New computers have NO recovery disk?

[benali72]

It's been a long while since I've looked at new personal computers, so I'm ignorant as to what's going on in the market place.

A couple simple questions....

I notice many desktops (Dell, HP, etc) say they come WITHOUT a recovery disk. Does this mean they have a recovery partition on the hard disk, similar to many laptops? Or does it mean you have no recovery partition/disk at all?

I notice that none of the systems come with Microsoft Office bundled any more. Do people get Microsoft Works bundled with their systems instead?  (I can't imagine people paying those high prices I see for Office as a separate add-on purchase.)  Or do people just skip Microsoft office products these days in favor of something like Open Office?

Thanks for your feedback.

[benali72]

Jeez, I've already learned that some PC's don't even come with MS Works, they come with ....

"Microsoft Office Starter 2010, a new base productivity suite that replaces Microsoft Works, consists of limited-functionality versions of Word and Excel and includes advertising. It does not include PowerPoint or Outlook."

MS has really chintzed down the market... a monopoly at work.

[The Gorn]

The HP laptop that I bought in late 2008 had no recovery disks. It has a recovery partition, plus the OS has the ability to burn a series of recovery DVDs exactly once.

I think the thing to do now is to immediately install an Acronis type backup program and image the entire hard drive, including the backup partition, just in case.

This is all why I build my PCs.

[Richardk]

The last I looked they had some kind of recovery, typically a recovery partition. If that's now gone, it's news to me.

The "Microsoft Office Starter 2010" is a non-starter. It works great for something like 30 days and then dies unless you buy it. The thing that surprised me is that you're locked into it, if I recall properly. You can't "try it" and then save your docs in an older format if you decide that your old 2003 version is 'good enough'. If I remember, the 'save as' function was disabled but I don't recall if you could copy and paste out of Word.

I helped a college freshman with this problem and had them buy a student copy from their school, as they panicked that they couldn't access their homework.

With that said, on a tangent at another school I was surprised to find out that it's an "entrance requirement" that you have a laptop with a current version of Windows and the MS Office suite. They make heavy use of Word, Excel and PowerPoint plus they have a lot of e-learning or remote classes. So you need the connectivity and tools for getting online. The students here need to be quite computer savvy today. Hmm, I wonder how many of them are doing backups?

[benali72]

From looking at common deals online, it does appear that almost all PC's today have a recovery partition. You don't get a DVD unless you pay extra. Many sites don't even mention this that "assumed knowledge" is their policy, nor do they offer to sell you the DVD.

The recovery partition ties your ability to recover to the shortest-lived mechanical part in your computer, its hard disk. Great for planned obsolescence and the vendors, a rip-off for the customer. Your hard drive failed? Well, OBVIOUSLY you need to buy a new operating system! In fact you really need to buy a whole new computer!  </end sarcasm>

Regarding Office, it looks like MS has successfully chintzed down what customers get bundled with their computer. This protects the margins for Office and again gives the customer less than they would have expected a few years ago. I agree with RichardK.... as far as I can tell MS Office Starter 2010 is just a rip-off.

Looks like the customer gets a lot less bundled from the vendors than they did a number of years back.

Richardk, I was astonished to find the same thing you did about hardware/software requirements at a computer science program! Yes, instead of using a system the students could dive into and tamper with (linux), the students had to buy a complete MS bundle. This would make sense to me for other disciplines but I couldn't believe they did this to their CS students! Maybe it's a school-wide policy (but if so it needs to be changed for CS students.)

[The Gorn]

I'm sure this is a get what you pay for issue. Not that I would buy Dell again (their reliability is terrible) but their business systems always have options for bundling MS Office, and they always include recovery disks. It's the consumer garbage like the $349 laptops that have no standards.

I mean, not excusing the poor bundling practices, but come on - a laptop today at the bottom end costs the same as a professional edition of Office. I'm certain the margins are razor thin. Probably the extra materials of a couple of DVDs sends the cost of goods over the edge.

In a way this is like complaining that a Big Mac doesn't come with Hollandaise sauce. We've become accustomed to cheaaaap prices on consumer stuff and this is the result.

[benali72]

Yeah, I hear you Gorn.

BTW, about your recommendation for Acronis. I was just refurbishing a computer a couple days ago for an impoverished acquaintance. It's a P-4 with XP installed and the valid license sticker. The hardware was powerful enough and they wanted me to retain WIndows. However, the disk was puny (40G). I would have upgraded it to one of the 120G drives I have on hand, but of course one can not upgrade a disk with Windows (ie move Windows from one disk to another). Needed Acronis to do that for me!

