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The Recovery Disc Rip-Off
nk497 writes "The chances of finding a recovery disc at the bottom of a PC box is getting slimmer, as vendors instead take the cheaper option of installing recovery software on a hard disk partition, leaving the buyer with no physical copy of the operating system they paid for if (or when) the hard disk fails. Users can burn a backup disc, but many aren't as diligent as they should be. While some PC vendors will offer a free or cheap disc at the time of purchase, buying one — or even tracking one down — after the fact can be expensive and take weeks to arrive. 'I've had a lot of people that have had this problem,' said David Smith, director of independent maintenance company Help With Your PC. 'One customer recently found his hard drive had gone, but by the time he'd paid £50 for the recovery disc, paid for a new hard drive and paid for the labour of installing the device, it made more sense to buy a new machine.'"
My wife recently bought an HP laptop. It comes with the recovery stuff on a partition.
You get one time you can burn a physical recovery disk. When we tried it, the process failed. Leaving you with no more tries at a recovery disk, and no recovery disk.
Very annoying. Combine that with the performance of the laptop, and we won't be buying anything else from HP because they're products are overpriced and crappy. Ripping a CD created MP3 with really bad jitter and noise -- lame for a dual core machine which wasn't doing anything else at the time.
Posting anonymously because my wife works for HP and we bought it using her discount. :-P
But if you happen to buy a piece of hardware at the store that's not on the distribution's hardware compatibility list, it probably won't include a Linux driver on a disc either.
You mean that you haven't noticed that Windows has a hardware compatibility list as well ?
Personally, I don't want a recovery CD, I want the Windows Install CD and a Driver CD. I just bought an HP which reminded me to make my one set of recovery disks (which I did, 3 DVD's). However, what I really wanted to do was format it and re-install windows to get rid of all the junk they pre-loaded on it.
The discs are not "recovery discs", but full blown copies of the operating system.
Worth the tax to me.
Dave Barnes 9 breweries within walking distance of my house
It's not just the cost of the blank disc. The recovery disc has to be made up with the right mix of bundled software, including a suitably-keyed copy of Windows. That means that they burn a different image for each machined shipped. if they were supplying a FOSS OS and bundle then they could probably use a mass-produced, pressed disc and it would be way cheaper.
http://store.microsoft.com/microsoft/Windows-Windows-7/category/102
They don't seem to advertise it, but they do. Digitalreiver hosts it for them:
http://www.mydigitallife.info/2009/10/25/windows-7-64-bit-x64-direct-download-links/
You require a license to use it, of course, but that is the software.
They don't burn a different image for each machine shipped. Not even each model shipped. I recently had to restore two Dell machines. Each came with a base Windows disk with a bunch of different base drivers for a bunch of different machines. Then came the drivers disk, which supported a bunch of different models as well. Each of those two disks probably supported hundreds of different models.
You can just order the disk alone from Microsoft at the Microsoft Supplemental Parts center. 800-360-7561
Having spent more time than I'd care to think about digging through those backup DVDs for drivers, they generally only support one model, occasionally two or three. The reason there are so many drivers on the disc is because a given model usually has dozens of different configuration options, eg 4 or 5 different graphics cards, 3 or 4 different NICs, etc. However, each disc is usually locked to a single model, and does some sort of check that prevents it from running on any other model even if it has all the necessary drivers.
I recently bought an ASUS netbook which not only came with no recovery discs, but no utility to create recovery media (either optical or USB). If the hard disk dies or the recovery partition is corrupted (e.g. by a failed test restore of your self-created drive image), there's no way to restore the system to its factory state yourself. This has been raised in the ASUS forums and their response is sorry, but you have to return the system to them if you need it restored. Remarkably, people who noted this issue in Amazon.com reviews had their criticism thumbed-down, and ridiculed by "most helpful" reviews containing the narrowminded suggestion that recovery media is unecessary because you can "simply restore from the hard disk!".
This continues to be true for their Vista and Windows 7 recovery media as well. I have stacks of the things here at work, and have even used them to "recover" non-Dell hardware, with a valid license activation key.
What the hell are you two talking about? Seriously. Both of your statements are wrong.
OEM Windows WILL activate online, it doesn't always though. Sometimes you do have to ring up, usually if the number has been activated too many times but sometimes just straight off the bat.
To say that the OEM keys are specific to a particular OEM and that you need the disc from that particular manufacturer is just utter codswallop. I've reinstalled literally hundreds of laptops, all from exactly the same set of ISO's I keep on my server.
Actually no. I was going to build my own system for my video editor replacement. But I could not touch the price of buying a prebuilt ASUS PC and the parts to upgrade it.
for the exact same hardware I could not buy my i7 processor, motherboard, and 8 gig of ram for the price of the same + case+DVD drive+1TB hard drive + Win7 license..
Either Newegg is price gouging, or the pc makers are really undercutting everyone. Plus I got a Win7 OEM license I was able to sell for $100.00... Oh and ASUS gives you a Microsoft OS install DVD.. and the COA sticker peels off easily because it was too new to set.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
People that can actually research things.
I was smart enough that when I wanted a new webcam I used the internet thingy and searched. I found the Microsoft Lifecam HD works under Windows, Linux and OSX perfectly... yet the box says "WINDOWS ONLY!! HOW DARE YOU ASK ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE!!!!"
I used my brain and made a educated purchase. I guess those that are incapable of doing anything but looking at boxes get to miss out on a lot.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Um I hate to break this to you. But that Snow leopard upgrade disk, is a a full OS install disk. There is no need to install Leopard first.
A disk that is tied to a particular make model and revision of product is NOT a proper OS disk.
A proper OS disk is something that you can use on any Apple or Dell of your choosing.
A Snow Leopard disk is a proper OS package. A Mac recovery disk is not.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Why the hell do people keep thinking this?
It's not that the cost of a CD is prohibitive or adding anything it the cost.
It's that someone figured out they can charge more for the CD if they don't include it in the standard price!