Media Center PCs

Anyone know how I can reinstall the operating system on a media center pc from HP? I lost access to the recovery partition and now my computer is useless.

I have my laptop thank goodness...

HP never sent me any recovery cds.

it dosnt matter,

as long as the OS has the drivers that can run the hardware,

if i were you, i would baroo the same OS from someone els but the reguler CD

with my compaq i could do that, all you have to do is typ in the key that came with your pc

becouse all they do is install alota crap

[Edited on 10-10-2003 by Dmsoldier]

You would think that HP would give you some sort of recovery disc instead of having to rely on the hard drive partition... Pretty poor planning on their part.

I guess Im just gonna have to call HP and order a cd or something.

At least my laptop is quieter....

[Edited on 10-10-2003 by TheyWatchYouToo]

Ok, what you could do is format your PC, this would mean you lose everything on it, if your are prepared to do this then put the windows disk in and run the setup from it as you start up, it'll ask you to manage the partitions and you'll want to delete the primary and then reboot, XP should then start the setup process and format the drive for you.

If you want recovery, try norton.

I guess thats what Im gonna have to do.. good thing I have all my sensitive data backed up on my laptop.

Actually I do have windows xp home for my laptop but I would lose the media center features of my software. Actually not really much to lose-- just some fancy tivo like functions which I already have anyway on a stand alone device.

[Edited on 10-10-2003 by TheyWatchYouToo]

ya, i wish my pc was quit

aonly way i could make it so is ti buy a water cooler ark

then i would have to install all that sh*t

I found in my old compaq they installed 300+ spyware and aload of other junk

took me forever to get it running good and smooth

now i just wish u could use 1 key for 2 xp cd's

unless 98se keys could work with XP, my dad is stuck with buggy 98se


i got it working stable as can be, but forsome reason I CANT get it to download faster then 200kb "still fast" but should be 800kb

but i cant get any firewall to work on it,


mybe becouse my router is broken and seams to be working with a switch?

i flashed it but the flash file was buged "not my falt, the file on the Linksys website screrd over EVERYone that downloaded it