22 replies to this topic

[lewmur]

Can someone please explain this to me?

MS sues UK retailer.

MS claims it is doing this because the retailer is "damaging" its customers.  What????

[LilBambi]

That is just plain nuts. Microsoft got their pound of flesh when the system Comet sold had Windows installed. Why would they be stupid enough to go after the retailer for providing recovery CDs for them to use in case of malware or other system corruption.

If this is as the article states, then Microsoft has totally gone off the deep end.

[lewmur]

That is just plain nuts. Microsoft got their pound of flesh when the system Comet sold had Windows installed. Why would they be stupid enough to go after the retailer for providing recovery CDs for them to use in case of malware or other system corruption.

If this is as the article states, then Microsoft has totally gone off the deep end.

What I find particularly galling is the absurd assertion that they are filing the suit because the retailer was
being "unfair to its customers" by furnishing them with recovery disks.  

[Corrine]

From the same article:

Update 2: Microsoft retorts with a further statement from David Finn, adding a seemingly different perspective on things.

“In 2008 and 2009, Comet approached tens of thousands of customers who had bought PCs with the necessary recovery software already on the hard drive, and offered to sell them unnecessary recovery discs for £14.99 ($23)”.

“Not only was the recovery software already provided on the hard drive by the computer manufacturer but, if the customer so desired, a recovery disc could also have been obtained by the customer from the PC manufacturer for free or a minimal amount”.

Finn then added: “We’ve often encouraged our customers to buy from a trusted retailer.  In this case, it is disappointing that a well-known retailer created so many unwitting victims of counterfeiting”, further criticising the UK retailer.

[zlim]

necessary recovery software already on the hard drive

and if the hard drive dies, you have nothing! I, as a customer, perhaps not knowing how to make an image would jump at the chance to have a disk if something happened to the hard drive.

I generally make a set of recovery disks for the senior citizens I help but not everyone knows enough to do this, evidenced by posts on forums from people who can't get the computer to boot so can't get to the recovery partition and don't know what to do.

[goretsky]

Hello,

This sounds like a licensing issue to me.

It has been about three years since I bought any desktops in quantity, however, I have been buying a trickle of Lenovo ThinkPad notebook computers since then (one or two per year) for personal use, and after getting through the initial setup/configuration process, I am usually prompted to create a set of recovery media, which contain the manufacturer's preloaded copy of Microsoft Windows, along with all of the other device drivers and software they add.  They always contain software I don't need or want (trial versions of programs, offers to subscribe to various services, etc.) but those are easy enough to disable or remove, and replace with the software I want.

So, here are my questions:

1. Do other computer manufacturers provide similar tools that create recovery media when the computer is used for the first time?
2. Were the recovery discs provided by Comet identical to those an end user would make on the computer, or were they generic "recovery" discs missing the of the customizations provided by the manufacturer?

For my personal notebooks, I never actually used the recovery tool, or for that matter, even the notebook's hard disk drive.  Instead, I purchased the recovery media (usually about $55 shipped, after S&H and taxes) and the hard disk drive or SSD that I wanted in the notebook, and used the recovery media that I purchased from Lenovo to restore an image onto the HDD/SSD.  The hard disk drives were put aside in storage for re-use later if I needed them, or if I wanted to send a machine in for service with the essentially-unused factory-installed HDD in it.  This grew out of my practice of buying personal computers with the smallest amount of RAM and storage in them, since manufacturers usually charge an outrageous markup on them.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

[lewmur]

Hello,

This sounds like a licensing issue to me.

It has been about three years since I bought any desktops in quantity, however, I have been buying a trickle of Lenovo ThinkPad notebook computers since then (one or two per year) for personal use, and after getting through the initial setup/configuration process, I am usually prompted to create a set of recovery media, which contain the manufacturer's preloaded copy of Microsoft Windows, along with all of the other device drivers and software they add.  They always contain software I don't need or want (trial versions of programs, offers to subscribe to various services, etc.) but those are easy enough to disable or remove, and replace with the software I want.

So, here are my questions:

1. Do other computer manufacturers provide similar tools that create recovery media when the computer is used for the first time?
2. Were the recovery discs provided by Comet identical to those an end user would make on the computer, or were they generic "recovery" discs missing the of the customizations provided by the manufacturer?

