What's the purpose of Recovery CD's

Sorry if this is a really stupid question .............

As far as I am aware, a separate partition is created on the HD which holds all the software/drivers etc for the purposes of doing a recovery (if required).

So, why is it necessary to create your own Recovery CD's if it's already on the HD?

Is the only reason for doing it is that if your HD dies and it gets replaced that you can reimage/reinstall everything to the new HD?

 

Yes, this is exactly why you make the CD's.

 

The difference is the Recovery CD you create afterward will be more updated than the files in the recovery partition, especially when you applied all these drivers and Windows updates too. And of course, in case of a HDD failure or upgrade.

 

Therefore, you shouldn't create the recovery CD straight away after getting the new machine? Instead, wait until you have installed the updates and new drivers, then do it?

 

Well, this is what I would do if I have to make them. (Which I don't by the way, at least not from the manufacturer's installation, I normally prefer doing a fresh install of the OS myself than using the original installation from the manufacturer. So if I have to make those CDs, I'd only do it after my own OS installation.)

But then, no method is perfect, some people are worried that some updates might mess up the OS.

If you're really paranoid, then the safest method would be make them once right away, and make them again after all the updates applied.

 

From my experience with thinkpads, the Recovery CD is exactly the same as what is in the Recovery Partition. The purpose of both is to recover to factory settings which, obviously, is before any updates are made.

 

If I understood correctly, the utility that makes the recovery CD's will only do it once. I have seen people discuss their options when they had an error while creating the CD's and it would not let them attempt it a second time. I thought it was also the same regardless of when it was run, because it essentially made a copy of the recovery partition.

 

Yes, you can only make one copy of the CDs. And I don't think it matters what updates/patches you apply. The CDs are being created from the data in the recovery partition, which is not touched with any of the updates that are applied.

 

Here's one tip: during Recovery Disk creation, before burning to disk (the program will what burner to use), search for the ISO images in "C:\Program Files\Lenovo\Rescue and Recovery\rrcd\" and copy them to an external drive. You can burn them later anytime just in case your first one becomes damaged. This will ensure you have image backup of the recovery media just in case you get a bad burn.

 

I have recovery CDs, and I copied off the recovery partition, and copied off the "special" directory the manufacturer put on the main partition.

Then I erased the recovery partition and gave the space to the primary partition.

I backup weekly with Paragon Drive Backup, which would be my first choice if a restore were needed, as I have customized extensively.

If, for some unforeseen reason I needed to do a bare metal fresh install, I would probably have to purchase Vista, as there is no way I am going back to the vendor image willingly.