Hi,

I have an HP OmniBook XE3l notebook which I would like to rebuild. 
I've contact HP to send me a replacement CD which they expressed that
they have and it didn't arrive.

Now I'm interested in downloading the recovery CD from the Internet as
the next step.

Any ideas?

If the recovery CD contains windows or other software (say dvd viewing
software or cd burning software), what you are requesting would be
illegal to distribute.

Hi,

I would like to re-build the machine, I have Windows XP home and
office.. I can't find all the drivers and tools that make the touch
pad and other bits work well... including the sound.

I thought the safest bet would be a recovery CD.

What do you recommend and how do you think one would know if the CD
has copyright software on it that is illegal to be downloaded to a
machine that had one before?

-Mao

It's not that it would be illegal for you to download the recovery cd,
it's that it would be illegal to distribute the recovery cd.  I'm not
sure how to determine whether the cd does indeed contain copyrighted
material.

If it's just drivers you need, did you try the hp support website:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/DriverDownload.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodNameId=74449&taskId=135&prodTypeId=321957&prodSeriesId=74447&submit.y=0&submit.x=0&lang=en&cc=us

... yeah, for drivers and tools, you may be fine with just material
available on the HP website.  I've done several windows reinstalls for
other students this year (I work as a computing aide at my school),
and it usually works just fine to reinstall Windows off of the CDs you
already have (make sure you install SP2!), then open up the device
manager and look to see which drivers/etc. you're missing - usually
network controllers, video card drivers, sound drivers.  these can
then be downloaded off the HP website.  You'll probably be missing
your network card controller, though, so you may need to do the
downloads from some other computer & transfer them over with a USB key
or a CD or something of the sort.

good luck!