What are recovery discs and why do I need them?

It happens on just about every new computer. A few days after you are up and running, a message pops up on the screen informing you that you need to make a set of recovery discs. Usually, you are presented with options to do it right then or to delay it a few days.

Guess which option most people pick?

That’s right, they delay it. Why? Mainly because they don’t know what recovery discs are and why you need them.

The good old days

To understand this better, let’s go back in time a bit. 10-15 years ago, when you bought a computer, it came with a big stack of CDs. In this stack were the Windows operating system CD, a bunch of Microsoft CDs (like Money and MS-Works) and a set of recovery discs. Notice I said recovery discs? That’s because back then, they came with the computer.

Fast forward to today and you get none of these. Computer manufacturers cut corners everywhere they can to keep their prices down and not including recovery discs is one such cost-cutting method.

How it’s done now

As a replacement, most computer manufacturers create a separate partition on your computer’s hard drive to store the recovery information. They also include a program that will guide you through restoring your computer back to factory condition (if necessary) using the recovery information on this partition.

This all works fine and dandy as long as your computer is operational. But what happens when your computer crashes so bad that it won’t boot up any more? This is when you need a set of standalone recovery discs on CD.

But remember, computer manufacturers are trying to cut costs so it’s now up to you to create the recovery discs. And it’s up to you to purchase 5 or 6 (or however many it takes) blank, recordable CDs (or in some cases DVDs) to complete the job.

So when you are prompted to create the recovery discs, you should be prepared with a handful of blank, recordable CDs and about 30 minutes (on average) time to sit there and swap in and out discs when you are prompted. By the time you are done, you will have the same set of recovery discs that used to be included with your computer back in the good old days.

Why would you need recovery discs and what do they do?

Assuming you now have your recovery discs, let’s talk a minute about why you would need them and what they actually do. First, recovery discs are used to restore your computer to factory condition. In other words, after using the recovery discs, your computer is in the same exact state it was when you took it out of the box for the very first time.

So if your computer crashes, no longer operates correctly or is just running so darn slow you want to start over from the beginning again, recovery discs may be the right solution for you. I intentionally said may be in that last sentence because restoring your computer to factory condition is no trivial task. Once it’s done, you’ll have to re-install all of your software programs, re-run all of the system and security updates to “catch it back up” and restore all of your personal files from a backup.

Recovery is not the same as a backup

One last point I want to make about recovery discs. They are NOT, I repeat NOT backup discs. None of your software programs, documents, photos, videos, etc. are stored on your recovery discs. The ONLY thing recovery discs do is put your computer back to the same condition it was in when you purchased it.

If you want to restore your personal documents, photos and videos, it is critical that you have a consistent backup strategy in place. I recommend either CrashPlan (what I use) or Carbonite (what a lot of other people use). Links to both of these can be found on this special Protect Your Computer page on the Noobie website.

As always, if you still have any questions regarding recovery discs or backup solutions, please don’t hesitate to contact me.