> HP now has a recovery manager to create recovery disks for you and the last hp computer I saw had to create 5 dvds in order to recover to that state (which would probably require something like a 6 hour reinstall).

And you can only create one set of recovery discs. I was creating recovery discs one time several years ago and the burn process failed. I had no way to start over. I never needed Windows on that computer, but if I had, I'd have had to fork over another $50 to Lenovo to get a set of discs.

That's why these days I just use Clonezilla to image the entire hard disk before Windows can even boot up for the first time. From that image, I can always restore Windows to its exact original state, and it's generally a hell of a lot faster than installing from optical media. Not to mention I can make as many copies of that Clonezilla image as I want, and store it wherever/however I want (local backup vs. offsite backup, optical media vs. hard drive vs. tape drive).