Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Technical Help and How To's How do you make a recover disk

I went to Best Buy to check out new laptop getting prices and start getting the funds together hopefully to get a new one soon. But when I was there they told me that no new laptop comes with Recover disk that you have to make you're own once you buy the laptop.

Since I've never done this before I was wondering if anyone knows how to go about this? Before I buy a new laptop I want to know how to do this.

Thanks

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

I just bought a new laptop from Best Buy this weekend and was told the same thing. But in my case the salesman told me that their "Geek Squad" had already "tweaked" the laptop to supposedly optimize it's performance and remove some of the, what he termed, "junk" on the hard drive. He also said that this service included making a set of recovery disks which were included in the box with the laptop. The price for this extra service was $70.

Normally, I roll my eyes at this unasked for "bait and switch" tactic to raise the price of an item, but having gone through a problem several years ago where recovery disks were a life saver I figured it was worth it considering that the laptop was only $349 and I was financing it anyway.

Long answer short, if no one here can supply you with an easy, do-it-yourself answer you might want to consider giving their Geek Squad a call.

Well, Windows 7 includes a "system image backup" as one of it's advanced recovery modes.

Here's one link (of many) I found via google (I used "windows 7 system image backup" as my query).
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/4241/how-to-create-a-system-image-in-windows-7/
It seems to be a step by step instruction.

You do need the following things:
1 CD-RW to create the boot-disk
1 external harddrive where you store your actual backup.

Michael

Thanks for all you're help the new laptop I ended up again came with recovery disk. The one down side is it came first with Vista but Best Buy had already loaded Windows 7 for me and I have the disk for that as well. I just know if I ever had to reload the laptop it's going to be fun to have to reload Windows 7.