Using recovery discs on a second hard drive (longish)

Factual Questions
1

As I mentioned in this thread, I lost the sound capabilities of my computer. In the past week I have done the following to try and get it back:

  1. “removed” the sound/modem card (it’s a Riptide combo card) from the Device Manager and let the computer “find” it again

  2. moved the card to a different slot so that the computer could “find” it and re-load the drivers

  3. Googled the problem and downloaded updated drivers

  4. Tried to use the recovery discs to reload the original drivers

  5. Replaced the card with a Riptide Chameleon. This, I feel, was a waste since all other aspects of the original card seem to work correctly. The new card performs exactly the same os the old one, other than no sound.

None of these things worked, so I contacted HP support. They suggested doing all of the above, but in at least six different ways.

No sound.

The latest e-mail from HP suggested the very thing I was hoping to avoid. An applications recovery (referred to as a “non-destructive recovery”). This will reload all the original software that came with the computer without reformatting the drive itself, but it would wipe out any software added since day one. I’ve had this computer for over two years. I really do NOT want to do this. I have all the software that I CAN reload, but it’s such a royal pain in the butt.

To be perfectly honest, I don’t think this is going to work either. I just don’t feel that it’s a software issue, but I could be wrong.

So here’s my question:

Let’s say I remove my hard drive and replace it with another one (probably used, but formatted) and just pretend it’s the original one and do a reformat and recovery. If I see that it’s fixed my problem, how can I adapt the settings to the real original drive?

Worst case scenario would be that I have a second drive. Best case is that it fixes my problem.

I plan on getting a new computer next year (probably a Dell), but want to pass this one on to my step-daughter to use.

FTR:

HP Pavilion 7865
1.2 Ghz AMD Athlon
128Mb memory
Windows ME (which is a whole 'nother thread of the Pit persuassion)

2

“how can I adapt the settings to the real original drive?”

That might not be possible as this could be a registry issue. Things to try: You could look in the registry for your sound card settings & compare.

If its a registry issue you might try Registry Medic: http://www.iomatic.com/
or download.com, search for ‘registry’ for free programs you can download & try that might correct your registry.

3

I was wondering if it was registry related. I’ll have to look at it more closely.