How does a Recovery CD work?

Question

Ok, I am just about to order a Recovery CD for £25.90. I need to know if you have to log in for it to work, or can you just boot it straight after you turn on the computer, as I cannot log onto windows.

Answer 1

My question is this, Why would you purchase anythiing.

The CD that came with your computer that has the Operating System is what you need. Don't buy anything.

Answer 2

most recovery cd's you can boot straight into. all of the ones i've used are bootable.

Answer 3

Insert the disk and as windows is booting up it typically has a "press (key) to boot from CD" choose that option and follow the prompts that It gives you

Answer 4

You only use recovery cd when Windows doesn't come up at all after computer power-on (for example, if the Windows OS on your hard-drive became corrupted). This is so that you can still establish a dialogue with your computer even if your Windows is damaged (you can still access and see the files on your hard drives, copy them, delete them, rename them, etc, or you can restore the OS from a back-up copy).

Recovery cd's are always bootable. Simply put the recovery cd on your CD drive, then press your computer's 'reset' button or 'power on/off' button. When your computer starts, it should boot from the CD. If not, check your computer's BIOS settings (change the parameter called boot-priority). Make the CD drive as the first device in the boot-priority sequence. This will make your computer boot from the CD first before attempting to boot from the other drives (floppy, hard-drive). Depending on your computer, you can either press 'Del' key or 'Esc' key right after computer power-on to display the BIOS settings.

Recovery cd's do not use log-on passwords to boot.

I don't know what brand of recovery cd you intend to buy. For me, I am using any of the following: Acronis True Image Home, Acronis Disk Director, and Paragon Hard Disk Manager. Maybe, you can take a look at the vendor's website (you can do a google search). Compare the features and prices with the one you want to buy. You can even download a time-limited trial version so that you can try the software before buying it.

It's also possible to do a Windows recovery without having to buy a recovery cd at all. All you need is your original Windows bootable installation CD. Just put the CD and boot from it. Follow the opening installation menu and choose the option "Run Recovery Console". But using it assumes that you are familiar with the DOS command lines (you can google search for "Windows XP Recovery Console" to get a very detailed procedure on how to use it).