N56VZ AI recovery (Need help)

My previous hp dv6000 has non-empty recovery partition displayed. So i thought is to get back to factory setting. Tried it once and it works. This n56vz, i don't see recovery partition until going to disk management, i can see it now with no drive name ( such as E: or something) . However it is said 100% free of 25GB. Is it actually empty

So the issue is i have not made any recovery disks but only make .iso files with asus AI recovery and save them to a folder. My questions are :

1. Is the recovery partition actually not empty ?

2. Those 5 .iso files i made with ai recovery tool, are they the same file as if i directly make a recovery disks ? Later if burn them into bootable DVDs it's going to work the same as recovery disk, yes ?

3. If yes, then the recovery .iso files or disks contain only my factory setting system files (windows 7, drivers, and asus bloatwares) yes ? note that i have installed several programs prior to making those .iso files.

4. So the way to get back to factory setting are from recovery partition (if it's actually not empty) and recovery disk or .iso files burnt into disks. am i correct ?

Thank you.

 

The recovery partition is indeed not empty. You see it that way because it is set to be as hidden as possible so people won't mess with it.

You need the recovery partition for the recovery discs to work, the reverse isn't true though.

If you want to restore, i'd boot from the recovery partition (F9) and recover from there, i never nuke the recovery partition on my Asus notebooks unless i have a backup of it before.