HP 6730b Recovery Partition Problem

[Nickerzzzzz]

Hi, hope someone can offer some advice/help here :-(

Problem...
When using the F11 option to recover Windows Vista Business from the recovery partition I get the following error message...

Windows Boot Manager
Status: 0xc000000f
Info: The boot selection failed because a required device is inaccessible

This was brought on by myself because I wanted to re-partition the hard drive and install/multi boot XP, Vista and Ubuntu, this went fine but I now need to recover the hard drive to its original state!

I pre-empted this and took a copy of the 3 original partitions using Acronis True Image.

Once the 3 images are restored I can boot into the original O/S and all partitions are available with all the relevant files...But at boot time F11 will not work to recover the system to its Factory state!

I think its a corrupt or missing boot sector and I don't quite know if this can be fixed or bypassed, or is it possible to boot and execute the HP image (HP_WINRE) somehow?

Thanks in antisipation

 

[tlcscousin]

I will quote from this site

http://www.neowin.net/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t604334.html

Step 1: Right-click "My Computer" and click "Manage"
Step 2: Go to "Disk Management"
Step 3: Right-click the "Drive D/Recovery Partition" and click "Mark Partition as Active"
Step 4: Reboot, and press F11 as it starts up

Dont know if it will work but worth a shot.

 

[kjv1611]

I recently tried this on a system (Dell), tlcscousin, and all that did was make the current Vista install unbootable. Of course, I was planning on wiping everything off anyway, but just sayin'.

;p

--

"If to err is human, then I must be some kind of human!" -Me

 

[tlcscousin]

I sort of figured it would possibly stop windows booting by setting it active but with acronis images to restore it to it would be a shot.I myself would send for the restore disks if i was planning to sell the computer so the buyer would have them.

 

[Nickerzzzzz]

Hi
Just to let you know that I did try setting the partition to active with Acronis Disk Director but to no avail.
.
I downloaded and installed bootit ng last night and this is the best bit of software to date for me! to my mind it prety much confirms that the error message I get is a red herring in that its not a device that's inaccessible but a path/file that cannot be found, I feel sure if I can work out what file to try and call/load/boot then by adding this as another option at boot time will do the trick.
.
My thoughts are now to create another entry in vistass ;-) boot manager, pointing to the Recovery partition and calling the \boot\boot.sdi file, this in turn will hopefully then do its stuff and restore the pc from one or more of the following files contained on the recovery partition..\sources\winre.wim (220 mb), \system.sav\util\HPFactory.WIM (7 gb), there are various other files on the partition but in my opinion these are the key ones and they are the largest.
.
Again...any ideas Greatly received as I'm getting close to giving up now :-(

 

[Nickerzzzzz]

Hi
Well I have had some success!
.
I used the below link to get me on my way and have now got the laptop to boot into HP Recovery Manager...However, once it boots and I take the only option to restore the laptop to its factory settings it warns that all data will be lost and on continueing it formats the hard drive and reboots with a Missing Operating System message...after all this how frustrating is that!
.

http://windowsitpro.com/article/art...-recovery-environment-re-to-my-boot-menu.html

.
I think the only thing I can do now is extract the winre image and restore the laptop manually somehow! :-(
.
Any ideas?
.
Thanks in antisipation.

 

[servelle]

Hi,
I've had a problem close to yours.
here is how i solved it:

In the partition/disk hp_recovery, sub dir \sources\system.sav\ you can find a hidden file named hpfactory.wim

With this file you can restore your disk C: same as the first day you turned on the computer, with imagex.exe application.

What to do:

- format the disk C:
- activate partition on disk C:
(this can be donne with hiren's boot cd by example)
- find imagex.exe and "Vista Win pe CD" on the net,
- copy imagex.exe in the directory where is hpfactory.wim (should be D:\sources\system.sav\ but need to check),
(file copy can be done with hiren's boot cd using "mini xp")
- boot pc with "vista win pe" CD
- click on installation repair, expert, command prompt,
- at command prompt, find the letter of the hp_recovery disk, try D: , E:, F:,
- then when found go to sub dir \sources\system.sav
- we are close to the end,
- type: imagex /info hpfactory.wim
- read and find the "index" number (was 1 on my PC)
- now serious thingshere I use 1 as index number, replace by yours)
- type: imagex /apply hpfactory.wim 1 c:\
- this will restore your C: disk with factory settings,
- then try reboot on hard drive without CD,
- if it doesn't boot, use "vista win pe" CD and installation (automatic) repair,
- if still doesn't boot, go to command prompt from "vista win pe", go to C:\ and type: bootrec /fixmbr
and also: bootrec /fixboot,
- if needed do another "vista win pe" installation repair
- hum that should boot now ...
- follow instructions of "windows installation recovery" and you are done !

Hope this can help

 

[Nickerzzzzz]

Thanks for the Info Servelle...
.
This info is very usefull for future reference.
.
I have only just managed to cheat my way round fixing this issue as below and if it had failed I would have tried your tute.
.
Not really the way I wanted to fix it but time was ticking on...I found someone with a similar HP laptop (6735s) which had the same partitioning but didfferent OS, I used Acronis to copy all 3 partitions from the 6735s and restored them to my 6730b laptop hard drive, I then copied my sdi file and wim files from the original image of my 6730b and took the option to overwrite the files, this was all done via an external usb drive and a usb to sata cable and gave me a working recovery partition due to all the bcdedit entries and mbr being in place and where they should be.
Once the above was complete It left me with a hard drive that would not boot into windows (due to the diferent drivers OS etc) but I could post boot into the HP recovery partition, this then used my original sdi and wim files to load and re-install windows to its factory state.
.
Hoorah! ;-)
.
Thanks to all for your help/ideas on this.

 

[servelle]

Hi Nikerzzzzz,

This is a very nice cheat ! Good to know !

Congratulations, you did it, and happy new year !

 

[beeheap]

Hi, I also had the problem on my HP6730b.

I started up in DOS and started the Ghost.exe app in the F partition. I found out that the route to the recovery files (6730b.gho and 6730b001.ghs)was pointing to the F partition whilst these files were in the Various folder in that partition. So I simply put both files out of the Various folder into the F partition.

That worked for me and maybe it'll work for others too.