Recovery disc

A recovery disc is any of various media containing a backup of the original factory condition or a favored condition of a computer as configured by an original equipment manufacturer or an end-user. OEM supplied recovery media are often shipped with computers to allow the user to reformat the hard drive and reinstall the operating system and pre-installed software as it was when it was shipped.

Most OEM recovery systems for a Microsoft Windows-based operating systems involve booting from a separate hard drive partition, CD-ROM, or DVD, which in turn launches the recovery environment. After accepting the license agreements for the software and operating system in some cases, the recovery program will usually reformat the hard drive and then begin copying operating system and software files (although some recovery systems, such as the ones utilized by Hewlett-Packard and Gateway, do offer a "non-destructive recovery" option which backs up data before reinstalling the operating system). After the recovery process is completed, configuration such as the Windows Out-Of-Box Experience wizard is first run (along with any other additional setup the computer may perform), as it was on the initial startup of the computer. Most recovery systems use specialized software, though Toshiba and Dell licensed Norton Ghost technology for their recovery systems at one point. As of Windows Vista, Dell uses a Windows Imaging Format based image on a partition along with a tool launched from the Windows Recovery Environment's command prompt.

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