New PC with Vista - Recovery Disk/Original Software?

Looking for some direction. I purchased a Compaq Presario at a big box store, they tried to sell me a service to create a 'recovery' disk for $29.99. I told them no. I am under the impression that MS Windows Vista has some type of process to create a Recovery disk. I also thought there would be an Vista original software disk in the package.



A friend of mine said they should have included a CD for the original operating system, since I paid for the license for the software. He thought if I have a serious pc crash then I have to 're-buy' Vista to get back to my original state without that original software disk. Thus buying the software twice.



Any thoughts and guidance would be appreciated.. Thank you.



Keith B

 

OK, the issue here is the rub, your copy of Vista is OEM which presents a problem.



Since it is a Compaq (HP) there should and i say should be a recovery partition. This is why you were not provided with a recovery disc. The problem arises here that OEM versions of MS operating systems have "safe guards" too supposedly prevent piracy which make it very difficult too create a backup on disc. (this is true for XP as well)



So your friend is wrong HP products have the recovery on a HDD partition...usually.



Reason #40,517 to build your own.

 

Any vista disk will be able to be installed on your computer. Just make sure you note down or serial number (can be found in control panel>system I think) and keep it safe. Should a major problem arise you can either a) borrow a disk from a friend and use your serial number to install vista again or b) download an untouched version of vista through a torrent, burn it to a disk, and you have your own vista disk, and when combined with your serial number, a legitamate copy to reinstall on your computer should everything go wrong.

 

Excellent point and a good option vs OEM.

 

In addition to a recovery partition there is usually an option to burn a recovery DVD which you do only once, there should be no need to buy recovery media of any kind there is a requirement on the seller (usually provided my the maker) to ensure you are in a position to recover your machine to the state it was in, software wise, when you bought it.

 

Hi, I have a question related to this. I just bought a new hp desktop computer and the guy that sold it to me said that I'd either have to make my own recovery disk or pay extra for one, so naturally I decided to make my own. He told me that I could only do it once(so if I messed up I was screwed) and I'd have to do it at a certain time. I have dvd-r disks that i can use as data disks to write it on to, but I was just wondering if anyone knew how to create a recovery disk for vista on a pc straight out of the box. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

As you may have read this can be a bit tricky with OEM machines. I have done what you are asking with OEM versions of XP before with mixed results depending on the OEM (Dell,eMachines,HP) Dells seem to be the easiest to pull it off with, eMachines are a royal pain and HP/Compaqs can be pretty picky as well mind you this is based only on my personal experience and with XP.

Your best bet would be to use disk imaging software such as Acronis or Norton Ghost to make a "clone" of your drive then burn this onto your DVD-R.

I prefer XXClone over both of the afore mentioned programsbut it does not seem to play well with Vista so yeah try Acronis or Norton Ghost.