OS Confusion

[pauliez]

If an OS is on a HD and the only way to obtain it is to use a windows recovery disk, is there a way to get to it without the recovery disk?

I have a Win98SE Disk which has a bad scratch on it and it is useless.

Can't even open it to see whats on it.

Have no idea what they used it for. (Beer coaster, more likely????)

I also have the recovery disk which when used allows the OS to be recovered from where ever it is so that a reformat can be done.

If I can find that location of where the Whole OS is then maybe I could make a copy of the OS to replace the original disk.

Does this make any sense?

[JoeP517]

If you are talking about an OEM recovery disk, they are used to restore a system to the way it left the OEM factory. They are not used to find the OS and recover it. The Os is on the recovey disk. Also, OEMs often add their own drivers and make changes to the OS configuration. These disks are usually in a compressed format that requires OEM provided software to uncompress. You'll most likely have trouble finding things on the disk. Even if you do the ways in which the OEM can configure the OS are not always apparent and can lead to problems if you don't know what they did.

Joe

[pauliez]

Thanks Joe for your reply.

I understand now how the recovery disk works.

I have seen the recovery disk used on a HD that I believed was completely erased and still the OS was reinstalled.

It is a bit confusing but in some way understandable.