This is pretty much my problem, but my comp has not died, It seems that all the newer comps are not coming with a windows reinstall cd, and they are really pushing the windows recovery function. The reason i hate it is because they put so much bloatware, on the comps to begin with that when i do the whole controll + alt +delete thing, it says im running 70 + applications at the same time, and these are all the free crap they load the newer computers with. That is why i would rather reformat the computer and remove all that crap. I had a dell, they did the same thing with no revovery cd, and i found a real easy way to make up back up recovery cd which i used that when i reformatted the comp, problem is that i forgot how i did it