Tumble_weed, There is a MacKissic distributor listed in Dallas, who should be able to tell you where your MacKissic dealers are. "I am wanting to get a MacKissic 763 or possibly the 12PT10. I am favoring the 763 because of its smaller size, better fit for my small backyard city garden." The 763 costs about $1200, while the 12PT10 costs about $1700. For about $500 more than the 763, the 12PT10 is about twice the machine, so that extra $500 buys you a lot. I keep my 12PT9 (the 9hp predecessor to the 12PT10) outdoors under an optional cover, so garage space isn't an issue for me. It's about the size of a large wagon, so it's not that big, and its four-wheel design makes it more stable and easier to move around. The larger shredder hopper and throat opening make feeding leaves faster with the 12PT10 than the 763. If you can afford it, I recommend the 12PT10 over the 763, even for a small city lot. I think it would give you a better shredding experience, even in a small city back yard. MM

This might help, see link below: I didn't get your Operating System so I guessed it was XP. Are your CD/DVD disks in good shape? Any scratches? It's a good idea to clean them if they've been sitting around for awhile sometimes they get a film built up on them. If they are scratched then you can order a new set from HP for a small fee. Do this if nothing else works. I signed up for Garden Web awhile ago but really don't come around to often. I thought I'd stop by. I've been gardening for decades and helping out on Cnet for a little over a year, on there help forums. I hope this helps and that the link shows up. Here is a link that might be useful: Recover computer at HP

OK we need to step back a little. You did not mention your operating system nor the program you use to create your back up image. If you have Vista or Windows 7 it comes with a back up utility. XP does not so you need a third party program such as Acronis True Image or similar. From what I can see you external drive came with no back up program installed on it. Using your HP recovery disks will return the computer to the state it was when you first opened the box and set your machine up. All data will be lost unless it is backed up. All bloatware will be installed again, exactly as it left the factory. Restoring an image created in Vista, Win7 or third party software however returns the computer to the exact state it was in when you created that particular image. Some (perhaps all) programs offer incremental backups, in other words they add stuff onto the previous back up. Personally I never allow that, I always create a new image then delete the older one. There is no specific reason for that, it is just one of my many quirks.

Your Toshiba should have come with recovery Cd's or DVDs and will allow you to reinstall the system very easy back to just like factory new should something go drastically wrong. Plus you should be able to load individual componente too - when you start it you will have some options on what do you want to do. My Toshiba with Vista has the Recovery Environment and all needed windows files/drivers on a hidden drive partition and amazingly when you really screw up something to a non start-able state the Toshiba will automatically fix the boot/startup process without you needing to do a thing, for many if not 'almost' all startup problems. Plus on F8 window you should see 'Repair my PC' which runs the automatic startup fixit which checks things and fixes. Of course if you lose hard drive access and then it would be nice to have that bootable CD ravencraven linked to burn the recovery environment to CD/DVD so you can hopefully fix things, should you delete your boot-loader or something that makes the hdd lost.