Boot/repair and recovery disks

[foxyferret]

Has anyone used the boot recovery/repair disks you can buy? My friends computer she tells me, has been playing up lately, and this morning she said when she turned it on, she got a blue screen with a box in the middle which she had never seen before, containing all sorts. Because she didn't know what to do, she turned it off.She is running Windows XP but I dont know which computer she has. Sorry to be so vague. I looked on e bay, and these disks are advertised from as little as £2.99 upwards and they promise to do everything to repair/fix/get rid of viruses etc. It sounds too good to be true and I am very sceptical. My main question is at this price, do they really work or are they not worth bothering with?

[VHG]

Many computers come with recovery disks included so she should check she does not already have one.

Also some computer come with a recovery area on the hard disk, so again she should check she does not already have one.

Also many PC companies (like say Dell) will supply a recovery disk for a small fee so she should check with who she bought it off.

[foxyferret]

thanks VHG but I think she was just given the computer, so I dont think she has any disks which is why we were wondering about these other disks. Can you get a recovery disk from Dell for instance even if you dont know where the computer came from originally do you think?

[Hymie]

Some time ago I purchased one of these disks from an ebay seller – as insurance, should I have problems with my system. I have not used it since I have not had any serious problems with my PC. However a colleague was given a non-working PC by a friend, having suffered problems booting (would not boot at all). I gave him a copy of the disk – he ran it on the non-working PC and reported that the PC shuffled between the CD & hard drive for ½ an hour or so – after which the PC worked fine.

As to whether such a disk would work on your friend’s PC, is a bit of an un-known – but at least you have one report of success.

[foxyferret]

thank you Hymie, sounds fairly positive.Just wanted to check before I wasted money

[Hymie]

The only thing I would add is that these disks are boot disks – and you may need to configure the PC to boot from the CD/DVD drive – although I believe that most PC’s are configured to boot from the CD/DVD drive, should boot fail from the C drive. Therefore you only need have the disk in the drive at boot up.

As boot disks, they will not operate under Windows – exploring the disk contents will show the programs on the disk. I would not recommend booting from one of these disks if all is well with your PC – you never know what it might do.

[TTG]

Press F8 on bootup when you see the Windows logo. Try and get into safe mode and run chkdsk /r Sorry, you will need to search for more information on this as I don't have time!

[foxyferret]

thanks TTG, will investigate all possibilities