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I have an old HP pavilion pc running Windows XP. I want to restore it back to its orginal condition which I believe I should be able to do by using the recovery partition which is on the harddrive. When I look at the partition using "my computer" the recovery folder appears to be empty which I believe is normal.

When I start the pc I get the options to enter the boot order F1, the setup F2 and recovery F10. But when I press F10 nothing happens and it continues to boot as normal. I can get into the boot order and setup using F1 and F2.

Using partition magic 8 I tried changing the active partition tried I got the message NTLDR is Missing.

I cloned the recovery partition to another harddrive and tried to boot the pc with just that harddrive fitted and again got the message NTLDR is Missing.

Is the recovery partition damaged? If so is there anything I can do?

If it doesn't work using the F10 option, if it boots into Windows look under the HP options on the start menu or programs list. There should be an option to run the recovery program from there. If that still doesn't work I'm not sure there's much else you can do.

Can you get hold of an XP installation CD?

If all else fails and you don't have an XP installation disk, you could try any of the Linux distro's I'm using Ubuntu 11.04 on my old HP desktop (after a HDD failure) Doesn't cost you anything and comes complete with web browser, email client, all the usual stuff. It will boot a computer directly off a USB stick (as long as you set the bios to use the usb as first boot device)

Right click on computer, select manage. Up pops MMC console.
Click disc management on the left side.
Right click the recovery partition and set as active.
Restart, jobs a goodun.

I've had trouble with partition magic before this might sort you out.
If not you might have to do it using diskpart using command prompt on startup.

Only other thing after that I can say back up your drivers and borrow an XP disc, your system is licenced to run it so it's completely fine to just clean install it from a disc.

Seems likew replying is a waste of time.

Why do people ask questions then not bother replying when people try to help?