For my personal notebooks, I never actually used the recovery tool, or for that matter, even the notebook's hard disk drive.  Instead, I purchased the recovery media (usually about $55 shipped, after S&H and taxes) and the hard disk drive or SSD that I wanted in the notebook, and used the recovery media that I purchased from Lenovo to restore an image onto the HDD/SSD.  The hard disk drives were put aside in storage for re-use later if I needed them, or if I wanted to send a machine in for service with the essentially-unused factory-installed HDD in it.  This grew out of my practice of buying personal computers with the smallest amount of RAM and storage in them, since manufacturers usually charge an outrageous markup on them.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

It may way be "a licensing issue".  But does that really excuse MS for suing its own customer for providing a much needed service to its customers.  If the license precludes this, then there is something wrong with the license.

Edited by LilBambi, 06 January 2012 - 12:48 PM.
removed inflammatory statement against a fellow HIghlander

[LilBambi]

and if the hard drive dies, you have nothing! I, as a customer, perhaps not knowing how to make an image would jump at the chance to have a disk if something happened to the hard drive.

I generally make a set of recovery disks for the senior citizens I help but not everyone knows enough to do this, evidenced by posts on forums from people who can't get the computer to boot so can't get to the recovery partition and don't know what to do.

Exactly Liz! This is a major problem that we have "Packard Bell" to thank for. They started this "Preinstalled" crap with no 'real' recovery discs and then a few years later, and they all get on the bandwagon. Some saw their mistake and started putting the recovery on a secondary partition. Again a big mistake.

Hard drives fail and some way too soon!

There are some malware that infests systems, such as some rootkits and combos with other malware that may have done so much damage to the system, or have so many hidden things on the system that keep respawning ... that the system should really be reinstalled to be safe (after loading the system from a LiveCD to back up the data of course). Sometimes this malware even can mess with the boot of the system where you wouldn't want to trust anything on the harddrive. Instead to be safe, you nuke the drive and start over.

If I remember correctly, most security researchers used to know that there were only a small number of rootkits that are actually detectable by ANY tool.

Sure most malware if detected early enough that can be removed safely and not harm the system or leave things on the system that become a ticking time bomb to start the cycle over again, or never went away at all.

And for that we can all be thankful. But some do not. And some should not be trusted to not come back or hide where you can can't find it with the tools available.

Hello,

This sounds like a licensing issue to me.

It has been about three years since I bought any desktops in quantity, however, I have been buying a trickle of Lenovo ThinkPad notebook computers since then (one or two per year) for personal use, and after getting through the initial setup/configuration process, I am usually prompted to create a set of recovery media, which contain the manufacturer's preloaded copy of Microsoft Windows, along with all of the other device drivers and software they add.  They always contain software I don't need or want (trial versions of programs, offers to subscribe to various services, etc.) but those are easy enough to disable or remove, and replace with the software I want.

So, here are my questions:

1. Do other computer manufacturers provide similar tools that create recovery media when the computer is used for the first time?
2. Were the recovery discs provided by Comet identical to those an end user would make on the computer, or were they generic "recovery" discs missing the of the customizations provided by the manufacturer?

For my personal notebooks, I never actually used the recovery tool, or for that matter, even the notebook's hard disk drive.  Instead, I purchased the recovery media (usually about $55 shipped, after S&H and taxes) and the hard disk drive or SSD that I wanted in the notebook, and used the recovery media that I purchased from Lenovo to restore an image onto the HDD/SSD.  The hard disk drives were put aside in storage for re-use later if I needed them, or if I wanted to send a machine in for service with the essentially-unused factory-installed HDD in it.  This grew out of my practice of buying personal computers with the smallest amount of RAM and storage in them, since manufacturers usually charge an outrageous markup on them.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

But the biggest threat is the hard drive failing. And there are some systems like the Dell Data Safe backups which are useless in for that amazingly enough. Found that out when a hard drive failed on a newer Dell computer. And it didn't want to boot to the disk at all. You had to have the system restore disks from Dell for that machine after the failed hard drive was replaced. They had to send a guy to the house to replace the hard drive and he had to use the commercially done restore disks not the ones that had been created because they don't work in that case. That didn't use to be the case. But it is with these new Dells with Dell Data Safe backups on it.

