The recovery disc rip-off

Why

Please can you state if an article has already been publish in the magiazine.... really whats they point of buying the magazine if I can read it all online.... acutally I think i'm going to cancel my subs.

By KryptosSol on 3 Aug 2010

How?

How can the articles be created if there are no magazine subs and shop sales?

I very much doubt the online advertising would pay for the material on it's own - even despite Dennis's attempts at putting more ads than content on every page.

It seems that some magazine articles are recycled online a period of time after print, which makes good sense from a marketing and cost perspective. Equally some of the news articles and blogs will make it into full features within the magazine. I think the balance is a fair one.

By Fraz_pro on 3 Aug 2010

On the subject of the article itself ...

... what about the fact that some software provided for the purchaser to make their recovery disc falls over after making three of the four DVDs? Asus, I'm looking at you.

By davefaulkner on 3 Aug 2010

Ridiculous

This is a ridiculous game the manufacturers are playing.
When i get a new PC now, i often hae to buy the corresponding install disks off ebay or something, so in case of a failure, i can reload the OS using my key on the base of the unit.
I prefer doing it this way, cos at least then the reload is done, there is no crapware at the start, and i choose what goes back on the machine.
I've used these recovery partitions before, and they are temparamental at best.

By Hereisphilly on 3 Aug 2010

Why only one set

Also worth noting that many manufacturers (e.g. HP) only allow one set of recovery discs to be made using the preloaded utility. What purpose does this serve, other than meaning that if the set gets lost or damaged the user has to buy a set from the manufacturer?

By davidbryant4 on 3 Aug 2010

All things cost money

We all want to buy our PCs for the lowest possible price, so would we all be happy to pay an extra £25 per PC so that recovery disk could be included which would then be thrown away or lost by 70% of users.
Microsoft doesn't like recovery disks as they make software piracy a little easier. For vendors the whole process of using recovery partitions is cheaper and easier.
Given the speed of the internet perhaps a recovery disk download service would be a better option?

By milliganp on 3 Aug 2010

As a subscriber I expect items from the magazine to appear online. I would take issue if they appeared online BEFORE the magazine, but can't see why KryptosSol has such a problem with the other way round. However, I don't think the "News" section is an appropriate place - clearly it isn't "news" if it is old.

By halsteadk on 3 Aug 2010

@davidbryant4

What's this -belt, braces and a spare pair of trousers!
BTW I'm one of those anally retentive types who has True Image backups of my install partition on both a USB drive and a spare internal drive!

By milliganp on 3 Aug 2010

@milliganp

"the speed of the internet" maybe ok for you but a lot of people still struggle to find usable broadband

By Andrew_C on 3 Aug 2010

We do

I work for a small PC distributor/manufacturer in the UK and we supply every machine with the relevant orignal Windows discs along with all necessary driver and OEM applications. If we can do it I don't see why the big boys have an excuse.

By jhaywood000 on 3 Aug 2010

Most people who buy a laptop are not from an IT background

A backup of a recovery partition is as easy for most people as servicing a fuel-ignition system on their car.
Manufacturers are just being cheapskates. They buy the OEM licences in bulk. Burning a 16p DVD is hardly going to destroy their profits on a £400+ laptop.
The American expression is "nickel and diming". It's shallow thinking. Surely the cost of support calls far outweighs the cost of simply popping a disc in the box?

By cheysuli on 3 Aug 2010

Licenced

We're constantly told that we only buy a licence for the software and that the media is therefore, irrelevant.

I dont have a problem with manufacturers covering their costs with these things but anyone charging over a tenner is blatantly profiteering and wouldnt be seeing my custom again.

By Fraz_pro on 3 Aug 2010

Ridiculous

This is a ridiculous game the manufacturers are playing.
When i get a new PC now, i often hae to buy the corresponding install disks off ebay or something, so in case of a failure, i can reload the OS using my key on the base of the unit.
I prefer doing it this way, cos at least then the reload is done, there is no crapware at the start, and i choose what goes back on the machine.
I've used these recovery partitions before, and they are temparamental at best.

By Hereisphilly on 3 Aug 2010

@Milliganp

A copy of a recovery disk costs "£25 per PC"? Do you really believe that?

By Lomskij on 3 Aug 2010

Why only one set

Also worth noting that many manufacturers (e.g. HP) only allow one set of recovery discs to be made using the preloaded utility. What purpose does this serve, other than meaning that if the set gets lost or damaged the user has to buy a set from the manufacturer?

