HDD cloning recovery partition cd key

hello
After the new installation you can use this http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/product_cd_key_viewer.html to find out the cd key of your installation.
hope that helps

Stergium, thanks, but I don't have rights to the licence to give to others. So I have to use the original licence of the recovery partition.

You should be able to get recovery DVD's from the PC's manufacturer. Those DVD's usually aren't expensive.

Otherwise you can try cloning the recovery partition to another HD, and then running the recovery from there. It'll depend on the extent of the HD's damage whether this will work. You can use free tools, like CloneZilla which is included on the PartedMagic LiveCD for this:

http://partedmagic.com

If the recovery partition on the damaged HD has too many errors, you could try using the HDD Regenerator. This is a very good tool and often it'll be able to revive the disk enough so you can recover all the data from it. But as the disk has SMART errors you shouldn't keep on using it after the revival, as it'll probably break again soon. But if you can revive the disk enough to start back into windows, look for a utility that most manufacturers have installed. With it you should be able to create your own recovery DVD's. Actually that's a task everyone should do as soon as possible after a new PC has been bought...:

http://dposoft.com

I'm going to back up the recovery partition to a folder on my linux box. Can I then check to see if there are any errors in the files. Or should the checks be done with chkdsk? I'm backing up using KpartitionManager

You don't need a key to activate Windows 7 OEM version, if you are online.
Restore Windows from recovery partition or install from DVD, provided by manufacturer,
connect computer to Internet and activate. It'll never ask you a key.

What are the options when smart is failing?

You can try to clone recovery partition from original drive to the new one.
If recovery partition doesn't have bad blocks, you can restore system on the new drive.

I have copied the recovery partition and I need to boot from it. I can't see the data with in it. It is about 13GB but the data is not visible in explorer. Any ideas. I'm viewing it in win xp.

You shouldn't need to be able to view it. If you clone the partition with a utility like I mentioned earlier, you should be able to boot from it after it has been cloned, and the recovery process should start. Sometimes you may have to make sure it has the same flags set as the original partition had (usually Hidden and Boot). You can set those flags using the partition editor, which is also included on the PartedMagic LiveCD.

It also can differ from PC manufacturer to PC manufacturer, so that could also be some important info.

I managed to recover the data with chkdsk but what is happening now is that I get the message that invalid recovery media. I have copied the recovery partition to a new hdd and now when I set it to active I can boot it but it will not install or recover the media.

If you ran chkdsk and it was a fat32 partition, you have probably not recovered it but rather damaged it more. Did you use a cloning tool like CloneZilla to copy it, or did you copy it some other way? Usually only cloning tools will make it work properly. What PC model is it?

Well the recovery partition does contain data and it has payload of the windows 7 in there about 2GB. But when I select the recovery option. I get the message to insert recovery media. But the recovery media is the partition. I have setup the partition so that I is bootable. That is the only way that I can boot from it. I wonder if this has something to do with? HP G62 is the laptop model number.

There's probably something missing. Did you clone or just copy?

sorush, did you try to contact the laptop manufacturer and ask for recovery disks for your machine?

I will do soon. But it will cost money.

First check if it can be done free of charge.