Personally I think that is due to the U-EFI being stored on the hard drive and having to be replaced if the hard drive fails. So Dell Data Safe can only restore on the 'same' hard drive, not a new one, because it likely isn't replacing the U-EFI on these new systems. Maybe they are not even allowed to... who knows.

Anyway, why should you have to wait for the manufacturer to send these disks if that is the case with your manufacturer? And if a manufacture goes out of business, or is bought out by another company? What then? I have seen where drivers, etc. are no longer available under those conditions. What happens to the availability of recovery DVDs then?

Why shouldn't the manufacturer be allowed and even encouraged to provide recovery DVDS (these days it's DVDs, not CDs) to get the system back after replacing the hard drive? Toshiba was one of the last OEM manufacturers to give up on providing actual recovery DVDs. About 5 yrs ago, they still provided them. This year they do not. They have you make the disks like the rest of the OEMs do these days.

I am sure they will say what we have told our kids was not a legitimate excuse when they were growing up, "Everybody does it" or "everybody's doing it."

Even so, you can usually get the recovery disks from the manufacturer, for free/cost of S&H, or for up to $30 plus S&H. And they will send them overnight if you are willing to pay for that. They make it a REALLY painful process and keep you on hold multiple times but if you are patient (and I do mean patient, like anywhere from 20-50 minutes on the phone with different people and getting to someone who can help and then again having to wait multiple times on hold while they "process the information and get your disks ready" they say. Then, depending on how much you are willing to pay for S&H and where you live in relation to their distribution center, you can have your disks in one to five days.

But why should you have to do that? Why should your system not come with the recovery disks so you can take care of things right from the beginning when a hardware situation or rootkit and/or other malware makes it impossible or unwise to trust that you got everything bad from the system?

Why can you not order the recovery discs right from the beginning for free, if you know to ask? Or at worst case for a small fee?

Why? Why is there a difference in licensing from Microsoft in this way at all? Why would they even offer such a useless license? Why would they be such a terribly shortsighted company as to make life more difficult for the end user in the event of a major catastrophe with hard drive or malware? Why would any company do such a thing?

And why would they stop offering Mom and Pops the licensing to include recovery disks as well as recovery partitions? Or make it so expensive that they can't compete? Was that then their intention all along? To drive Mom and Pops out of business in favor of their buddies at Dell, HP, Toshiba, Sony, etc. ? Places they can control more easily?

[jolphil]

We as users tend to forget that the prime objective in this case is to make "Money" more and more "Money" the better..I don't think the "big Guys" are really concerned about a few of their customers as long as the "money" rolls in..My guess they look at this as an acceptable risk that they can dump on the customer service department..Some may disagree with this philosophy but Greed has become rampant in Corporate centers..Just look around..It's always the bottom line that counts with corporations..American corporations are in my opinion among the worst when it comes to short sighted business decisions..Some others around the world plan business for decades in the future,we plan for the next quarters financial report..
Just my cynical 2 cents,
jolphil

[LilBambi]

Well, if that's the case, there's always Macs. For their lowend Mac Mini, it is quite affordable, and the cost for OSes and upgrades is considerably cheaper and it is at least as good as Windows. And you can get the whole OS for $29.99 for an upgrade through the App Store or buy it on a USB drive for $69.99 and have it available for reinstallation as needed.

Or there is Linux, which has gotten considerably easier to install over time using things like Linux Mint or Ubuntu and where we don't have to worry about stepping on toes with stupid license agreements. It's free as in freedom and often free as in beer as well.

[LilBambi]

Even Apple can be nuts though. They have a backup partition now with Lion supposedly and apparently not supplying backup media either now since Lion.

So actually that leaves Linux.

[LilBambi]

For major retailers of Windows computers, Ed Bott has done a great article that can help you not have to spend a bunch of time on the phone with support, Lost your Windows discs? How to get replacement media, legally. On page 2, Ed has a link for a form on Dell site to get your recovery disks sent to you: Request Backup Disks. Nice! The process was much easier using the form than calling them apparently based on Ed's article.

He also talks about HP's fast but not free offering, and again there is a page at the HP site for that as well on page 3 of Ed's article. And lastly, he looked at Acer, Lenovo, Toshiba. These links lead to pay options from those companies. Ed has more info about each in the article. He also provides a Gartner link in the article to more info. Ed's article is definitely worth a read.

