from that point forward, I'm going to make Clonezilla images, because CloneZilla doesn't mess with the old image when it makes a new one. You can restore your whole hard drive to whatever point you want. The interim incremental back-ups (e.g. nightly) I'll have to do with something else, such as 7-zip. I did actually make a couple clonezilla images at some point, but I forget what state the machine was in at that point. Maybe I could restore the hard drive using the Clonezilla image to the point before Windows knew about the second system image that Windows created on the external HD, so that it will think that the correct system image to use is the original one which is almost straight after I bought it? Come to think of it, if my Clonezilla image is "original enough", I would gladly give up Windows system backups. They are way too confusing for me. My mind is simple. a) take a snapshot of a partition (clonezilla) OR take a snapshot of a whole hard drive (clonezilla) OR c) take a snapshot of a folder, file, set of folder, set of files (e.g. with zip or 7zip) I know the Seagate drive was "touched" by Windows when it create the second image, so it might not matter what I restore to the internal HD of the computer - it might keep on NOT telling me about my first system images, which the one I really care about. Or did care about. I made the second one for testing purposes. If I thought for one moment that making the second system image using Windows backup software was going to mess with the original system image, I would not have done it. Or, I would have restored to that point, and found a pile of burn-once DVDs, and put those away for safe-keeping. Windows backup software tool was only supposed to modify (i.e. possibly lose prior system images) IF THE EXTERNAL DISK IS FULL. Which it isn't. Not even close. A completely different approach: I have an install disk for Windows 7 Professional that I had bought separately, some time back. I am tempted to pop that baby in there, and start brand new, and just forget whatever came from the store with the computer. As long as I use the Windows 7 Product key that is physically on this computer, would that make a difference? What about drivers for special hardware for this particular computer. How do I get those updated/installed? I have a Windows 7 Product key that came with the original DVDs when I bought the product, but I never installed it anywhere, and haven't decided where to install it yet. I never used the product key on the original DVDs' package. Since both product keys are legit, I have the right to run at least two versions of Windows 7 - one for the HP Compaq I bought last week and one for another installation of my choosing. I feel as though I am one of those bizarre I Love Lucy skits. Ack. Help! THANK YOU Linda

not 100% sure but i think you should be able to do a full factory restore without using any of your backups. i believe there should be a hidden partition on your hard drive that you can use to do this, to access the restore options menu you need to keep tapping one of the F keys when you switch on the pc until you get the menu, try F10 or F12, if no luck please supply the exact make and model of your hp compaq pc so we can do some more research. no i wouldn't use the window disc you have just yet.

Thanks, Terry. It's hp 6530b When I first press power button, it says press ESC key for startup menu. I pressed the ESC key and got this: f1 system info f2 system diagnostics f7 hp sparekey f9 boot device options f10 bios setup f12 network boot ENTER - Continue Startup For more information, please visit www.hp.com/go/techcenter/startup

H Linda, Until Terry gets back to you, check to seee if there is a Recovery Partition on your computer…. You can usually do this through "Computer", the Recovery Partition (if its there, should be visible on HP computers.) If its not there then it means someone wiped it out and in that case you would need to rely on, either discs you already have or ones that you try and make now. ( we can give you step by step directions if you need them) There is just a chance that they (the previous owner or maybe the vendor) may not have actually wiped out the Recovery Partition, but may have just hidden it! At the menu you got to by pressing Esc try pressing F11….see if that takes you to the Recovery Partition, try it a few times…… If no joy then reboot your computer and immediately start tapping F11 once per second….. do you see any menu appear that looks promising? You may have to do this several times as its easy to be too slow at tapping F11 (it needs to start immediately after pressing the power on button from a cold start….) If still no joy then try tapping F8 immediately after a cold start and see what sort of menu you get….. ( let us know please) With a brand new machine with a standard set up we can tell you exctly what should happen in a given circumstances, but with a refurbished machine it all depends on who did the refurbishing, how they did it and (probably) how they were feeling that day!! Post back and one of us will do our our best to help Regards paws a

Hi! I got into the "Computer Management" tool, "Storage > Disk Management". Here's what it says about Disk0: VOLUME: (no name) Layout=Simple, Type=Basic, filesystem=blank, status = Healthy (Active, Recovery Partition), Capacity=9.77GB, Free Space=9.77GB, %Free=100%, Fault Tol=No, Overhead=0% VOLUME: Windows(C:), Layout=Simple, Type=Basic, FileSystem=NTFS, Status=Healthy (Boot, PageFile, CrashDump, Primary Partition), Capacity=139.28GB, %Free=88%, Fault Tol=No, Overhead=0% I will press F11 and F8 keys next time I do a hard boot and report what happens. thanks, Linda

that looks to me like the recovery partition is definitely there, and the correct key is F11 like paws has said from my quick google search for "hp 6530b" so i think you should be good to go to do a complete restore to an as new condition without relying on any of your backups..

YES! The recovery partition was definitely there, and I used it. It was much simpler than I thought it would be. AFTER the "Press ESC for … menu" the next screen asks which system to boot, Windows 7 or Recovery. Windows 7 is selected and by default, it will boot after 5 seconds. When I moved the cursor to highlight "Recovery" and pressed the enter key, it let me restore the computer to the original state when I bought the system. Problem solved! Thank you. I got into this mess because I was experimenting with Windows backup & restore, which I still don't understand. I will start a new thread about that topic. Again, thank you both for your help. Linda

your welcome.

I am not a pro as the others are but have gone through what you are doing. Study Windows image program (Win 7 file recovery) as it really is not hard. Google some videos about how it works. I made one image a long time ago as a baseline image, in case. I also use Macrium free to keep current images as the program is straight forward. If I can do it, you can. Macrium and Windows have not failed me.