Troubleshooting and Maintenance

Reinstalling and Updating Software

Reinstalling and Updating Software

You can use the Recovery CD to recover the original factory software for your computer.

The Recovery CD also provides Windows drivers specific to your computer to configure a custom system. You can find drivers in these locations:

On your computer’s hard drive under C:\hp\Drivers.

On the Recovery CD under \hp\Drivers.

On the HP Customer Care web site (www.hp.com/go/support). This web site contains the latest updates of software drivers for different operating systems.

 

To recover the factory installation of your hard disk

 

You can use the Recovery CD to reinstall the original factory software on your

 

computer’s hard disk. You can also use the same process to create a larger Utility

 

partition on your hard disk, or to create a Utility partition on a new hard disk. The hidden

 

Utility partition contains the e-Diagtools diagnostic tests and stores hibernation data for

 

Windows 98 and other operating systems that don’t provide hibernation.

 

 

CAUTION

This procedure formats the computer’s hard disk drive and erases all data on the

 

disk. After the hard disk is formatted, you’ll need to reinstall your applications.

Do not interrupt the following process or unplug the AC adapter until the process is complete.

1.Important: back up all data from your hard disk. The following steps delete all data from the disk.

2.Plug in the AC adapter.

3.Insert the Recovery CD in the CD-ROM/DVD drive in the expansion base. If the computer is turned off, insert a straightened paper clip into the hole on the front of the drive to open the drive.

–or–

If you have a PC Card or parallel port CD-ROM drive, connect it and insert the Recovery CD. Also connect the floppy drive and insert the Support Utility disk—see “To create a Support Utility disk” on page 62.

Startup Guide

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