Again, this is from the big boys. Not Mom and Pops. Nice to know there are some ways to get them sent to you without having to deal with close to an hour on the phone to order them, like it was the day we called to get them from Dell. Dell used to be much easier to deal with about getting them. A year or so earlier, I was on the phone for much less time and they offered to send them right away and they came the next day. No charge. Things have changed over time.

[Temmu]

...

1. Do other computer manufacturers provide similar tools that create recovery media when the computer is used for the first time?

...

yes, many do.  i know dell and sony do.  upon turning each on, i was prompted to create recovery disks (which i did, of course!)

[LilBambi]

yes, many do.  i know dell and sony do.  upon turning each on, i was prompted to create recovery disks (which i did, of course!)

Do you test those out on new hard drives?

As noted above, the Dell Data Safe ones don't work on a new hard drive apparently. They seem to only work on the existing hard drive. What about the other companies' 'create your own recovery CDs/DVDs, we mean it'? Has anyone tested them with replacement hard drives?

[zlim]

I haven't tested with a new hard drive but I tested the restore DVD I created on an eMachine desktop.
October 2009 I bought an eMachine and apparently did not clean off the Norton trial adequately before I installed another av program. The computer was unbootable. I had to use the restore DVD I created to get the computer running again. This time I made sure to remove the Norton trial by Revo AND the Norton Cleanup tool.

[lewmur]

Do you test those out on new hard drives?

As noted above, the Dell Data Safe ones don't work on a new hard drive apparently. They seem to only work on the existing hard drive. What about the other companies' 'create your own recovery CDs/DVDs, we mean it'? Has anyone tested them with replacement hard drives?

Normally a "Recovery Disk" is just that.  It will "recover" and existing installation.  It is NOT a fresh install.  Recovery Partitions, otoh, will allow you to do a re-install to "factory" condition.  But, like you suggested, it is useless if your hdd fails.  I have, however, used an "image" of a Recovery Partition to successfully re-install on a new HDD.

[LilBambi]

Normally a "Recovery Disk" is just that.  It will "recover" and existing installation.  It is NOT a fresh install.  Recovery Partitions, otoh, will allow you to do a re-install to "factory" condition.  But, like you suggested, it is useless if your hdd fails.  I have, however, used an "image" of a Recovery Partition to successfully re-install on a new HDD.

I have done the same thing on a different Windows 7 computer, a laptop. But it would not work on this Dell Windows 7 Desktop computer where we had created a System Repair Disk that no longer worked at all after they put the hard drive in and could not restore the image after the Dell Data Safe crap got it's mitts into the system. There is a lot of documentation of others who have had the same problems. Google is your friend.

[goretsky]

Hello,

I do not disagree with the fact that computers should come with recovery media, or at least have them available as an option at the time of purchase.  However, those discs should contain the exact software image needed to restore the computer to its factory state, and that means the recovery media has to be provided by the manufacturer.  Now, it would be a completely different situation if Comet sold a PC configuration service where they offered to set up each computer for its new owner and include making the recovery media set in the process, but that would probably cost quite a bit more than  £15 they were charging.  

At that price, I have to wonder if Comet was just providing generic Windows XP and Vista installation discs, which means the customer would not get any of the things like system-specific device drivers or preloaded software that came bundled with the PC.  

Now, admittedly, a lot of preloaded third-party software is junk, but there are often things that customers might get on a preloaded system and use, like DVD or Blu-ray playing/burning software, Microsoft Office, anti-virus software, backup/cloud storage software and so forth.  It would be a pretty horrible experience for a non-sophisticated customer to restore their PC from the Comet-provided version of Windows and find out that not only has all of their additional software been lost, but they have no way to access the data the created or used with it.  Especially when they could have created the correct Windows recovery media for nothing more than the cost of a few blank CDs or DVDs and some time.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

It may way be "a licensing issue".  But does that really excuse MS for suing its own customer for providing a much needed service to its customers.  If the license precludes this, then there is something wrong with the license.   

[goretsky]

Hello,

It used to be that preinstalled software was valuable, useful and fully-licensed software that came with a computer you purchased, not a trial or an evaluation version.  Microsoft had strict guidelines, too, for their OEMs about what sort of shortcuts could appear on the Windows Desktop.  This was to give computers running Microsoft Windows 95 a consistent experience and look-and-feel.  Naturally, manufacturers hated this because it gave them no way to differentiate their PCs.  Or to sell that valuable desktop real estate to the highest bidder.  That was part the Microsoft v. DoJ antitrust suit and subsequent consent degree, which leads us to where we are today.  Okay, back to the issue at hand....

