Where to find a HP recovery CD,s

I have a HP Pavilion 560w that needs a set of recovery CD,s. It was handed to a friend to clean and upgrade the ram, it did run but very very slow. He found "TONS" of dust and spider webs (including 2 spiders), had it unplugged and used a small brush to sweep it out some then air to finalize cleaning. it would not reboot at all, would only go into SAFE with prompt, will go through maybe 30 files then hang. it seems the whole sys32 is missing or corrupt. Will not load under normal, or will it go to command promt and let ya find SYS-Recovery.

To save my friend from buying this guy a new machine, does anyone have any idea (besides HP's site, they don't have any more) where to get a set?

There are time I wish My friend wouldn't get into things he's not good at, geeeeezzzz.

Thank you for your time

Eric

 

Yes it seems that they dont give out any cds for that model anymore.
1. You could try finding a set on Ebay or some other auction source.
2. You can buy an XP OEM cd for about 70 bucks and install XP and get rid of all the crap HP installs on your pc.

Im sure that there are other ways, but I cant thin of them right now

 

If the PC is more or less 'legit' (not stolen, etc.) you can submit your serial number to HP and for a small fee plus shipping you can get the recovery CD's for most models. I recently had a customer with a Media Center PC, he had lost the recovery CD's (all 8 of 'em!) and we didn't have a XP-MC to reload with. We filled out the on-line application, submitted a VISA card number, and 3 days later we had the CD's... look under the drivers/downloads page and there should be an option to order the recovery CD's...... We paid extra for quick shipping and it still was under $30...

hopperdave2000

oooops- just re-read the orig. post. I missed the part about HP not having 'em... duh. EBay maybe, as posted above.

 

Should this XP OEM CD, be a HP CD, that I'll be looking for or will any OEM cd work? I have tried a Dell original install cd and a full version XP install CD, and they wouldn't install. Or do I have to find the OEM one for this particular model HP?

 

If you are looking for recovery disks on ebay, they should be specific for your computer model. If OEM, then any Microsoft ( not manufacturer specific ) disk should work. I can understand the Dell disk not working, but not the full version of XP. What problems did you encounter with it?

 

One other thing you might check/consider while waiting for a CD.

I would tell your friend to check all the connections inside the case, make sure that none are "loose or disconnected" it's very easy to knock or pull something loose when cleaning the inside.

Also, I would check the ram that was installed and make sure it is correct and "seated" properly. You might even remove it and see if the system boots normally.

Steve