Disk Images, Recovery Partitions &c. on HP PCs

Ths is going to quite complex I fear.

I have recently inherited a HP Pavilion Entertainment Notebook dm4 1050ea. I'm not sure whether recovery discs have been made, but I now have the necessary media to do that. I was wondering if I made an image of the disk on another HD (could be a USB external), would that include the recovery partition, and could I use that, instead of the recovery discs I plan make, in the event of my HD going down ? Will that image have the ability to recreate recovery disks ? I'd obvioudsly have to create the image before the recovery disks, because I understand the process of creating the recovery disks involves modifying your software so that you cannot create a second set.

With recovery disks, can they recreate the your system as it left the factory on a new HD if your old HD dies ? (Including the ability the ability to recreate system recovery disks). If it cannot, then your system will not be truly restored to the state it was when it was ewhen it left the factory.

What I am looking for is a second way of doing a system back-up (as well as recovery disks) [I'm thinking that one back-up is not enough especially if you are the unlucky type].

Concerning a related topic, On my Presario S5160UK I have an image of the original HD (this disk seems to contain only 2 partitions, C: and D: (data), but there must be a hidden partition which I've never found any evidence of). The image also contains only 2 partitions...how can I find out if I have recovery partition on either or both of these disks ?? I can't remember what program I used to create the image. On this PC I'm running XP Home/SP3.

Dumb_Question
21.May.2012
Compaq Presario S5160UK DT261A (Celeron 2.7 GHz 1.5GB RAM) - MSI MS6577 v2.1- XP/SP3

 

Why isn't my external USB hard disk showing up in 'Computer' in Win 7 ?

Recently I purchased an Intenso 320 USB 2.5in HD for backing up the HD in my Pavilion dm3 1050ea. I used Easeus Disk Copy v.2.3.1 to do the copy. I made a sector-by-sector copy of the original HD onto the USB disk.

Everything seemed to go OK, I rebooted, and went to 'Computer' and it wasn't there ! It could see my USB thumb drive (memory stick) when I put it in, and my old XP system could see it the Intenso backup disk fine, all the visible partitions were there and they looked to be the same size as the on original disk in the Pavilion. But why can't I see this disk on the Pavilion ?

I'd like to settle this before I put the disk in a draw and hopefully never use it.

Dumb_Question
31.July.2012

HP Pavilion dm4 1050ea - Windows 7