I just had a thoroughly frustrating phone call with HP support so thought I'd try here.
A friend's PC was having boot and data issues. I found the hard drive to be bad with the on-board Diagnostics of the PC, the hard drive failing SMART testing. I was able to back up much if not all of the data. However, the PC basically was unable to operate. Trying to boot into anything but BIOS or diagnostics would fail. The owner never made Recovery Discs. But the Recovery partition appears to be intact.
I was able to backup the partitions with Todo Backup & Recovery and restore them to a different hard drive. It, of course, wouldn't boot either. I've since installed Win7 on the main partition successfully on the new hard drive. I have no way to utilize the Recovery partition and it's contents, however.
I called HP to find out part number and price for a Recovery Disc Set. I was informed that, since the original OS is XP (Media Center, btw), that the Recovery Discs are no longer available. Irresponsible in my mind, but it is what it is.
This leaves with with two questions:
1) Is there a source for the Recovery Discs for this product?
2) Is there a way to utilize the Recovery Partition to create Recovery Discs or Recover the original OS installation on the new hard drive from a new OS installation? Currently, Windows 7 32-bit is installed. I have the resources to install XP Pro, Win7 32- or 64-bit, or Win8 64-bit on this partition.
At this point I'm trying to put it back the way it was. I know I could just install Win7/8/8.1 and be done - assuming proper drivers exist for any/all. But at this point, I'm trying to get the PC running for least cost. That, it seems to me, would be to get XP Media Center re-installed at minimal or no cost besides the new HD.
Any constructive input would be greatly appreciated.