I have a older machine not in use that still has the factory image on it. Windows XP. I also have the recovery disks. But is it okay to leave the factory image there and install WIN7 with a loader?
Why woudnt it be?.. Yea it is ofcourse, just leave the recoverypartition and keep ur recoverydvd safe and ur fine.
@ tcntad, not true if FattysGoneWild installs windows 7 and lets it make it's small system partition then his drive and partition structure will be wrong and he wont be able to access his recovery partition from say F keys, when booting. But if he when installing windows 7 installs to XP partition which has already been system drive then it maybe ok some oems add thing into bios for recovery partition others add bot info if that is overwritten then all is lost.
Hm, not sure if i get ur point im afraid. He'd still be able to access it by installing HP Backup & Recovery managar from windows or as you say, by pressing one of the Function keys (if it doesnt mess up the mbr/boot thiny).