Damaged Recovery Partition ?

How can I check if the Recovery Partition on my HP is damaged or corrupted ? (specs below)

The story:
I was experimenting with the boot manager PLoP in order to get a way of booting from a USB device as this is not supported in my BIOS. I had downloaded the stuff and apparently successfully burned the files to CD, and it did indeed boot into PLoP. I just wanted to test the software, and it was apparently working, so, my test having been completed, I wanted to boot from the HD as usual. The two principal options for doing this are HD1 and HD2. (I only have one physical HDD on my computer). I selected HD1 (obvious choice it seemed to me), but then went it into the recovery manager and a white progress bar marking seemingly showing rapid progress appeared with a message like 'starting Compaq recovery procedure'. Now I definitely did not want to erase years of evolution (even though my data was backed up) by returning the machine to factory state [2003], so I did the only thing I could think of: power down at the front panel button. I wish to know if this has in fact damaged my (original and never previously used) recovery partition (not too serious if it has, I have backed that up and also have recovery CDs) as I feel it's better to have the original. (selecting HD2 boots normally I subsequently found of course)

Dumb_Question
31.May.2014

Compaq Presario S5160UK DT261A under XP/SP3
Processor - Celeron 2.7 GHz
Motherboard - MSI MS-6577 v2.1 (Xenon4)
RAM - 1GB + 512MB (1GB +1GB max) DDR PC2700
PSU - Octigen 300W model 10270PSOTG ('upgraded' from original Bestec 250W PSU [in 2011?])
Nvidia GeForce 6200 graphics card in AGP slot.

 

I wouldn't worry about having damaged anything, after all it's only the same as if you had had a power cut. It used to be a possible problem back in Win 98 days but XP and later can take it. If you really want to know for sure though then just do the same again. I doubt there is any other way to prove it.

If you want to experiment with things like PLoP, which tamper with the boot sector, then it's really essential to have a full disk image handy in case of the unexpected. Data backups and recovery disks won't be much use if you you hobble XP and it can't boot. If you don't have an imaging capability at present then I would recommend Macrium Reflect. It seems rock solid these days and can restore your entire sytem and data to exactly how it was when the image was taken.

 

Thanks your reassurance as well Earthling.

Perhaps saying I was 'experimenting' with PLoP was overstating the case. In fact I wanted only to get a way of booting from USB (because my desktop's BIOS doesn't offer this option): I made the PLoP CD in order to avoid changing the boot sector or anything else on my HDD which I thought I had achieved. (I don't want hear that I failed in this aim; but I suppose I should know if I did)

I have previously read of Macrium Reflect's being recommended several times on MG, and also of Acronis products. However, I still use an older Easeus [Disk Copy ?] product [not the newer Easus Todo product as I seem remember it's being called which I think also includes the capability to make clones] for making clones (rather than having the slightly more advanced capability of making [compressed] disk images)

Dumb_Question
2.June.2014

 

When it comes to backup use whatever works reliably for you until such time as a new service pack is issued. Then it's time to take stock to be sure it's still working.