I have a Compaq Presario desktop that came pre-loaded with Windows XP (vintage 2002).

The unit also came with a "Recovery CD". One option on the recovery CD is to restore the PC to it's original factory settings.

Another option is to make an Emergency Recovery Disk that "stores the system information"

The manual says that to do a factory restore (Quick Restore), you may need the emergency disk that you created.

My hard drive is partitioned and has a small 4GB (D: ) partition with FAT32 on it.

Questions:
If I have a total hard drive failure and must replace the drive, does the recovery disk contain a copy of Windows?

If not, will the emergency disk that I create contain a copy of Windows?

If not, is there a way to back up the OS plus anything else I would need to replace the hard drive?

Thanks...

In order as posted:
Yes
No
Yes

Thanks Curlyben,

So, are you saying that if I replaced the hard drive, all I would need is the recovery CD, and the emergency disk that I create to get the thing up and running with original factory OS and programs?

I am trying to avoid making a clone of my hard drive here before it dies.

Simply change out the drive and us the recovery CD ONLY.
The emergency disc is of very little use, so bin it.

Thank you sir...

While you're thinking about it this is a perfect time to back up your data files in case something nasty does happen. Remember: you can always reinstall programs but not those photos, Word docs, Contacts, etc. :)

Thanks NeedKarma,

I actually back up my data files every 2 weeks (once a week when I'm doing a lot of work), so I'm covered there. It's just that my hard drive is getting old and I fugure it's just a matter of time till it fries, so I'm trying to prepare.

If the recovery disk will not create a factory version of the original drive with Windows XP on a new (blank) hard drive, then I guess I should clone a copy of the whole drive while it's still working.

I've had several people tell me that a recovery disk does not contain Windows. It just pulls Windows off the hard drive and reinstalls it to factory config.?

If you have a better approach, I'd love to hear it, as I am new to all of this, and am learning as I go along...

I just want to throw a little story into this simply because it concerns me. Now, hopefully things have changed. But I have a friend with a Compaq -- well, she used to have one. And she had this supposed recovery CD. But after her hubby completely messed up the entire dang computer, she wiped out the drive and tried to use this CD and it did not have Windows on it. I'm not quite sure what it actually was. After I helped her do a bit of research on her computer, discovered this situation -- the small D drive, which contained what essentially we'd call a recovery CD. Except she'd wiped it out. I then did more research to try to find a way to get her a real recovery CD from HP. (Not sure whatever happened with that, though she did get Windows reinstalled somewhere, somehow. And now does Ghost images herself.)

She had 98 though. They may have changed this. I just wanted to throw that out there, just in case.