By davidbryant4 on 3 Aug 2010

Wow, how overpriced this is!!!

Perhaps i know a bit more than a general user, so i do backup my system once a week, and i do have an OS recovery disk, which i just downloaded from microsofts website (or shall i say from digital river which are available free to download from here http://www.mydigitallife.info/2009/11/10/windows-7
-iso-x86-and-x64-official-direct-download-links-ul
timate-professional-and-home-premium/) i Think i agree with the guy who said that we pay for the licence, which is printed on the PC or Laptop, but indeed before, i got a copy of Vista for my dell system that was in 2008, so not that long ago. But i also agree that the companies use the advantage that they know that most people would not do anything because they don;t know how to or just can;t be bothered, but i say everybody must know some sort of friend who is a bit techy, and know for one how to change the hard drive, ite prety easy on a PC and not that hard on a laptop, i changed my hard drive on my laptop no problems, although i did have to buy an adpater from dell for 50 pounds (this is a small thing so that hard drive can be pluged in since the pins are at 90 degrees or something, a bit of a rip off yes) so i think most people should have a friend who know how to do things and people should just ask them to help, i think if they are your friends they would do it.

By mobilegnet on 3 Aug 2010

All a con

I prefer to have the CD's or DVD so I can reinstall when I want. I also object that you pay for a drive with X space by if 200 Mb are used up by a recovery disk to save them money then they really should declare that the useable capacity is 200 Mb less.

By Amnesia10 on 3 Aug 2010

Further issues

@mobilegnet, the disks you can download from the internet will not necessarily be installable on your PC. Most large system manufacturers (HP, Dell, Acer, Lenovo &c.) now supply OS versions and licence keys that are BIOS-locked to their hardware. Thus the key on the side of your machine will not necessarily activate a downloaded copy of the OS.
As I understand it these big OEMs are encouraged by Microsoft NOT to supply media and their lower prices may reflect this.
@Lomskij. I do realise that it only costs pennies to manufacture a DVD but I do believe that providing model specific recovery media would increase the end user cost of machines by a lot more than the media cost because of all the other factors involved.

By milliganp on 3 Aug 2010

Wired2fire difference

I brought a new computer from wired2fire (custom gaming computers) and they leave everything in the big box they send including the Win 7 DVD, spare parts from the graphics cards / motherboards...

excellent service.

By mjb3000 on 3 Aug 2010

There is only 1 advantage to them not having recovery disks. Space saving in an office. We did have loads of old XP disks floating around that took up a lot of room. These days we use TrueImage if something needs rebuilding or a customised XP disk with the drivers on a USB HDD.

For home users I'd say that the recovery disks are essential and should be provided.

By james016 on 3 Aug 2010

DIY

Articles like this just make me glad that I build my own systems now. It really isn't difficult and I have the satisfaction of knowing that all components are of high quality and it works out cheaper than buying from the big boys. A full retail copy of Windows means I can re-install as often as I like and I don't have to spend hours getting rid of all the pre-installed crapware that comes with a new PC.

By sjrooney on 3 Aug 2010

There is only 1 advantage to them not having recovery disks. Space saving in an office. We did have loads of old XP disks floating around that took up a lot of room. These days we use TrueImage if something needs rebuilding or a customised XP disk with the drivers on a USB HDD.

For home users I'd say that the recovery disks are essential and should be provided.

By james016 on 3 Aug 2010

Not possible...

We bought some Acer PCs this year, the first thing it instructed me to do, was to burn a back-up media set to DVD... Very clever Acer, I have to burn DVDs on a machine you supply with only a DVD-ROM? :-D

On the other side, I generally use a Win7Ult DVD to re-install machines at the moment, then download the latest driver sets from the manufacturers website.

I think, from the last 200 re-installs, I've actually used the supplied recovery discs once, all other times, I've used a plain Windows CD/DVD to perform the install, then installed the needed drivers and the software I want manually afterwards.

That generally makes for a faster and more reliable machine.

By big_D on 3 Aug 2010

Asus Recovery partition

Asus provides a back-up utility, but for only for certain models.

I have an EB1501 running on Windows 7. Their utility doesn't work for this model so, I asked for a recovery disk or, a utility that works for this model. I have been told they do not and, have no plans to, provide either.

Other than buying something like Acronis, I can't see how to make copies of the recovery partition to DVDs that includes other software and drivers, as well as Windows 7.

Asus has gone down in my estimation over this matter.

