Recovery Disks No Longer Offered By Many Companies

[DarkBlood]

We all know HP stopped doing recovery disks a while ago. However, did you also know that other companies followed the trend? Gateway is one of them of course. However, did you know that apparently, Dell still offers the recovery disks. Gateway however preinstalls a recovery disk creator program on the original partition of the system now (Though, I did not know this and foolishly bought the geek squad recovery CD maker service for 60 USD. The best buy clerk didn't tell me that Gateway had a recovery disk maker installed, what a rip off.)

Apparently, most companies stopped doing this around fall last year (except Dell as I mentioned.) Does anyone have any reliable sources on this trend?

[Schmarvin]

HP still does Recovery disks. Or at least the stores selling their laptops and computers here still do. It might just be the Best Buy we buy from.

[bariteau]

For most laptops, you can find a recovery CD maker in the menus. You just have to burn it yourself.

[Dynash]

I use a Dell restore disk, and I don't even have a Dell laptop. I can get one off Sony, but they charge you! They still owe me my free copy of Vista Home, but I don't want it anyway. :p

There isn't a need for them these days. Hidden partitions on the harddrives are okay. But the main reason why I hate restore disks/partitions is that they come with all the bloated software that you don't want. Just download the ISO of the main OS, find your drivers online - or even off the manufacturer's website - Bob's your uncle!

[DarkBlood]

Returned laptop, and will wait until fall to check out new ones then.

[Volt.Networks]

Windows 7 is coming out in October so might as well wait.

HP has the hidden partition and lets you burn your own recovery CD's. I hate it since it comes with the bloatware.

[Schmarvin]

All HP computers/laptops come with the hard-drives partitioned with a recovery partition on them. So, basically you only need a Windows CD and it'll work. :P Had to do that the other day when repairing a client's computer. They had a boot file missing, so I inserted the Windows XP CD, restarted, booted from CD, and it started repairing.

[bariteau]

So, basically you only need a Windows CD and it'll work.

FALSE, you can do a Factory Recovering and wipe your drive (to factory defaults, ie: loose your stuff) without a Windows CD. You need the Windows CD to repair the Windows files only!

[Schmarvin]

You can't access the recovery partition without a Windows CD or the actual recovery disc you received with the computer.

[DarkBlood]

You can't access the recovery partition without a Windows CD or the actual recovery disc you received with the computer.

Gateway doesn't require that, the recovery program installed into the gateway laptop I had bought (but returned a few days later) had it so that it only needed the recovery partition, no discs.

[bariteau]

You can't access the recovery partition without a Windows CD or the actual recovery disc you received with the computer.
99.9% FALSE (Except if you own some kind of unknown brand)! Try the F1-F12 (usually set to F8-F12 but I've seen some odd F5 here and there or the thinkvantage menu for thinkpads) keys and you should get into the manufacturer's recovery menu.

Looks like you're talking about windows recovery/repair menu/mode which had nothing to do with manufacturer recovery!

[DarkBlood]

Finally got some feedback on what I said on the GeekSquad Article...


Companies That No Longer Provide Recovery Discs - A Big Issue

-- ME --

Geek Squad makes these recovery discs for about 60 USD. However, some companies don't tell you that they put recovery disk creation software onto the machine itself good enough so that the average person would know to not buy the Geek Squad Service to create them a recovery disk. Such a company is Gateway. I don't know if this should be mentioned on the gateway article or here, but it's obviously a scam ployed out by best buy not to tell people that Gateway offers a recovery disk creator now that they don't offer recovery disks.

-- GEEK SQUAD MEMBER --

Every PC brand except for Dell come with recovery disc creation software (Dells come with the actual disks or a recovery partition). That said, not all of us Geeks are dishonest about the process. At my precinct we tell our clients that they could make the discs themselves, but we almost always get the sale as we truthfully tell them that the discs will take several hours to burn, and that if their hard drive fails they WILL need them. People are generally lazy enough that they see the value in getting them done rather than putting it off. You wouldn't believe how many people decline the service, saying they'll do it themselves, only to come back a six months later with a dead hard drive and no recovery disks. If you want to talk about scams, point your finger at the computer manufacturers using sub-par components designed to break in two years or less.

-- ME --

I could equally say that you should also give people a choice (IE: tell them that there are other operating systems, which can be obtained FOR FREE, IE: Linux) about what Operating System they can choose instead of forcing Windows on everyone. Sure, you should also tell them that you can't run everything on linux through its WINE Program, but you can find alternatives out there for Windows programs that you normally pay for. For example, you could say that they can get OpenOffice, which can open almost, if not all, any MS Office document (With the exception of MDB Files.) Please do not bait me into starting a war here. If you reply again with more information, I may as well report both myself and you for violating the NOTAFORUM rule and have this discussion removed.