Maintenance and Service Guide C–1
C
Backup and Recovery in
Windows Vista
Recovering System Information
Tools provided by the operating system and Recovery Manager 
software are designed to help you with the following tasks for 
safeguarding your information and restoring it in case of a system 
failure:
■ Back up your information regularly to protect your important 
system files.
■ Make a set of recovery discs (Recovery Manager software 
feature). Recovery discs are used to start up (boot) your 
computer and restore the operating system and software 
programs to factory settings in case of system failure or 
instability.
■ Create system restore points (operating system feature). 
System restore points allow you to reverse undesirable 
changes to your computer by restoring the computer to an 
earlier state.
■ Recover a program or driver (Recovery Manager software 
feature). This feature helps you reinstall a program or driver 
without performing a full system recovery.
■ Perform a full system recovery (Recovery Manager software 
feature). With Recovery Manager, you can recover your full 
factory image if you experience system failure or instability. 
Recovery Manager works from a dedicated recovery partition 
on the hard drive or from recovery discs you create.