On Saturday, April 5, 2014 5:52:42 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Sat, 05 Apr 2014 12:56:42 -0400, wrote:



On Sat, 5 Apr 2014 08:48:16 -0700 (PDT), trader_4

wrote:



Another really dumb thing that's going on, at least with HP,

is that when you use the recovery disks, you wind up wiping

out the entire drive and any and all partitions. You would think

they would give you the option of doing a recovery to just the

main system partition and optionally leave any other partitions

alone. That way if the system is getting screwed up, but it's

still running, you could copy stuff you want to save to the other

partition, then do the recovery. Even worse, it's not clear which

way it actually works. I saw threads where people got conflicting

answers from HP. Some were being told that you could leave existing

partitions on there and they would be OK. I had to do this a few months

ago and found out that it does indeed delete all partitions, but I

was prepared for it. Other than that, it worked really well. Had it

restored in less than a half hour.



I would not have a PC with just one drive in it. The idea is you have

a fairly small C: drive with nothing but software on it and ALL of

your work space, data files or whatever is on the D: drive. You can

simply copy that drive to your backup and restore it with drag and

drop. Then you image your C: to back that up after you have changed

all of your program destination directories.. Even if you did use the

restore disks, you still have not lost any data.



The dumbest thing I have ever seem is people using "My Documents" for

anything. That is buried in windoze and the first thing you lose even

if you just delete the windows directory and just reinstall it.

"My Documents is NOT burried in the windows directory. Never has

been. It is in the "documents and settings" directory in Pre Win7, and

in the "users" directory in 7 and up.



If you use a "restore" disk, you use your documents if they are

anywhere on the "C" partition, or anywhere on the "C" drive if the

original install is a single operating partition.



I think you meant "lose your documents", not "use."
And as I previously pointed out, with HP at least, you'll lose
everything on the hard drive without regard to any partitions
if you do a restore. It puts the PC back to exactly the as-shipped
condition




If you use an "install" disk you can re-install without affecting the

data if you do a "repair install" with XP and previous. In "most"

cases the repair install won't even require re-installation of most

software.


Do most PC's even come with install disk anymore? Years ago they
did. The last two I bought only come with the OS and apps, eg MSFT Office,
installed and a restore image on a hard drive partition. Again, with
HP's that I have, if you use that restore image, it wipes out everything,
including any other partitions and puts the PC back to as-shipped.
They also tell you and remind you to make a set of restore DVDs, in
case the HD fails. That's all that you have, no Win7, MSFT Office
disks period.






If you do a "full install" it will overwrite anything in the boot

partition, but leave everything in an "extended partition" (such as a

"D" drive or data partition on a large single hard drive) untouched.



Probably so on some and I agree that's how I would design the
recovery software, but as noted at least HP doesn't work that way.