I've been fortunate in that respect. I don't have a working CD drive and without the partitioned recovery system I am in trouble. ;-) ETM wrote on 6/6/2005, 5:45 PM: > It also isn't 100% certain that it will work. I > was unable to use the recovery partition once but > fortunately by then HP had sent me the set of > restore CDs. I used them and was able to reformat > and reinstall the applications. > > You can't trust a computer to permit access to > that recovery partition. The whole idea was > idiotic.

That's really interesting. I have an HP bought in December 2002 (with no backup CDs, though HP did mail them to me when I called and insisted that I did NOT trust the computer for recovery and wanted them). On my HP, the recovery system is on a 5 GB partition, would never be able to handle anything else, maybe has 930 MB left free. My 80 GB "computer" was divided to create that recovery area, so I didn't truly receive an eighty GB drive <smile>. Elaine Would a fly without wings be called a walk? Hello Joan On Monday, June 6, 2005, you wrote > I've been fortunate in that respect. I don't > have a working CD drive and > without the partitioned recovery system I am in trouble. ;-) > ETM wrote on 6/6/2005, 5:45 PM: >> It also isn't 100% certain that it will work. I >> was unable to use the recovery partition once but >> fortunately by then HP had sent me the set of >> restore CDs. I used them and was able to reformat >> and reinstall the applications. >> >> You can't trust a computer to permit access to >> that recovery partition. The whole idea was >> idiotic.