Vista - Create a Recovery Disc

Does Create a Recovery Disc serve the same purpose as USB Bootable Vista Installation Flash Thumb Drive?

Hi moosescooter,

No, the recovery disc only contains the system recovery options.

It does not contain the installation media.

If you would like even better automated system recovery options, you will find them on the Win 7 RC - they work on Vista very well.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/win.../download.aspx

Hi Shawn,

I have been visiting your forums for quite sometime now but never got around to register, and say thank you for your truly amazing posts and tutorials that I have used many times.

So now that I have the chance: Thank you very much.

Now, Shawn two quick things please: I want to create the Recovery Disc:

1. I'm in the middle between Option 1 and Option 2, since I have an OEM DVD version of Vista (so my Vista is OEM), but at the same time I have SP1 installed (well now SP2, for that matter). Could you please tell me which option should I follow? I hope it's the manual option.

2. Does SP2 qualify for creating and running the Recovery Disc? I've read somewhere in here (you said it in another post earlier in the year) that is fine to run. Could you confirm please?

Thanks a lot.

TrDo.

You're most welcome TrDo, and welcome as a member of Vista Forums.

Yes, you should be able to do OPTION TWO for the manual way. I would recommend to have SP2 and all Windows Updates installed first before creating the recovery disc so it will be as up to date as Vista.

Thank you Shawn for your prompt reply.

You have to remember, that your tutorials and suggestions represent the "manifests" for any Vista operations, that many of us attempt.

So keep up this excellent work of yours.

Thanks again,

TrDo.

You're welcome. Thank you.

Hi Shawn,

Feedback:

I followed your instructions for the Recovery Disc. To test it, I booted my pc, I got the options between installing Vista and Repairing Vista (these options came after the Language options, etc.). (Just note that before getting the GUI where the Language option comes up, it took a while on a black background screen with a white progress bar at the bottom showing a "Windows to load the files" message).

I chose the Repair Option and finally got to the Repair Menu. In there, I chose the System Restore Option just to check how it responds. So, after a while I got all of my Restore points on the screen.

At this point, I aborted, because I didn't want really to restore anything; I was just testing. Rebooted and got into Vista enviroment normally.

My conclusion is that all went fine and well.

Now, to test whether there is a difference between the OEM Recovery disc and the one I created, here is the story:

OEM Original Recovery Disc: 2,41GB
(it looks as though my OEM Recovery Disc has the capability of installing Vista; bit strange that, because I thought OEM Discs do not have this capability).

Created Recovery Disc: 121MB.

One question: Should I get back into restoring the TrustedInstaller to take full ownership again of the recdisc.exe again? Or should I leave it like this because it doesn't make any real difference?

Thanks a lot Shawn.

Take care.

That's great news TrDo.

You can restore TrustedInstaller as the owner of the recdisc.exe file if you wanted to, but it makes no difference if you do or not.

A OEM recovery disc is not the same as this. The OEM recovery disc will do a factory restore to reinstall Vista back like it was the first day you got your computer. The recover disc in the tutorial only allows you to repair Vista.