Most PCs are shipped with OS installed on them such as the Windows Vista Home Premium with one Hard Disk, being partitioned as C: and D:, D: being the copy of all the files necessary to restore your system and C: being the main part where all OS files as well as program files are installed by default unless otherwise you have chosen to install yourself. A quote from the VISTA OS Itself on the Recovering ”

Recover factory settings Windows VISTA

“Your computer hard disk drive contains a software program called the Recovery Manager. The Recovery Manager program is a collection of software programs used to restore your computer to its original factory-shipped condition.” -

Run the manufactures software to create Recovery CD. Here we go; Run HP Total Care (or whatever program you have from your PC vendor)

If you have time, look at the D: and see if it says “Recovery (D:)” as the label name. Most HPs would call C: as “HP (C:). See below for further explanation.

It is important not to touch the Recovery Part of your Hard Disk. A program will use those to create Recovery CD for you. If you happen to open it by double-clicking on it, you will be alerted with a message similar to this or may be something else:

Recovery Partition
Warning!

This area of your hard drive
(or partition) contains files used
for your PC Recovery.

Do not delete or alter these files.

Any change to this partition could
prevent any recovery later.

Most computers are now have special software from the computer manufacturers themselves such as HP Total Care Advisor by HP for HP computers and so on. Using these programs you can pretty much do extra such as create recovery CDs, backup and even fine-tune your Operating system.

When you buy your PC, you can buy Windows VISTA OS CDs, also recovery CDs; often both are not bundled in the price tag. So what should I do ? You can buy them or you can make them.  Follow these steps to create a recovery CDs.

Run the program, in this case we are running HP Recovering :

Suppose your pc is HP, run HP Total Care adviser program. Click on PC Help. The following screen pops up.

Click on the Link “Recover Factory Setting”, then you will be given this screen, click on the Create Recovery Discs, then click to create a set of recovery CDs. See Image below for help…

Upon doing all that you will be given this screen (please note, I have disabled many features on VISTA to make it run faster so your dialog boxes may look a bit different, fancy etc. But the method remains the same) Doing all that will bring you to do this screen.

Alternative Method.

If you have Windows VISTA Service Pack 1, you can do it by the OS itself:
Follow me… Start > All programs > Maintenance > Create a Recovery Disc. Burn those CDs and keep’um safe.

It’s safe to  be then sorry. If your PC encounters any problem later on, for say you can’t boot, you can insert those CDs and bring your PC back to life!

Enjoy VISTA!

Ruben

Final Tip: Assuming you have HP, you could do it with just one line of typing. Follow this:
Start > Run > type “C:\Windows\SMINST\CD Creator.exe“   (remove the quotations)