In my experience, hard disk drive failures used to account for data loss far more often than computer viruses, however, floppy diskette and hard disk drives twenty years ago had much lower mean time to failure (MTTF) rates than hard disk drives today.  I think I read somewhere that the first generation of MFM-RLL hard disk drives had MTTFs of 5,000 hours or so.  Computer viruses were also more destructive in prior years, as they would do things like corrupt files, damage the file system, etc.  Malware authors have only gotten serious about making money off of PCs (instead of crashing them) in the past ten years or so.  That said, I see a lot of data loss these days as a secondary effect of a malware infestation, because the hard disk drive gets erased without the data on it ever having been backed up.

On the rootkit detection side, I think what you might have seen was a report that no one anti-rootkit tool detected all rootkits, necessitating the use of multiple tools to check for their presence.

You actually pointed out one of the biggest weaknesses of recovery media, which is that the user never tests them before they actually need them.  Because of this, I always used to recommend that the first thing a customer do when buying a new PC was to create the recovery media, followed by using it to restore the system.  That way, the customer hadn't spent any of their valuable time customizing the PC, and that if it did not work, they could just return it.  In many cases, the computer manufacturer would usually send out recovery media free of charge if the user-created ones didn't work in order to avoid the cost of a return.

A computer manufacturer who uses an UEFI partition should be testing their system recovery media to verify it correctly writes that out—there's nothing magic about doing that, as they have been in use for about seven years now.  Of course, if the recovery media Comet provided was generic, it would not know to do this.

It costs money to include recovery CDs/DVDs in a box (mastering and duplication costs, inventory costs, etc.) and in an era where manufacturers compete on price, anything they can do to cut costs means huge differences to razor-thin margins.  If anything, I would imagine that manufacturers pressured Microsoft to drop the requirement for physical recovery media being included to increase their profits.  On the flip side, selling them, just like any other accessory sold by the manufacturer, must be hugely profitable.  Some manufacturers seem to take advantage of this situation.  

Most mom-and-pop stores that I have seen use system-builder OEM editions of Microsoft Windows, which are basically the same as the retail versions.  Most, if not all, of the information about building recovery partitions is available on Microsoft TechNet, in the Windows Resource Kits and other places.  Aside from the issues of learning how to do it, I don't think there's any costs.  For volume computer manufacturers there are probably tools and technologies which require additional licensing, just like there are multiple versions of Windows ranging from the Starter Edition to Datacenter Server.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

Exactly Liz! This is a major problem that we have "Packard Bell" to thank for. They started this "Preinstalled" crap with no 'real' recovery discs and then a few years later, and they all get on the bandwagon. Some saw their mistake and started putting the recovery on a secondary partition. Again a big mistake.

Hard drives fail and some way too soon!

There are some malware that infests systems, such as some rootkits and combos with other malware that may have done so much damage to the system, or have so many hidden things on the system that keep respawning ... that the system should really be reinstalled to be safe (after loading the system from a LiveCD to back up the data of course). Sometimes this malware even can mess with the boot of the system where you wouldn't want to trust anything on the harddrive. Instead to be safe, you nuke the drive and start over.

If I remember correctly, most security researchers used to know that there were only a small number of rootkits that are actually detectable by ANY tool.

Sure most malware if detected early enough that can be removed safely and not harm the system or leave things on the system that become a ticking time bomb to start the cycle over again, or never went away at all.

And for that we can all be thankful. But some do not. And some should not be trusted to not come back or hide where you can can't find it with the tools available.


But the biggest threat is the hard drive failing. And there are some systems like the Dell Data Safe backups which are useless in for that amazingly enough. Found that out when a hard drive failed on a newer Dell computer. And it didn't want to boot to the disk at all. You had to have the system restore disks from Dell for that machine after the failed hard drive was replaced. They had to send a guy to the house to replace the hard drive and he had to use the commercially done restore disks not the ones that had been created because they don't work in that case. That didn't use to be the case. But it is with these new Dells with Dell Data Safe backups on it.

