I reformatted the hard disk on my hp pavilion 7920 and tried to use the system recovery disks that came with the machine. It boots up fine, but then gives me an error saying that "these disks can only be used on an hp pavillion. if you see this message on an hp pavillion, please call hp support." I called hp support but they wanted me to pay for the answer because my 6 year old computer is out of warranty (go figure.) I don't want to pay, so if anyone out there can help, I would be grateful.

By the way, the disks are clean, in brand new condition, and not scratched.

-thx

Did you have any other HP computers? I've seen this error before and it usually means that you are using the wrong recovery disks. HP disks look for a specific BIOS code when its booting to determine if it's the right model. If you are sure these are the correct disks then you may have a BIOS or motherboard problem. You can always call HP to confirm the right recovery disks, maybe they sent you the wrong disks.