Thanks for the comments.

I got a new drive, and installed it. I downloaded a Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 iso from digitalriver.net and burned a DVD (with my trusty Linux system of course), and struggled mightily to get it to install on this new drive -- a story too long and boring and gruesome to inflict on you. Finally it prompted me for a license key, and rejected as invalid the one on the label on the back of this laptop. I checked it 10 times with a magnifying glass, and had my 14-year-old check it as well with his acute young vision. So it doesn't like my license key.

I wonder if it would make any difference if I started all over with a plain Windows 7 Home Premium, minus the Service Pack 1.

Isn't it ridiculous that Windows is so difficult and unreasonable that we Linux users have to spend our time talking about it on a Linux forum.? I thank you again for your indulgence. btw I wouldn't even bother with the Windows except that the kids need a game or two, and iTunes -- another dreadful piece of software. I tried running it under Wine once, couldn't get it going. Thinking about running it in a virtual box, but I've almost no experience with that and it seems like a great deal of trouble.

Thanks for listening to my complaining on this sweltering night in New Jersey, USA.

I reckon you'll find that is an OEM key so companies like HP can mass produce systems. I doubt you'll get it to work on a retail version.
This is why I was so careful to get everything sorted with the recovery USB before I started "slashing and burning". Talk to HP and see if they'll ship you an image you can recover from.

ugh. talk to HP -- that's what I've been fearing, and have begun steeling myself to do. something tells me it will be a challenge to get a straight answer from a human being and then get satisfaction without paying further money, which is irksome simply because it's rather an old laptop at 3+ years... but I will give it a shot.

Thanks again to all. If there's a next time, I will be sure to make an image of my HP recovery partition before I slash and burn.

Have a look here: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/d...bph07143&lc=en

Ah yes, been there and read that. As it turns out, I might have been too pessimistic; in the few minutes since my last post, I ordered recovery disks from HP for a nominal fee.

I've only used for repair installlation, but all you have to do is call ms support when activating since you have valid key & they will give you an activation code. I have also done that also.

I guess I am a hard-core pessimist. "all" I have to do is call MS support and they will give me an activation code, just like that, merely because I am a legitimate licensee with a legitimate request? Incroyable! But maybe I will give it a try, if I get tired of waiting for the HP discs in the mail (-: Thanks.

Well maybe you are a pessimist but if you call them they will even guide you thru installation on OEM hardware as they did with my acer with wins xp that's listed in my signature. What you don't realize is there are quite a few people here that actually help people here at LQ that will tell you the same thing that I told you.

In fact, I do realize that "there are quite a few people here that actually help people," as I have amply experienced this myself. As to whether all of them would say the very same thing you say, that's speculative, and seems unlikely.

Happy ending!

I replaced the drive; restored Windows 7 Home Premium 64-b (from DVDs courtesy of HP for a nominal fee); booted from a USB stick with PartEd on it; wrote an image of the Recovery partition (using dd) onto a removable USB hard drive; deleted the Recovery partition; shrank the C: partition using a bootable PartEd USB stick; and installed Ubuntu 12.04.2 adjacent to C:, leaving the little HPTools partition intact. Both OSes seem happy.

It's all good. My thanks, once again, to all for the support and advice.

Congrats glad you got it working!