mark, The HP Recovery Manager application, installed on the hard drive of HP Notebook PCs, can be used to recover the computer to its original operating condition. you will need a recovery disk for that, otherwise you loose your operating system. [http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&taskId=110&prodSeriesId=4149939&prodTypeId=321957&objectID=c02638587|Here are] the instructions. The Maintenance and Service Guide can be downloaded [http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c02641795.pdf|from here.] Hope this helps, good luck.