[Patience51]

HI,
I am trying to restore a HP Compaq laptop to its factory settings. Every time I go to Restore Manager the screen freezes and it won't let me select "System Recovery" or ANYTHING at all. How can I restore with this problem occurring and not letting me choose this option of restoration ? I started by pressing esc to go to recovery and I have also tried by pressing F11 and still Restore Manager freezes when it comes up. Is there any other way to restore this laptop to factory settings ? I just restored it 2 days ago to factory settings and it worked just fine, but then I downloaded ZoneAlarm and I guess I downloaded the wrong one and got a hacker in my computer and now it won't let me do anything. When I open my search engine my CPU's go to 100 and stays there. I deleted ZoneAlarm but it won't let me delete it completely. It is stopping me from using my PC. And now it won't let me use Restore Manager either. It has taken over my entire PC. What can I do to either restore this PC or get ZoneAlarm out? I found the hacker and deleted him but every time I delete him he shows right back up in my search engine again as soon as I delete him, under a different number. I'm stumped. And by the way, I have no restore disc. Thanks you very much !

[GrantHillsSA]

If F11 at startup does not work it might be infected by a virus or the partition might be corrupt.
We are going to try 3 things:
Firslty we are going to try the HP restore from within Windows then
We will check error and try recovering from boot again then
We are going to create HP recovery DVD's from within Windows.

HP restore from within Windows

1 - Go to Start -> App Programs -> HP -> Recovery Manager
2 - When it restarts it will open the HP Recovery Manager.
3 - IMPORTANT, do not select the Windows Recovery from the menu. Select System Restore or minimized system restore.
4 - Also do not select the option to keep personal files.

If the system recovery menu still freezes them do the following:

1 - Start your computer.
2 - Click Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> System Restore
3 - Restore the system to the earliest point.
4 - After restore or if the restore fails check the hard drive for errors by doing the following:
4.1 - Start windows, click start and just above start you will see a search box saying
"search programs and files", type CMD in the box. You will see cmd.exe above.
4.2 - Right click on it and select "Run as Administrator"
4.3 - A black screen will open up. In this windows type:
Chkdsk d: /F, and wait for completion
Chkdsk e: /F, and wait for completion
Chkdsk f: /F, and wait for completion (If error occors, ignore)
Now chkdsk c: /F, the system will ask if you want to schedule this scan, selet Y end
Press enter. Restart and it should scan Drive C:
4.3 - Now try running the Recovery Manager from boot again by:
Shuting Down, Press the power button and imidiatly and repatadly
Press the "F11" key.

Creating Recovery disks (DVDs)

1 - Go to Start -> App Programs -> HP -> Recovery Manager
2 - Select Recovery Media Creation.
3 - Recovery Media Creation might also be a separate Icon located somewhere
In the HP folder in the Strat Menu.
4 - You will need 2 or 3 blank DVDs.
5 - After the disk have been created, insert the first DVD and shut down.
6 - Press the poweer button and keep pressing the F9 key.
7 - In the boot menu select boot from CD.
8 - Follow the instruction and it should recover the syste the factory state.

If this still doesn't work you will have to order a set of recovery dvd's from HP.
Better yet, if you know someone with a Windows 7 just reload it. Remember if you use someone else's win 7 disk you will loose your recovery partition and HP Software and Drivers.

PS: You can alsways backup the original HP Software and Drivers by just backing up the SWSetup folder on C: Drive.