Thanks, not sure I fully understand the process of knowing what directories to move the files to. I have Windows 7 installed and copied the old files to the new hard drive but that were all copied to a new drive letter i,e, drive K. can I just move the data to the c: drive then instsll the programs? Of course when I try to open them on the new drive letter K they do not work. Your explaination of having to re-install all of thr software explains that. So even though the drive as copied over the programs did not transfer?
I have tried to use both the HP repair process and the Recovery Disk that I made from the HP when it was new, but no luck. When I view the hard drive from some recovery software I see four drives one with no name and no Windows or System drive, is that why recover does not work??? What happened to it. Is there any way Microsoft can help? Their tech service said to contact HP! What a circle. The recover disk boot out and I can not even re-install Windows with the disk> I know that I csn format the drive and stsrt over but I would lose sllof my dsts. thst ws why I bought Win 7 thinking I could trsnsfer them over, but I guess even thst process is over my head. Thanks for the help snd I will keep working on it.