Recovery disk

[Tbag]

What is a recovery disk used for?

What disk would I need? floppy, cd, dvd?

thanks

[guns1inger]

A recovery disc is usually a scripted install of the operating system, drivers and add-on software for a single model of a single brand of desktop or laptop PC. It is used to restore the device back to it's original factory settings. Most will wipe the HDD, then restore back to clean. Some will be a little kinder and may preserve your files. Assuming this question arises from a new desktop or laptop, the manual will tell you what you need. It used to be a CD or two, now it is usually a DVD or several CDs because of all the bloatware in the restore discs.

[Tbag]

thanks for the answer

Is this the same as doing a back up using ghost or acronis?

[guns1inger]

Generally no, but it depends on the context.

Most recovery discs are either supplied with a new computer, or created using a routine supplied on a new computer. These are, as I stated in my original post, designed to reset the computer back to the state it was when you opened the box the first time.

Creating an image using a tool like acronis or ghost is different. In that case you are taking a point in time snapshot, including data, updates etc. If you restore using this image, you restore tothat point in time.

Pros and cons ?

Recovery discs are usually smaller because they only contain the install files necessary for a simple, clean initial build. You might fit them on one or two DVDs. No updates or data though. You basically just start again. Of course, usually this means you lose everything, including data, updates and updated drivers, and any software you have installed.

Creating a ghost or Acronis image means you can recover to a working state, complete with updates and data, to a point in time. If you us Acronis you can even take a full image, then do incrementals after that. Generally these images are far larger than a recovery set, so you need an external drive to store them. My system disc image is 37 GB, for example.

[ntscuser]

Recovery discs (or partitions) also reinstall all the crapware you just spent the last two years painstakingly removing.

[Tbag]

thanks I understand now