ugghh Reinstalling Windows98 again

The recovery CD that comes with some OEM computers are custom made. It boots on MS-DOS and runs a custom application that may or may not format your HDD, but it will copy everything from a compressed image to your C:\windows directory, overwriting everything.

If you want to make something like that, what you need is a bit image copying program such as the Norton Ghost. What you do is this:

  1. Do a clean install. That is, format the relevant drive(s) first.

  2. Install Windows, updates, drivers, applications, etc.

  3. Run the bit image copying program, send the output to a CD-R.

  4. Depending on the program, you may need to make a boot diskette.