Brought a hp compaq desktop computer with a wiped hard drive. What is needed to restore it?

Get undelete software like Norton this will do it for you

You can use a HP recovery disc for your model computer which will return the computer to out of the box condition. You may need to purchase this disc from the HP WEB site.
If you just want to wipe the hard disk clean and sell it without an operating system installed then you can use this program.
Wipe Data off Hard Disk with Darik's Boot and Nuke, (DBAN) Create a Darik's Boot and Nuke on CD disc, then boot up the computer with this disc. http://www.dban.org/download

Your Compaq computer includes a recovery partition that allows you to restore your operating system in the event you get a virus or your hard drive crashes. Use the Compaq Recovery Manager to restore the computer to the factory operating condition. Only use the recovery method as a final step in the troubleshooting process as all the software and personal files stored to the computer's hard drive will be erased.

Click the "Start" icon and type "recovery" into the "Start Search" field. Click the "Recovery Manager" option that appears in the list of results. Click "Advanced Options," and click the "System Recovery" option. Click "Next" and the computer will restart into the recovery mode. Click the "System Recovery" option and click "Next." Click "Next" in the "System Recovery" window to launch the recovery process. The partition will reformat your hard drive and restore your Windows Vista operating system to the original condition
HP Support document System Restores
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=c00809678

Hello, Sarah.

Well, that disk sanitizer did too good of a job and wiped the Windows operating system as well as software and data.

There normally is a recovery partition available - which should restore your computer to its original state when it was first purchased.

Power on your computer and press F11 repeatedly before it boots. It may take several attempts. Once the system finds the partition, follow the prompts.

Hope it's available and works for you.

When you first start the computer, go to the BIOS (usually press [Delete]) and make sure the hard drive you are installing Windows XP to is the second or third boot device. If your CD drive is IDE and your hard drive is SATA you may have a problem in the BIOS of not being able to cross from IDE to SATA.

You can't transfer the operating system. You have to reinstall it on the new hard drive. Most of the time the disks that come with a computer are just restore disks. Without the restore partition that comes on the hard drive that came with the computer, those disks are usually useless. Or if you want, you can keep both hard drives, and just setup the jumper settings on the hard drives so that the old hard drive is the primary, and the new one is the secondary. Then you will still have the operating system and you will use the new hard drive for storage.

HP has a special code that needs to be flashed onto the motherboard before the recover disks will work. Especially if the moptherboard has been replaced. I do this all the time as a tech.

You will need the motherboard tattooed which the process will flash enabling your disks to be recognized. Obviously you will have to seek out a HP tech to ahve this done.

• as you boot the computer, start tapping the F8 keys
• From the boot menu, select Safe Mode

If this seems to work, you can try restoring the computer to an earlier point from Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > System Restore.
If Safe Mode also fails to load, you would have to check your disk for errors or you may have to install XP all over again.
Please get back, if you need any further help.

All your files are now marked as not in use. What this means is they could be "undeleted" if some went about doing so. Over time they will get overwritten has the pc is used more and more. If you are worried about someone recovering your data then you need to do a wipe of your hard drive using a program like DBAN. Then you'd need a recovery cd handy to restore the pc, since after doing the wipe the hard drive will be completely erased... Hope that helps.

You can purchase the restore disks from Compaq directly if they still have any in stock. You can go to their website.  I would not recommend reinstalling 98 on the computer. You would be better off wiping off the system and installing xp on it being that 98 is old and no longer supported.

 

Hope this helps you