Personally I think that is due to the U-EFI being stored on the hard drive and having to be replaced if the hard drive fails. So Dell Data Safe can only restore on the 'same' hard drive, not a new one, because it likely isn't replacing the U-EFI on these new systems. Maybe they are not even allowed to... who knows.

Anyway, why should you have to wait for the manufacturer to send these disks if that is the case with your manufacturer? And if a manufacture goes out of business, or is bought out by another company? What then? I have seen where drivers, etc. are no longer available under those conditions. What happens to the availability of recovery DVDs then?

Why shouldn't the manufacturer be allowed and even encouraged to provide recovery DVDS (these days it's DVDs, not CDs) to get the system back after replacing the hard drive? Toshiba was one of the last OEM manufacturers to give up on providing actual recovery DVDs. About 5 yrs ago, they still provided them. This year they do not. They have you make the disks like the rest of the OEMs do these days.

I am sure they will say what we have told our kids was not a legitimate excuse when they were growing up, "Everybody does it" or "everybody's doing it."

Even so, you can usually get the recovery disks from the manufacturer, for free/cost of S&H, or for up to $30 plus S&H. And they will send them overnight if you are willing to pay for that. They make it a REALLY painful process and keep you on hold multiple times but if you are patient (and I do mean patient, like anywhere from 20-50 minutes on the phone with different people and getting to someone who can help and then again having to wait multiple times on hold while they "process the information and get your disks ready" they say. Then, depending on how much you are willing to pay for S&H and where you live in relation to their distribution center, you can have your disks in one to five days.

But why should you have to do that? Why should your system not come with the recovery disks so you can take care of things right from the beginning when a hardware situation or rootkit and/or other malware makes it impossible or unwise to trust that you got everything bad from the system?

Why can you not order the recovery discs right from the beginning for free, if you know to ask? Or at worst case for a small fee?

Why? Why is there a difference in licensing from Microsoft in this way at all? Why would they even offer such a useless license? Why would they be such a terribly shortsighted company as to make life more difficult for the end user in the event of a major catastrophe with hard drive or malware? Why would any company do such a thing?

And why would they stop offering Mom and Pops the licensing to include recovery disks as well as recovery partitions? Or make it so expensive that they can't compete? Was that then their intention all along? To drive Mom and Pops out of business in favor of their buddies at Dell, HP, Toshiba, Sony, etc. ? Places they can control more easily?

[goretsky]

Hello,

I have actually had to restore Mac OS X on infected Macs that did not have recovery media.  Apple support shipped them for free, although the cost was underwritten by the additional AppleCare Protection Plan.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

Well, if that's the case, there's always Macs. For their lowend Mac Mini, it is quite affordable, and the cost for OSes and upgrades is considerably cheaper and it is at least as good as Windows. And you can get the whole OS for $29.99 for an upgrade through the App Store or buy it on a USB drive for $69.99 and have it available for reinstallation as needed.

Or there is Linux, which has gotten considerably easier to install over time using things like Linux Mint or Ubuntu and where we don't have to worry about stepping on toes with stupid license agreements. It's free as in freedom and often free as in beer as well.

[goretsky]

Hello,

My experience with Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Lenovo workstations was that the recovery media would prompt you whether or not to erase the hard disk drive, or just reinstall Windows while leaving all the unrelated files intact (usually dire warnings about users having to reinstall all their software in order to get things to work again).  And then there were some that just warned the users that the hard disk drive would be wiped and that all their data was gone and asked them to acknowledge that before running.  It varied quite a bit with the Dell computers depending what was in fashion that year with respect to recovery media philosophy, I suppose.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

Normally a "Recovery Disk" is just that.  It will "recover" and existing installation.  It is NOT a fresh install.  Recovery Partitions, otoh, will allow you to do a re-install to "factory" condition.  But, like you suggested, it is useless if your hdd fails.  I have, however, used an "image" of a Recovery Partition to successfully re-install on a new HDD.

[LilBambi]

There are many great rootkit detectors these days and a combination of tools is always a wise idea.

However, I think it would be unwise to say that even if you run all known rootkit finder tools that you could find all rootkits that are out there. Some may not even be 'legal' to find.

Some great discussion all around on these concerns about various recovery/reinstall discs.

[Temmu]

it is always best to drop all partitions before beginning a recovery - that leaves no where for a root kit to hide.

(yes, we all know that most mfg's ship the pc with a recovery partition...  but you made the recovery disks, right?)