Possible To Slipstream Hp Restore Disks?...

[Longz]

Hi from a new member!!

I have an HP Pavilion a305w and I created the restore disks from the recovery partition which totals to 8 cd's.

I had a malware that shut it down and had to restore my computer from these disks. To make a long story short I had to uninstall tons of third party crap and reinstall all my apps,games,updates, and xpsp2. This took 3 hours and I don't want to have to do this again!!!

Can the 8 discs be cut down and xpsp2 slipstreamed with my driver updates for sp2?

I can deal with the app reinstall as it's only a few games and some dvd creator/editor programs.

Possible to put these on dvd?

I know that I can get Ghost 9.0 but for the price I would rather not!

I have used nlite to slipstream W2K and autopatcher to apply the hotfixes but I have no clue what to do with these 8 discs!!!

I'm just a home user that tends to dable in areas that others consider taboo!!

Any info you can give me or links to material is greatly appreciated!!

Thanks

P.S. I love the site!!! Much information and well organized too!!

[dman]

Hi Longz,

welcome to msfn.

You can't slipstream the restore disks because they aren't install disks, they are an image (backup) of a freshly installed partition, the way the computer was the first time you turned it on. Best thing for you to do if you don't want to spend any $$ is to get your system all set up the way you want then use ms backup (in valueadd\msft\ntbackup folder of XP install disk, not installed by default) and do a automated system recovery and full system backup of your own. Then you can always get right back to a clean system without all the install and reboot stuff.

[un4given1]

Another great program is Acronis True Image. http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/ This program is not only great for that, but is an excelent tool to replace any backup software.