FAVORITETALES (5)

You’ve just received your nice shiny new Windows PC, but before you do much more with it there is one very important step that needs to be done. That step is to create restore media for your Windows PC.

Restore media is used to restore your computer’s operating system in the event of problem. While many computers now come with a restore partition on the hard drive, this is useless if the hard drive itself experiences a failure.

Years ago you would get a set of cd’s or dvd’s in the box that continued the operating system and any drivers needed to restore your computer. These days in the name of saving a few dollars, the manufactures do not do this anymore. The user is expected to do this task.

If you are lucky the computer may nag you to do this task but most people simply turn off the notification. This is the wrong thing to do. If the hard drive on your computer has a failure and you have not created the restore media you may have to pay the manufacture to send you a copy of the restore media. Most mainstream PC manufacturers will have a program to help guide you to create the media on CD’s, DVD’s, or a USB key.

Windows 8 can also create a recovery drive via the operating system. This is a good idea if you have upgraded to Windows 8 or have a PC that does not have custom recovery software.