recovery partition?

[Dave Johnson]

Hi
I am considering purchasing a new computer which has windows xp on it.
Here is my question.
The salesman explained that instead of giving me a installation cd that the
computers are coming out with a partition with a bunch of windows files on
it.
Apparently if you have a problem with windows and need to reinstall you go
to bootup and click F8 and it will rewrite the windows file and you will
start again brand new.
My question is, is this a good thing? or was the salesman full of hooey?
Is this something done now instead of installation cd's?
Thought maybe to prevent installations on more than one machine?
Any thanks would be appreciated

Thanks

 

[Frank GoBell]

Hi
I am considering purchasing a new computer which has windows xp on it.
Here is my question.
The salesman explained that instead of giving me a installation cd
that the computers are coming out with a partition with a bunch of
windows files on it.
Apparently if you have a problem with windows and need to reinstall
you go to bootup and click F8 and it will rewrite the windows file
and you will start again brand new.
My question is, is this a good thing? or was the salesman full of
hooey? Is this something done now instead of installation cd's?
Thought maybe to prevent installations on more than one machine?
Any thanks would be appreciated

Thanks

No, it's not a good thing - if your hard drive goes belly up, you have no
way to reinstall an OS that you paid for. Yes, it works, and yes, it's
becoming common, but it's a lousy practice. Either insist on the actual
CD-ROM, or contact the manufacturer of the computer before you buy, and see
if they will provide it after you buy.

 

[walter k]

Depending on the manufacturer, for example, if you are considering buying a
HP / Compaq machine, they no longer come with recovery CDs. The recovery
files are stored in a separate partition. However, if you read the manual,
it will "warn" you to be sure to make a "set" of CDs as soon as possible,
generally a set of 6 CDs as part of the recovery disks. In addition, it
will show you how to make an utility CD (to do other repairs and to
reinstall bundled apps). They are very "easy" to create, just read the
chapter on Recovery. But one word of caution, you will only allow to make
"one" set of recovery disks, so don't lose those (the system will delete
some files after all 6 disks are created, so as to prevent you from making
additional disks).

- - - - - - - - - - -

 

[CS]

Hi
I am considering purchasing a new computer which has windows xp on it.
Here is my question.
The salesman explained that instead of giving me a installation cd that the
computers are coming out with a partition with a bunch of windows files on
it.
Apparently if you have a problem with windows and need to reinstall you go
to bootup and click F8 and it will rewrite the windows file and you will
start again brand new.
My question is, is this a good thing? or was the salesman full of hooey?
Is this something done now instead of installation cd's?
Thought maybe to prevent installations on more than one machine?
Any thanks would be appreciated

Thanks

The salesman is not full of "hooey" but the use of a recovery
partition should be avoided when you purchase a new computer. If the
hard drive fails for some reason, how are you going to recover?
You'll be dead in the water until you receive a new hard drive from
the computer maker - hopefully still under warrantee!

Purchase a machine that comes with at least a set of recovery CDs -
preferably a complete retail or OEM copy of the OS on a bootable CD.

 

[Alex Nichol]

I am considering purchasing a new computer which has windows xp on it.
Here is my question.
The salesman explained that instead of giving me a installation cd that the
computers are coming out with a partition with a bunch of windows files on
it.
Apparently if you have a problem with windows and need to reinstall you go
to bootup and click F8 and it will rewrite the windows file and you will
start again brand new.
My question is, is this a good thing? or was the salesman full of hooey?
Is this something done now instead of installation cd's?

It is being done by an increasing number of suppliers. I - and I think
most MVPs - regard it as a very bad thing, and would advise you to look
elsewhere. There are makers who supply a CD that is only a restore one,
but that is at least less bad, but also some that continue to supply a
'proper' one - I think I hear that Dell has gone back to doing so.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Greetings --

This is a method used by low-cost OEMs who don't much care about
customer service, like Compaq and HP. It saves them money, because
then they don't have to hire tech support people who know anything
about PCs. If you do buy PC like this, you will never be able to
repair WinXP. Your only option would be to completely wipe out the
hard drive and start over. Naturally, all of your data gets lost in
the process.

If you must buy a PC with an OEM pre-installation of the OS, at
least buy one that comes with a real installation CD, like Dell or
Gateway.

Bruce Chambers

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[Yves Leclerc]

Dell and Gateway has also gone the Recovery CD.

Y.

 

[Malke]

Dell and Gateway has also gone the Recovery CD.

Y.

Yves - Are you sure about Dell? As of last month, they were still
including an actual XP cd and cd's for drivers, apps, etc. AFAIK, they
were the only "big box" mftr. that still did this - all the others use
Recovery Disks or hidden partitions. If this is true about Dell, then
the small edge they had over the others (balanced by their absolutely
awful tech support) is gone.

Malke

 

[Steve Nielsen]

Dell does supply an OEM copy of XP but I don't trust it. Nearly every
Dell that we've re-installed (even fresh and complete) from the
Dell-supplied XP CD has exhibited nearly the same problems that we
re-installed to fix in the first place.

Steve

 

[Steve Nielsen]

Yves Leclerc wrote:




Yves - Are you sure about Dell? As of last month, they were still
including an actual XP cd and cd's for drivers, apps, etc. AFAIK, they
were the only "big box" mftr. that still did this - all the others use
Recovery Disks or hidden partitions. If this is true about Dell, then
the small edge they had over the others (balanced by their absolutely
awful tech support) is gone.

Malke

You're right Malke, but re-installs from the Dell OEM CDs have proven to
be problematic here.

Steve

 

[Alex Nichol]

You're right Malke, but re-installs from the Dell OEM CDs have proven to
be problematic here.

I think the question though is not so much whether the reinstalls work
(if they don't there is something odd in Dell's hardware setup that
needs investigating) as whether they provide to proper i386 folder of
components, and a boot that allows booting to recovery console, or to
setup to repair

 

[Malke]

I think the question though is not so much whether the reinstalls work
(if they don't there is something odd in Dell's hardware setup that
needs investigating) as whether they provide to proper i386 folder of
components, and a boot that allows booting to recovery console, or to
setup to repair

Thanks for the clarification. I know we've wandered away from the OP's
OQ, but one more thing - if Steve is having troubles with
reinstallations on Dells, it may not be because of the cd or the oem
flavor. I've had at least 3 clients with new Dells (the Optiplex model
for business) whose boxen have had bad RAM in the last few months. One
of the boxen had a bad hard drive, too. A friend of mine had 40+ new
Dells delivered and out of those, 7 or 8 had the same problems, along
with some cracked monitors. There seemed to be a spate of bad hardware
with Dells lately.

Cheers,

Malke