vista os disc

bought a hp in may of this yr. i didn't get any disc with my purchase and i
was wondering if i should have gotten one or if i have to make my own. if i
do have to make my own i would like any tips or info. that i might use.
newbie and would like to ask if there is a webpage, either on ms or elsewhere
that i might learn what some of the pc terms are and how and what they do. it
seems that if i have to back up that would mean constantly backing up
everything. all i'm interested in is only what it takes to start my pc if
something happens. thanx

HP computers, when booted, generally display a Help window which contains
all kinds of information that a new user should know. One of the items
relates to backing up the entire computer. If you no longer have this window
at boot up, contact HP Support

http://welcome.hp.com/country/us/en/support.html

--
Mike Hall - MVP
http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/default.aspx




"brendag" <brendag@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:4D4EDAB9-C14D-4960-9027-A064430446B5@microsoft.com...
> bought a hp in may of this yr. i didn't get any disc with my purchase and
> i
> was wondering if i should have gotten one or if i have to make my own. if
> i
> do have to make my own i would like any tips or info. that i might use.
> newbie and would like to ask if there is a webpage, either on ms or
> elsewhere
> that i might learn what some of the pc terms are and how and what they do.
> it
> seems that if i have to back up that would mean constantly backing up
> everything. all i'm interested in is only what it takes to start my pc if
> something happens. thanx

it does have an hp total care advisor and it says that i have made no backup
cds. after all the requirements invloving the oem with windows xp and now,
are you telling me that we have to make our own rcvy disc. i really don't
want to back up my whole puter, just the necessities. could you advise me on
what to back up and how ofter.

"Mike Hall - MVP" wrote:

> HP computers, when booted, generally display a Help window which contains
> all kinds of information that a new user should know. One of the items
> relates to backing up the entire computer. If you no longer have this window
> at boot up, contact HP Support
>
> http://welcome.hp.com/country/us/en/support.html
>
> --
> Mike Hall - MVP
> http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/default.aspx
>
>
>
>
> "brendag" <brendag@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:4D4EDAB9-C14D-4960-9027-A064430446B5@microsoft.com...
> > bought a hp in may of this yr. i didn't get any disc with my purchase and
> > i
> > was wondering if i should have gotten one or if i have to make my own. if
> > i
> > do have to make my own i would like any tips or info. that i might use.
> > newbie and would like to ask if there is a webpage, either on ms or
> > elsewhere
> > that i might learn what some of the pc terms are and how and what they do.
> > it
> > seems that if i have to back up that would mean constantly backing up
> > everything. all i'm interested in is only what it takes to start my pc if
> > something happens. thanx
>
>

HP choose not to send out recovery sets for reasons of their own. You would
have to ask them for a definitive reply. I do know that each machine type
requires its own specific recovery set, and that production of these is not
economical, especially as machine spec changes so fast.

It is possible to use regular CD burning software, but you have to know what
to save and where it is on the system.

If you want the option of doing proper backups, you should look to get
something like Acronis TrueImage Home v11. This will allow easy backups of
e-mail, pictures, music etc and also enable complete system backups too.

www.acronis.com





--
Mike Hall - MVP
http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/default.aspx




"brendag" <brendag@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:776A54B6-C4CF-482B-8E71-4316C84C745D@microsoft.com...
> it does have an hp total care advisor and it says that i have made no
> backup
> cds. after all the requirements invloving the oem with windows xp and now,
> are you telling me that we have to make our own rcvy disc. i really don't
> want to back up my whole puter, just the necessities. could you advise me
> on
> what to back up and how ofter.
>
> "Mike Hall - MVP" wrote:
>
>> HP computers, when booted, generally display a Help window which contains
>> all kinds of information that a new user should know. One of the items
>> relates to backing up the entire computer. If you no longer have this
>> window
>> at boot up, contact HP Support
>>
>> http://welcome.hp.com/country/us/en/support.html
>>
>> --
>> Mike Hall - MVP
>> http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/default.aspx
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> "brendag" <brendag@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
>> news:4D4EDAB9-C14D-4960-9027-A064430446B5@microsoft.com...
>> > bought a hp in may of this yr. i didn't get any disc with my purchase
>> > and
>> > i
>> > was wondering if i should have gotten one or if i have to make my own.
>> > if
>> > i
>> > do have to make my own i would like any tips or info. that i might use.
>> > newbie and would like to ask if there is a webpage, either on ms or
>> > elsewhere
>> > that i might learn what some of the pc terms are and how and what they
>> > do.
>> > it
>> > seems that if i have to back up that would mean constantly backing up
>> > everything. all i'm interested in is only what it takes to start my pc
>> > if
>> > something happens. thanx
>>
>>

