i want to buy a laptop and don't know how to check if a laptop is an original. please, is there any way through which someone can check if an HP laptop an original? Also, how do i check to know if a laptop has been formatted before?

Branded Laptops like HP most time have two partitions , one for backup copy of the OS n another as the main storage .
Formatted HD may have only one partition . Drive C.

thanks, my oga @ d top. but the one i want to buy is fairly use. so i don't know i can verify if it has been formatted before or if it is an original or counterfeit

thanks, my oga @ d top. but the one i want to buy is fairly use. so i don't know i can verify if it has been formatted before or if it is an original or counterfeit.

@Doncrust, do you know you are evulistic? not only that, do you know that, evu anakaviri odahihu?

@DonCrust
What u did is very wrong. It wasn't even a stupid question.
U niid 4giveness of sins
The way to noe if it hasn't been formatted is to check under the laptop for the windows stamp of genuineness. There u wld see the product key.
Go to the start/windows button and right click on my computer, click properties then scroll to the buttom of the page. The product I'd there should be exactly the same as that on the windows stamp under the laptop.
If not the laptop has already been formatted before.

@OP...Some laptops come with factory reset(My Lenovo Thinkpad T510 for e.g),which makes it possible to return aka "format" the laptop and return it to its factory state,in this case,the Laptop is as if it just left the factory stables,with no need to install any drivers or what nots..with also the windows activation key/code INTACT...and the recovery/back up partition stays intact. So I'd say it would be a very tricky situation to tell if such Laptop has been formatted before.
One way to check(although not conclusive) is to add up the back-up/recovery disk size plus the drive C: size and subtract from the original HDD size,(remember the OS on the laptops eats up some disk space too)..If the remainder is larger than 28GB,then know the Laptop has been formatted once or severally. But like I said this experiment is inconclusive.
Hope this helps