Recovery Backups

Having recently had to have a clean up via the help forum on here, I have come to realise just how vulnerable we can be.

My brother recently bought a new laptop, which comes to my surprise (although I understand it is quite common these days) with absolutely no recovery disks.

It does however have a dvd writer, so is there any way to take off a disk image as a backup for if the unthinkable happens? If not how could you reinstall the operating system if it gets trashed in some way?

From how I see it...

Hi Daz. Well, from how I see it, your brother recently purchased a new labtop correct? Is it a Vista or Windows XP? By the way, when you purchase a new labtop/desktop it should come with a recovery disk in event of something major happens. I would suggest your brother to go to the retailer and demand for a recovery disc. One recovery disc is better than none. Thanks. :laugh:

Its XP, we asked about the recovery disk and were told they don't send them anymore.

Apparantly there is a way, but I can't find any documentation telling you how.