I think it is brand-related.
Some brands, such as Dell, have the recovery data on a separate part of the hard drive, and if you need to clean your laptop and restart from factory-default, you can do it before Windows starts by accessing the special Dell menu (by pressing something like F12 or F8 when the Dell logo appears).
I think also in some cases Windows allows you to create a recovery disk when you first start your computer and set up the options for Windows.
I see from your other thread that you already bought a laptop. I was going to suggest that you ask whoever you were buying the laptop from for the information.
Hope this helps.
malu
