Here’s another Geek Alert!

When you are restoring your computer from the restore CD, and you are going for the full restore… installing all the options and software your computer came with from the factory; you need to ensure that your computer is in the same state as it was when you purchased it.

This is true at least for HP, and maybe Compaq, your mileage may vary.  Here’s why that’s important:

The restore CDs contain only the drivers for what was originally in your computer.  If you have added hard drives, high speed network cards, even a video card… the restore will not complete.  It will die when it can’t find the drivers for your devices when it is creating the restore partitions.  It used to be that you had to have the same C: hard drive as well, but from the report I got, this is no longer an issue… just all the other stuff you’ve added.

So, you’ll have to recover your machine AFTER you pull out all the non-standard equipment.  Then, you’ll need to stick all the ‘after market’ add ons in… Kind of sucks, but hey if it was easy then there wouldn’t be a need for technicians!