It appears your model does have the built-in recovery partition. You can start it by pressing the power button and quickly tapping the F10 key until you come to a menu. Here's a link to the HP support site for your PC, and what to do if the recovery fails: http://bit.ly/izhq3h I'm not sure what the menu options will be, but one of them should be to completely erase and restore the PC.
Before you start it's important to make the PC exactly like it was when you first turned it on the day you bought it. That means disconnect any devices you've added since then - such as personal media drives, printers, scanners, cameras, camera-type memory cards, and other devices that did not originally come with the PC. It's a good idea to even unplug your internet cable (unless you've got wireless of course). If the recovery finds any unfamiliar hardware it might freeze up and stop working. If the worst case does happen, and you're left with a PC that won't boot, you can possibly call Microsoft and try to talk them into giving you a new key to reinstall from your XP disk. I dunno if they'll do that or not since XP isn't even officially supported anymore. Let us know how it goes? Good luck, Donk On 5/30/2011 10:05 PM, Janice D wrote: > Hi Donk, > > It is the Pavillion a1000y > > I can't do it with the disc because I do not have the license key. Please > tell me the few clicks to try. I hope it works. This woman really needs it > for her kids and it's been just sitting here. I would love to see it go to > good use, but I can't take any chances giving it away not knowing everything > is cleared off of it. > > Janice > > On Mon, May 30, 2011 at 6:44 PM, Donk<[email protected]> wrote: > >> >> What model HP is it? Most HP's come with a quick way to restore it to >> the way it was the day you bought it - without using disks and just a >> few clicks. It uses a hidden partition on the harddrive to install the >> original factory default image. It's a lot faster than reinstalling the >> whole OS - but if it fails you can still install XP from your disks. >> >> Good luck, >> Donk >> >> >> On 5/30/2011 11:53 AM, Recycle Diva wrote: >>> Hi, >>> >>> Somebody asked for an old windows 98 computer for their kids and I have >> this one sitting around but don't want to get rid of it until I do a >> complete recovery to remove whatever I have on there. I don't remember how >> to do it. Can you help me? >>> Thank you. >>> Janice >>> >>> >>> >>> ------------------------------------ >>> >>> If you have any questions or problems with any aspect of this site, >> please feel free to contact me directly [email protected] Please do not >> post personal issues directly to the group. >>> To unsubscribe from this list, send an email to >> [email protected] >>> Thank you for using A-1 Computer TechYahoo! Groups Links >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> Internal Virus Database is out of date. >>> Checked by AVG - www.avg.com >>> Version: 8.5.426 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2692 - Release Date: 02/16/10 >> 19:35:00 >> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] >> >> >> > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > > > > ------------------------------------ > > If you have any questions or problems with any aspect of this site, please > feel free to contact me directly [email protected] Please do not post > personal issues directly to the group. > > To unsubscribe from this list, send an email to > [email protected] > > Thank you for using A-1 Computer TechYahoo! Groups Links > > > > > > Internal Virus Database is out of date. > Checked by AVG - www.avg.com > Version: 8.5.426 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2692 - Release Date: 02/16/10 > 19:35:00 > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ If you have any questions or problems with any aspect of this site, please feel free to contact me directly [email protected] Please do not post personal issues directly to the group. To unsubscribe from this list, send an email to [email protected] Thank you for using A-1 Computer TechYahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/A-1-Computer_Tech/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/A-1-Computer_Tech/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
