HP Recovery Discs - Unofficial Install Guide Rev A

Question

I was so frustrated by the responses by the support people on this forum that I finally Googled " HP Recovery Discs stop at 12 %". The flood gates opened. This problem had existed for well over a year and a half. The support people involved in helping me were well aware of this specific problem and it affected many HP desktops and laptops. They had provided me with some of the tools needed to get these discs to work, but I still feel that they provided me with more misleading info than good. I hope people can read this guide and use it. Please add to it and correct it, if needed. Here goes. Download "Partition Wizard", it's a free program you will have to burn to a CD. If you don't know how to burn .iso files, you'll have to learn. Use it to write zeros to the whole drive. Then create a NTFS Partition and format it. You'll have to hit the "Apply" button after each command. Be aware you will lose all of your data on this hard drive. Next you'll have to download the "Cyberlink Recovery Discs Utility"  (HP sp44645). This utility is needed to setup your hard drive to accept the Recovery Discs, some believe this creates a HP tattoo on the drive. Running sp44645 as administrator creates another bootable disc. Boot it and let it run until you see the green check mark. Remove the disc and power down. Without the disc in the drive, power back up and let it go until it fails to find a boot source. Install your first HP Recovery Disc and power down and power back up. Follow the on screen prompts and answers any questions. After removing the second DVD, it  will probably get stuck at the 12% mark. This is common and could go on for 16 hours, yes 16 hours. Mine took around 8 to continue and it still takes a long time after that. It will ask for the " Drivers and Apps" disc which I didn't install. When it completed, I found that that drive still had everything exactly like a fresh out of the factory machine. All on the bloatware and junk that most people delete was still there. I'm not sure if the third disc would update all the stuff I was trying to get rid of or what it was for. Anyway, for me it wasn't needed. The Windows 7 OS and all of the device drivers were intact. Next, I did a "Minimal Recovery) from the Recovery Partition. This did get rid of most of the junk, but I still had to delete all of the HP Mediasmart software. I find my own software is better and faster than any solutions they provide. I'll leave that up to you. I hope this helps a few people and HP gets off their butts and admits they have a problem with these discs. If you still need more help Google " HP Recovery Discs 12 %", one thread stretches 11 pages and is wear I draw most of this onfo from. These are the real people that deserve the credit for this guide, I just felt it was needed. Good Luck.

Answer 1

You don't have to format it after zeroing, the sp44645 will get recovery working since it was specifically made to solve the new/blank hard drive issue.
I was so frustrated by the responses by the support people on this forum
We are all volunteers here, users just like you, sorry you did not get good advice, this issue had me baffled for a while, it cropped up all of a sudden for many users, sometimes we suggest things that don't work in hopes of finding a solution.