Hi, My friend lent his HP Pavilion dv 5 to someone recently. They said that they got a blue screen saying "computer just recovered from a serious failure....." So they didn't know what to do and called HP assistance. Were instructed to do a system recovery, which they did. Needless to say now of course it is back to factory settings. I know there must have been a way to fix the problem before reverting to recovery. I do have some experience on computers but I have to ask... Is there any way to restore the laptop so that my friend can get to files, etc.? He has now left his laptop in my care hoping I can help. He has now computer savy what so ever. My best advise to him is...Don't Lend Your Computer Out!!! Any ideas or info I would greatly appreciate. If more info on the HP is needed please let me kno. Thanx :rolleyes:

Chances are that the "friend" used a destructive restore... If so, the data is gone