Hi, I took delivery of a new Compaq Presario desktop earlier this month. I suppose you could call it my Christmas gift to myself, lol. It did not come with a set of recovery CDs or DVDs, however, it did offer to create a set of discs, if I had either three blank DVDs or 14 blank CDs. I'm betting that these sets will reload the full factory image, as it shipped from the factory, with all the attendant bloatware. How can I go about extracting XP from the recovery partition? Once I have it extracted, I plan to download all the hardware drivers and package them into a custom CD using nLite. Thanks..

This quiz has been asked over and over again - the latest thread before you being THIS. Carefully read Sabertooth's Response Number 3. i_XpUser

Just to add my very sincere opinion - Redmond isn't stupid to allow the i386 folder to be used as a stand-alone XP installation. In reality, this folder is used by Windows File Protection as a repository to restore system files you accidentially deleted - and nothing more than that. i_XpUser

XPUser, It is indeed posible to run an XP installation pretty much from the i386 folder, especially on OEM machines where it is covertly tucked somewhat in recovery partition or on some non-conventional XP (recovery) disc.

the i386 folder is just as good as any installation cd ... just make sure to load smartdrv :-) Today's subliminal thought is: 'Calm down ... it's only ones and zeros.'