Hi folks,

A mate gave me his HP Pavilion dv5 laptop to look at cos Windows 7 wouldn't boot for him.

I had a look and it looks like his HDD is toast, keeps throwing "Data Cyclic Errors".. Anyway, of course he didn't create any recovery media so I'm wondering if I can manually create it?

Recently on a Toshiba laptop I was able to do this, I copied the content from the recovery partition onto a USB and then I was able to boot from the USB to install windows onto a new WD drive.

BTW, both HDD's are Toshiba drives, they must be pants.. This is the 4th laptop in the last year that I've been looking at where a Toshiba HDD has failed!

Anyway, anyone know if the above is possible?

Also, if that is not possible then can a recovery USB from another HP laptop be used to reinstall windows on this one? I'm doubtful as the Win7 product key must be embedded as I don't think it asks you this when you recover these laptops..

My last resort is fresh install Win7 with my install DVDs using the product keys on the bottom of his laptop! I'd rather try and get it back as it was originally anyway if possible..

Thanks,
mcquaim