By mikelownds on 3 Aug 2010

Recovery Check

Just got a new Thinkpad with no disks just a recovery partion. First thing I did was to burn the disks, put an old hard drive in and checked the recovery worked OK. After putting the original drive back in I also saved the recovery ISO's to an external hard drive. Then I shrank the Windows partition to 50Gb and used Acronis to back it up.
Personally I think thats the minimum, but how many people bother?

By RichardRRJ on 3 Aug 2010

Manufacturers should provide the recovery software on…an EcoDisc!

Mine’s the one with Ubuntu on it.

By pacid on 3 Aug 2010

@milliganp

It's simple - manufacturers could provide one disk with vanilla Windows OEM on it, one disk with the drivers for your machine. It's what Zepto kindly did for my notebook and they also provided the link for their ftp with the relevant drivers for my laptop (though that's no longer an option after they went bust in November).

And I can fully attest to the poor speed of the internet. The line speeds at my current home have never exceeded 1MBps - and downloading the Win7 Beta took nearly 6 hours. Most people won't be prepared to wait that long.

By thewelshbrummie on 3 Aug 2010

Piracy?

Did someone say that bundling OEM disks with hardware increases piracy? Surely the opposite is true. When the hapless PC user gets their OS install corrupted, they look for the disks, can't find them, and will promptly go and find dodgey version to download.

By Stiggy on 3 Aug 2010

Robbed of recovery discs, then robbed of hard disk space. What will PC manufacturers take next?

Answer: The piss.

By Mark_Thompson on 3 Aug 2010

@thewelshbrummie

Nooo, that would be just too simple. Think of all that crapware that comes preinstalled with every brand name PC, and you just suggest to provide an OEM disk and allow the user to get rid of everything in one fell swoop? How dare you!

By Lomskij on 3 Aug 2010

Costs can be more significant...

In the article, the cost of £15 was stated which appears to have been aimed at Acer's way. Unfortunately, ive become a victim of this with Windows 7 having played up and taking the partition tables with it so no backup partition. Upon contacting Acer, it took them 3 -weeks- to respond (which is appauling) before telling me that instead of £15 (which is annoying, but worth it) they want £50! For a Recovery Disk!? I dont think so, Linux it is

By deadeyese on 4 Aug 2010

@deadeyese

You could try downloading the Windows 7 image, for the free trial, from MS and using your existing key to activate (it is Enterprise, so supports all versions). It did work with a rebuild I did, before I got an AnyTime DVD.

By big_D on 4 Aug 2010

Wired2fire difference

I brought a new computer from wired2fire (custom gaming computers) and they leave everything in the big box they send including the Win 7 DVD, spare parts from the graphics cards / motherboards...

excellent service.

By mjb3000 on 4 Aug 2010

I agree that recovery disks should be supplied, but even that doesn't solve the whole problem.

In the years since I installed XP, I've downloaded and applied numerous patches and updated lots of apps. The thought of having to go back to square one with those is not attractive.

By JNicoll78 on 4 Aug 2010

Name and shame

Perhaps to help readers, PC Pro should start naming and shaming those who don't provide discs. I would suggest that when you buy a licence key that licence covers the installer - so should be accessible to the customer if they want to reinstall.

I bought a PC from PC Specialist 2 years ago and am pleased to see that they still provide the original Windows installation disc. I'm not sure what Mesh does these days, but 6 years ago their "recovery disc" was actually a full XP installation disc.

By halsteadk on 4 Aug 2010

Recovery Disk licences

A few years ago, I had just gone back to Australia when my mothers computer died. It was an old Compaq PIII she paid way too much for and the hard drive had just died. We took it back to where she brought it from and because of the extended warranty, she had the hard drive replaced.

However the repair people didnt bother to replace the OS on the machine so I had to call HP/Compaq to try and get the recovery disks. While talking to some level 1 tech support weiner, I got told that we would have to buy a new copy of windows to install on the machine.

Once I heard that I let rip. I explained to the guy that we had a licence already, but they had loaded the recovery disks onto the hard drive and that my mother wasnt technically gifted enough to know that you had to create the recovery disk. At the end of the day, I put all the blame back on them and threatened to go to Microsoft over it. I ended up getting the recovery media shipped out to me by courier at their expense and it cost me nothing for the disks.