brendag wrote:
> it does have an hp total care advisor and it says that i have made no backup
> cds. after all the requirements invloving the oem with windows xp and now,
> are you telling me that we have to make our own rcvy disc. i really don't
> want to back up my whole puter, just the necessities. could you advise me on
> what to back up and how ofter.

1. Create the HP Recovery Disks per HP's instructions. This will give
you physical media to return the computer to factory condition should
your hard drive die.

2. If the hard drive is healthy and you wish to return the computer to
factory condition, there is a key press to do when first starting up the
computer. There will be a prompt telling you to press F10 or whatever.
Refer to your computer manual or HP's tech support site for your
specific model computer.

Note that the above does *not* help with backing up your personal data.
You can handle backups in several ways.

1. Purchase an external hard drive and an imaging/backup program such as
Acronis True Image. You can make an image of the machine at various
times for quick restoration when you want to go back to a time when
everything worked but don't want to go back to factory condition. True
Image will also do incremental backups. See their website for more
details, www.acronis.com.

2. Use a backup program like Second Copy from www.centered.com to back
up your data to the external hard drive regularly. I like Second Copy
because it does not put the backed up files in a proprietary format.
Refer to their website for more details. Or copy your files manually. It
is a good idea to also burn your data backups to CD/DVD-R (not RW) and
put in a safe place.

Only you can make the determination as to how often you back up.


Malke
--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User

"brendag" <brendag@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:4D4EDAB9-C14D-4960-9027-A064430446B5@microsoft.com...
> bought a hp in may of this yr. i didn't get any disc with my
> purchase and i
> was wondering if i should have gotten one or if i have to make my
> own. if i
> do have to make my own i would like any tips or info. that i might
> use.
> newbie and would like to ask if there is a webpage, either on ms or
> elsewhere
> that i might learn what some of the pc terms are and how and what
> they do. it
> seems that if i have to back up that would mean constantly backing
> up
> everything. all i'm interested in is only what it takes to start my
> pc if
> something happens. thanx

HP makes it pretty easy to create the recovery discs. HPs also have a
recovery partition. As long as you don't mess up the recovery
partition or the Master Boot Record (which includes a boot up message
and the means to do a recovery to 'out of the box' condition), you
don't really need the recovery discs. The problem is that there is no
way to know that you have messed them up, and even if you did know, it
would be too late.

So make the recovery discs. With the computer up and running, click
on help & support and search for words like recovery disc. With a few
more clicks, you should find a link to actually start the process.
You only get to make one set of recovery discs, but if you stop the
process before it actually starts writing to the discs, you can start
over from the beginning. So you don't have to worry about choosing
the wrong option somewhere in the process - you can almost always
recover. The system makes images on the hard drive, of all the discs
it will write. On a Compaq laptop with only CD writing capability, I
aborted the process after it had created these images, and was still
able to start over. Be sure to turn on the option to verify the
discs, so you will know that they won't have problems.

The process will allow you to do a backup of your stuff before
creating the recovery discs. The process will look at your CD/DVD
writer and tell you how many discs recovery discs will take for each
type of writable media your system can handle, like 7 CDs or two DVDs
or one DVD-DL. I've seen one system that needed 10 CDs -- all the
rest needed less. You can find out what you need, quit, buy what you
need, and start over. Some budget HPs don't have a DVD writer, and so
many CDs would be a pain to store or use. It is possible to disable
the CD drive and reboot with a USB DVD-writer plugged in, and the
system will see that you have DVD-writing capability. My HP would not
see the external DVD-writer for creating the recovery discs unless I
first disabled the internal CD drive and booted with the external
drive plugged in.

Note that these recovery CDs only return the computer to its
out-of-the-box condition. It does not include any changes or
customizations you have done. It does not replace backing up your
stuff periodically.

-Paul Randall