This was one of those really small lay-flat footprint desktops they use in business that you place your display on top of, so there was no room to add a 2nd hard drive. Finally I figured out how to remove the floppy and put a 2nd 120G drive in there. It ended up with 40G + 120G drives plus the CD-RW. Worked out pretty well, but it would have been so much easier just to copy Windows to a bigger drive.

[Richardk]

Worked out pretty well, but it would have been so much easier just to copy Windows to a bigger drive.

I did just that and don't recall having any problems. Well, with an XP version. So OK, this tidbit is dated.

In another case, I wanted to map the physical drives and just unplugged them. Then I started plugging one in at a time with a cold boot in between each one. That forced me to reactivate Windows, which was a bit of a surprise. It made me wonder if the same thing would happen with eSATA drives.

[DarkHumour]

I remember informing a customer who purchased an HP Laptop for use in his company that there were no recovery disks. But HP was so kind as to include a dvd *label* to stick on the dvd(s) you use to back up the recovery partition.

A friend of mine had some issues with her Lenovo thinkpad and when I used Ghost to back up the entire hard drive  it actually crossed 'zero minutes and zero seconds' and started counting time with negative numbers.  I let that roll for a while until discovering that their hardware hidden recovery partition probably caused this odd behavior.  I think if you 'unhide' it first it behaves normally.

Recently I had a Windows MCE box to back up and I decided to use the recovery method provided.  It crapped out or the disks were bad but before I hit finish or cancel I copied the staged ISO files to another part of the computer.  I then used a regular burning program to successfully create recovery media which I wound up not even using. Well, not yet anyway.

"Activation magic"
There is a trick to the registration or activation key(s) in Windows XP.  Each large vendor has designated numbers - Dell, Lenovo, HP, etc.  Magic Jellybean Keyfinder can gleen that information.  It should be a completely different key than what is on the label affixed to the system.  Other than a (hackable) algorithm how else could recovery media work with all the various keys in the wild ? By using its assigned mfg key...  I don't think you'd ever actually know that number unless you lost your recovery media (or couldn't google the manufacturer's keys) and/or ran that keyfinder program.  The advantage is that the system vendor key doesn't bug you for reactivation. It already 'knows' its okay. Of course It will throw fits if you try to apply their media to a system made by a different manufacturer.

Now as a system builder who made only a few computer builds a year to sell I didn't have an vendor assigned key for recovery media.  The number on the mandatory sticker was always the one applied to Windows XP.

DarkHumour

[Richardk]

The advantage is that the system vendor key doesn't bug you for reactivation. It already 'knows' its okay. Of course It will throw fits if you try to apply their media to a system made by a different manufacturer.

I've seen something like that when replacing a hard drive in a laptop. Windows just installed like an ordinary application using their provided DVD.

[Richardk]

I think the thing to do now is to immediately install an Acronis type backup program and image the entire hard drive, including the backup partition, just in case.

Can Acronis be used for a one-off type backup or do you actually need to install and license it for each PC? If you can't do one-off's, do you have another solution?

[benali72]

Richardk, correct me if I'm wrong, but since activation ties to the disk id, wouldn't copying Windows to another disk require reactivation?  This is why I didn't just image-copy the disk to a larger one.

I'm assuming the copy of Windows is under activation and that one is not doing fancy stuff to get around it.

Thanks.

[The Gorn]

Can Acronis be used for a one-off type backup or do you actually need to install and license it for each PC? If you can't do one-off's, do you have another solution?

It's licensed to each PC but I do not believe that it has any concept of product activation as in binding to particular hardware. If I wanted to back up my laptop just for archival and restore purposes I would have no compunction about installing Acronis to it and using the key registered to my PC.

[The Gorn]

Richardk, correct me if I'm wrong, but since activation ties to the disk id, wouldn't copying Windows to another disk require reactivation?  This is why I didn't just image-copy the disk to a larger one.

I'm assuming the copy of Windows is under activation and that one is not doing fancy stuff to get around it.

Thanks.

Activation is actually triggered when a "score card" of multiple hardware level changes are detected since the most recent successful activation on that hardware. Just a hard drive change alone will probably not trigger it. Change the hard drive plus increase memory plus changing the network hardware may trigger activation. Which on the same computer should just pass with no problem.

[DarkHumour]

Score Card GB described:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb457054.aspx

At the time I wrote that post above I couldn't remember the term...

"OEM Preactivation." 

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb457078.aspx 

They gave an example key that works for the installation but catches on after the final reboot.