Is the Recovery partition just the same as the recovery Dvd's I just made?

[njb]

Do I really need the recovery partition if I have a set of DVD's and a USB? I only have one hard drive currently, so in the event of a failed disk it surely wouldnt make any difference?

When i recover to factory settings using the dvds or usb, is the partition reinstated on the selected drive if I have removed it previously.

[njb]

Bump

[andyP Community SuperMod]

njb,

no you don't really need the recovery partition if you a a full set of recovery discs or another method to recover your system.  Recovering directly from the partition would be a little quicker than recovering from discs, the discs actually create the recovery partition and when finished the system will be installed from the partition.

[JDay]

No it is not the same. The recovery discs you made were created by making ISO images out of the files on the recovery partition. The files in the recovery partiton are in Windows Imaging Format, they are used by ImageX (part of the Windows Automated Installation Kit) to reimage a machine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Imaging_Format

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=5753