The terms Recovery disc (or Disk), Rescue Disk/Disc and Emergency Disk all refer to a capability to boot from an external device, possibly a

thumb drive A USB flash drive (also called a thumb drive) is a data storage device that includes flash memory with an integrated USB interface. It is typically removable, rewritable and much smaller than an optical disc. Most weigh less than . Since first ...

, that includes a self-running

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also i ...

: the ability to be a boot disk/Disc that runs independent of an internal hard drive that may be failing, or for some other reason is not the operating system to be run. The focus of recovery or rescue is not to lose the data files on the hard drive; the focus of restore is to restore the

's functionality (and subsequently restore the contents of one's latest backups). The rescue/recovery tool uses media containing a backup of the original

factory A factory, manufacturing plant or a production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. ...

condition or a favored condition of a computer as configured by an

original equipment manufacturer An original equipment manufacturer (OEM) is generally perceived as a company that produces non-aftermarket parts and equipment that may be marketed by another manufacturer. It is a common industry term recognized and used by many professional or ...

or an end-user.

OEM An original equipment manufacturer (OEM) is generally perceived as a company that produces non-aftermarket parts and equipment that may be marketed by another manufacturer. It is a common industry term recognized and used by many professional or ...

supplied media are often restore tools shipped with computers to allow the user to

reformat Disk formatting is the process of preparing a data storage device such as a hard disk drive, solid-state drive, floppy disk, memory card or USB flash drive for initial use. In some cases, the formatting operation may also create one or more new fil ...

the

hard drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magne ...

and reinstall the

and

pre-installed software Pre-installed software (also known as bundled software) is software already installed and licensed on a computer or smartphone bought from an original equipment manufacturer (OEM).

When a factory reset is done, user data is lost. The term "OEM recovery" refers to that type of "recovery." What is "recovered" is the original system. Hewlett-Packard, using the term ''System Recovery'', describes it as destructive recovery. They even advise removing "extra hard drives" to prevent loss of this too. Although non-destructive alternatives do exist, the standard OEM Systems Recovery of Microsoft Windows-based operating systems involves booting from a separate

partition, CD-ROM, or

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...

, reformating the hard drive and then copying operating system and software files. After the recovery process is completed, configuration such as the Windows

Out-Of-Box Experience An out-of-box experience (OOBE ( )) is the experience an end-user has when taking a product after unboxing, or for digital distribution, runs the installer, and is preparing to first use it, as opposed to the point-of-sale experience or the interac ...

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 , commonly known as Toshiba and stylized as TOSHIBA, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Its diversified products and services include power, industrial and social infrastructure systems, ...

and Dell licensed

Norton Ghost Ghost (an acronym for ''general hardware-oriented system transfer'') is a disk cloning and backup tool originally developed by Murray Haszard in 1995 for Binary Research. The technology was acquired in 1998 by Symantec. The backup and recove ...

technology for their recovery systems at one point. As of

Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...

, Dell uses a

Windows Imaging Format The Windows Imaging Format (WIM) is a file-based disk image format. It was developed by Microsoft to help deploy Windows Vista and subsequent versions of the Windows operating system family, as well as Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs. Desig ...

based image on a partition along with a tool launched from the

Windows Recovery Environment Windows Preinstallation Environment (also known as Windows PE and WinPE) is a lightweight version of Windows used for the deployment of PCs, workstations, and servers, or troubleshooting an operating system while it is offline. It is intended t ...

's command prompt.

Details

Recovery partitions

Most modern PCs store their recovery (non-destructive) or restore (destructive) tool on a hard drive

partition Partition may refer to: Computing Hardware * Disk partitioning, the division of a hard disk drive * Memory partition, a subdivision of a computer's memory, usually for use by a single job Software * Partition (database), the division of a ...

rather than on bundled CD-ROMs or DVDs. They're typically accessed by using a specific key combination during system startup. There's less cost to the OEM, but exposes the user to hard drive failure. An application used to create recovery discs or

flash drive A flash drive is a portable computer drive that uses flash memory. Flash drives are the larger memory modules consisting of a number of flash chips. A flash chip is used to read the contents of a single cell, but it can write entire block of cell ...

is sometimes offered to allow a backup of the recovery data. Recovery CDs can also sometimes be ordered directly from the

. For some computers, they can also recreate the recovery partition. Other recovery systems, such as those included with recent

Apple Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and ...

models, permit users to download the recovery partition over an internet connection, enabling successful recovery even if the hard disk fails or is replaced. Some third-party software has the function to create a factory recovery partition and one key system backup and restore for Windows PC and Server.

Disk image recovery

The advantages of

recovery media can be had, without some of their disadvantages, by using

disk imaging A disk image, in computing, is a computer file containing the contents and structure of a disk volume or of an entire data storage device, such as a hard disk drive, tape drive, floppy disk, optical disc, or USB flash drive. A disk image is usua ...

software such as Mondo Rescue or

Acronis True Image Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office (previously known as Acronis True Image) is a software package produced by Acronis International GmbH that aims to protect the system from ransomware and allows users to backup and restore files or entire systems ...

to create a bootable recovery CD containing an image of the machine in the desired initial state. For example, a user can install their operating system, install all device drivers for their hardware, install other desired software, and configure other personal settings. Some smaller

s even use bootable CDs generated by this software as the actual recovery CD or DVD itself.

Criticism

Many manufacturers, instead of supply a physical "recovery disc" store th
"recovery" (destructive) software tool
on a partition of the hard disk. Some software that was preloaded may not be included; likewise some device drivers.

Alternatives

Prior to the use of recovery discs, one would use a

boot disk A boot disk is a removable digital data storage medium from which a computer can load and run (boot) an operating system or utility program. The computer must have a built-in program which will load and execute a program from a boot disk meeting ...

to boot the system, then reinstall software as necessary from the original installation media. A contemporary alternative, particularly used in

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, w ...

, is the installation disc or discs for a Linux distribution, or a

Live CD A live CD (also live DVD, live disc, or live operating system) is a complete bootable computer installation including operating system which runs directly from a CD-ROM or similar storage device into a computer's memory, rather than loading f ...

or Live DVD – a bootable disc. These can be used to boot the system and then either manually troubleshoot and repair problems (in the case of a live disc), or re-install or re-configure the operating system. In the case of

free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...

, operating systems can legally be re-packaged and distributed, and thus there is no barrier to making the full installation available. However, in the absence of a backup of system-specific configuration, which is provided on recovery discs, a re-installed operating system may require re-configuration.

Windows 8 Windows 8 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012; it was subsequently made available for download via MSDN and TechNet on August 15, 2012, and later to ...

includes two built-in recovery options, Refresh and Reset; Refresh re-installs Windows while preserving most user settings, while Reset performs a full restore back to its default configuration, similar to a factory restore function.

References