Does this sound like a Recovery CD problem?

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dannyual767

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I've got an old Averatec 3250HX laptop (XP.) Two yrs ago, the computer lost some drivers and Averatec tech support told me to reload the recovery CDs. I did that and the computer took 5% of disc 1 (of 3) and froze up with a "FAIL" message.

I tried it again several times today and it does the same thing. I forget what I did different one time but it gave me an "INTEGRITY FAIL" message. No matter what, it won't go past 5% loading of disc 1. I've cleaned the disc thoroughly and there are no scratches on it.

Do you think that I should buy another set of discs ($25 with shipping) or do you think that there is something wrong with the computer itself?

This used to be a nice little, light laptop perfect for traveling. Not to mention the fact that it is Windows XP!
 
I'd just torrent an XP CD (make sure to get one that matches your version [OEM, Retail, etc]). As long as you use the CD key number located on the bottom of your PC or with its documentation, your copy of Windows will be legal (you pay for the CD key [the ability to use it], but any CD will work).
 
Run CDCheck on the disc to see if there any errors.

CDCheck - CD checking and recovery software

I would clone the discs and try again from the copies. It may be possible that the drive will read recordable discs better than pressed discs. It may be time to replace the drive.

I've got a question on the CD Check. I've downloaded the program and installed it on my PC. I'm assuming that I just open up the CD Check program and insert my Averatec's Recovery CD into my CD/DVD drive and the program checks the CD, right? Excuse me for my ignorance: inserting the Averatec Recovery CD into my PC won't try to "recover" my PC will it?
 
I've got a question on the CD Check. I've downloaded the program and installed it on my PC. I'm assuming that I just open up the CD Check program and insert my Averatec's Recovery CD into my CD/DVD drive and the program checks the CD, right? Excuse me for my ignorance: inserting the Averatec Recovery CD into my PC won't try to "recover" my PC will it?

No. Just make sure you have autorun disabled.
 
Kurrent, thank you for the link. I did what the link said and then I ran CD Check and found that the Averatec's recovery disc is fine. I'm glad I found out before I threw away more money buying new recovery discs for it.

At this point, I guess the Averatec's DVD/CD drive is not reading correctly or the hard drive may be bad.
 
It lives!!!!!!!!

I bought a new HD today from the new CompUSA and installed it. I then inserted the recovery disc into the DVD/CD drive and it froze up after loading about 5% :mad: . I then realized that the DVD/CD drive was bad and I had replaced the HD for nothing.

I really didn't want to spend any more money on this old computer. However, my daughter's broken Toshiba Satellite laptop was here with a perfectly good DVD/CD drive. I removed the bad Averatec drive and replaced it with the good Toshiba DVD/CD drive and inserted the recovery disc. Presto! It worked :D: .

I was able to load the XP OS and the computer is now working fine. In fact its working great! Compared to my Compaq with Vista, this machine is smokin'! The only issue that we found is that there is no sound. I've checked everything and I think that something must have happened to the audio/speaker driver :confused: ?

Kurrent, it was you who first mentioned that I might have a bad drive. Obviously you were right!
 
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