By Dramoth on 4 Aug 2010

it's all pant's

My sister brough a second hand Time machine some years back with a corrupt install of windows MCE on and no back up disk or partition. Time had hit the wall and I needed to get this box working so I phoned MS who said my manufacturer would have to supply a replacement disk. I told them they did not exist any more to which she replied I need to buy MCE at full retail price then. Thanks MS.

With MS leaving the emphasis on the OEM to supply the back up disk it does mean if the OEM hits the wall you have to buy another copy of window's (or download a version from the internet.) which I found not all worked with the keys I've had in the past.


You should be able to go onto the MS web site type in you key and be able to down load a fresh ISO of the OS with all the latest service packs and patches already applied. leaving you only to hunt for drivers.

By SimonCorlett on 4 Aug 2010

Resolution to this problem

The resolution to this problem is to build your own computer. If you spend the same amount of money on parts as you would from a computer manufacturer, you will get a far superior computer and you will have a real life, holdable in your grubby little hands copy of your Operating System. Plus, you will also have the entire drive space that you paid for as well. I did the research when I built my last rig and for the $3500 that I paid for parts, the equivalent rig would have cost me anywhere from $5500 - $7000 from a manufacturer and I wouldn't have a recovery disk and would have to deal with less drive space then I paid for. Manufacturers are a bunch of vile fascist butt monkeys. They will screw you at every turn. So, I say, take them out of the equation and build your own rig.

By dfunkd on 4 Aug 2010

@dfunkd

The problem is, those who aren't able to make a copy of the back-up media most certainly won't be in a position to build a PC themselves, and they certainly won't be in a position to get all the bits together for themselves, including getting all the parts and Windows 7 HP for under 400€, for example...

By big_D on 4 Aug 2010

@big_D and @dfunkd

Without being argumentative, my wife got a new HP laptop a few months back. Just doing the basic setup took over 2 hours -mainly because the OS and copy of Office had no updates applied at factory and so I had to download and install over 90 updates requiring over 500Mb of download.
So called consumer PCs are getting to the point where no mere mortal can set them up reliably.
In further response to @dfunkd, you can't buy the parts to build a laptop yourself and the purchasing power of the big manufacturers make it alomost impossible to build a low cost PC cheaper than the big vendors (high-power gaming machines may be an exception). I'm using an HP Quad Core server that cost nearly £100 less to buy than the sum of the parts from any of the major component resellers.

By milliganp on 5 Aug 2010

**khm** linux **khm**

By McDragonSI on 5 Aug 2010

Downloading

It is worth pointing out that when you purchase a copy of windows you are only purchasing the licence - it is therefore perfectly legal to download an iso of windows as long as you use your existing licence.

By auto98 on 5 Aug 2010

@milliganp

Building your own PC may not necessarily be cheaper, but you will at least have the OS install disc to start with, and decide on which extra software to install, rather than it coming with a boot-up time of 10 minutes due to the extra software pre-installed .
.
Of course the "upside" of buying an assembled PC is you also get "service" and "warranty" with your PC. Apparently.

By phantombudgie on 5 Aug 2010

@phantombudgie

Building your own PC, is like building your own car. It is fun and can be cheaper, if you know what you are doing...

But there is a good reason that you see millions of pre-built cars on the road and very few kit cars...

The same goes for the homebrew computer. Most people couldn't build one, even if they were interested in building one themselves.

That is why, like kit cars, home built PCs make up a fraction of a percent of the overall market.

For a majority of home users, the PC is just another white-good.

By big_D on 6 Aug 2010

Just got of the phone

I occasionally help friends with pc's which are "broken". I recently got asked to try and repair a DELL laptop. Upon inspection it was apparent that the hard drive had failed (as they do). So new hard drive installed formatted ...ready to go. No recovery discs. I contacted DELL who informed me that i would have to buy their discs to install the software. Now i already have a genuine microsoft Vista disc, so i installed the operating system no problem.When i try and activate it, it tells me that it is not a valid cd key. I do understand the difference between a retail version and on oem version but i was using the key from the GENUINE windows label that is under the battery on the laptop. Effectively the DELL support person has agreed with me that unless i purchase the OEM discs from them, then i would be aswell using the laptop as a doorstop as it is absolutely useless. I have no ill will towards the "support tech" but i find this practice despicable, when it is an operating system that has already been bought. I did call Microsoft, who then transferred me back to DELL. Does anyone know why there is a windows sticker with a key on the laptop which can't effectively be used. When you do use the R.i.p off discs it does not require activation. Personnally i build my own.

By david10111 on 16 Jan 2012