When you purchase a new/refurbished system from some manufacturers, the recovery disk media is an optional component. Optional because the recovery data is typically stored on a partition on the hard drive which you can access via the BIOS boot menu. So should you purchase this optional media? Absolutely.
What if your hard drive crashes and the system is off warranty? You cannot simply go purchase a new hard drive and restore your system if you don’t have the recovery disk media (remember the OS is on this disk). Trying to purchase this after the fact can prove to be an expensive and time consuming process.
On the other hand if you do not have your recovery media, you can image your system as a way to recover in the event of a disaster. The only way you may get burned in this case is if the system looks for a “special” partition on the hard drive at boot up. Fortunately, this is a process (scam) I believe died out several years ago.
The bottom line is simply to opt for the the recovery disk. Considering the price is usually $10-20 it is worth having even if it only collects dust. After all, it is better to have it and not need it as opposed to need it and not have it.
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Cheaper still, a home-made solution: Create your own system recovery disks as soon as you get your new gear. E.g., for Vista it takes 3 blank DVDs, and a bit of time.
What would you say to this scenario? I have a HP laptop with a recovery partition for Windows Vista. I made a set of 3 recovery disks as per instructions. Now, I have upgraded to Windows 7, so are those recovery disks useless? Or, would I be required to recover to Vista, and then upgrade again?
To upgrade to Windows 7, you probably had to get the media. You can use this alone to do a clean install:
http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/clean_install_upgrade_media.asp
I think it’s always wise to have a backup all necessary files and hard drive so that if your pc crashes and your out with the warranty you can easily fix it right away