How to Restore an HP to Store-Bought Settings

You may have several reasons for wanting to restore your HP computer's operating system to its factory settings, and it's possible to do that using HP's recovery console or restore disks. When you restore your HP to its default settings, this will delete your files, folders and any programs that you installed, and your HP computer's operating system will be as it was when the computer was new.

Things You'll Need

• HP Recovery Partition or HP restore disks

Instructions

Restore Using HP Recovery Manager

1. Shut down your computer.

2. Turn the computer on and press the "F11" key as it starts up. This will cause the HP Recovery Manager to load.

3. Click "No" if prompted to use Microsoft's "System Restore" utility and click "Next."

4. Highlight either "Back up your files first (recommended)" or "Recover without backing up your files."

5. Click "Next" to begin the recovery process. HP warns that recovery "may take up to several hours to complete.

Restore Using Recovery Disk

1. Insert the recovery disk that came with your computer. If you have lost your disk or never received one, you can request one from HP (see Resources).

2. Press any key when prompted to boot from CD or DVD.

3. The HP Recovery Console will load. HP warns that this "may take several minutes to load the required files."

4. Click "Advanced Options" in the lower right corner of the Recovery Manager window.

5. Click on "System Recovery" and click "Next."

6. Follow on-screen prompts to select whether to back up your files, and click "Next."

   The recover process begins may take several hours to complete.

7. Follow any on-screen prompts as they appear. These may prompt you to insert additional disks if your Recovery Manager software came with multiple disks. You may also receive prompts to insert a "Supplemental driver disk" that will install software for the hardware specific to your computer model.

Tips & Warnings

• Performing a factory restore is one of the best ways to rule out a hardware issue when troubleshooting a problem with your computer. If the problem doesn't go away, you should contact a computer repair professional for further assistance.

• If you choose not to let the HP Recovery Manager back up your files for you, make sure that you either have a current backup stored elsewhere or that you don't want to save any of your files.

• The recovery process offers to back up your files, but a chance always exists that you may lose data. In addition, recovery will remove any programs you installed after you purchased your computer. Before you restore your computer, create back ups of any files you want to keep and locate the installation disks for any programs that you plan to reinstall.

References

• HP Customer Care: Recover Windows Vista Operating System Using HP Recovery

Resources

• HP Customer Care: Order Recovery Disks for Windows 7, Vista, or XP