In article <uJk#WN4aGHA.3992@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl>,
contactmethroughthe@newsgropus.com, Ron.... says...  

There should be an option in the programs menu to create a full restore
CD.....Off the top of my head I can't remember the name of the
item.....Unless they stopped doing this?

http://www.bootdisk.com/

Milt

Look in the Start Menu under HP and you will see where you can make a
Recovery Disk set. It is wise to do this.

Malke

    There's an option on the Start Menu to create a Recovery disk for the
computer.

Over the years people have begun to call the whole process of getting into
Windows the "boot" process, but it is technically a combination of the "boot
process" and the Windows startup process, which occurs after the boot
process has completed!

The computers boot process is entirely controlled by the computer bios, and
is on the bios chip. When the boot process affirms that all hardware is
functional, the bios points to the Windows startup files located on the hard
drive, and Windows startup continues from there.

If the computer will not boot it is because there are hardware anomalies and
the bios halts the boot process - usually with an error message of white
text on a black screen. If this occurs, there is not a floppy or CD boot
disk in the world that will allow you to repair/start Windows.

If the boot process concludes successfully, and Windows does not load - then
a so-called "boot" floppy or CD (depending on what operating system you are
currently using) will allow you to possibly repair problems in the operating
system.

You were prompted to do this when the computer was activated.
There is an entire page of the manual devoted to this.
The Quick start guide has an entire panel devoted to this.

How did you miss all of that?

Bobby

I don't have an HP but from reading these newsgroups, I get the impression
that HP has tied one of the Function keys to getting the Restore/Recovery
to run. In other words, pressing F<something> you get a menu asking if you
want to recover to factory state or try a non-destructive recovery. Check
your system manual for more details.

NOTE: This separate feature of their recovery system is in addition to the
set of recovery disks that the others are referring to. If hard drive
fails, the recovery partition with the fancy access method will be entirely
out of reach. If that happens, you'll be glad that you also created the
needed CD set.