[conlo]

I purchased my pc from Best Buy and it did not come with win 7 installation disk. Do I need this installation disk if I wish to format my hard drive.. Will Best Buy give me the installation disk ??

[SUEOHIO]

Most brand new computers dont come with any disks anymore.You are expected to make your own when you first get it in case of a harddrive failure. If you want recovery/restore disks you will have to make your own if you still can provided that the recovery partition is still intact or you will have to contact whoever made the computer such as dell, hp, etc and see if you can purchase the correct disks needed for that model of computer.

[flavallee]

If you new computer is a HP or Compaq brand(which are 2 of the brands that "Best Buy" sells), advise us what it's model name and model number is.

If you don't know for sure, advise us what the product number(P/N) and/or model number(M/N) on the sticker is.

A recovery DVD kit is easy to purchase for a HP and Compaq at a small price if you live in the U.S. or Canada.

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"Best Buy" will not give you a reinstallation disk(which they won't have anyway), but I'm sure they'll be glad to sell you a full version Windows 7 DVD.

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[TerryNet]

Do I need this installation disk if I wish to format my hard drive.

Absolutely not. There are many excellent free tools for formatting partitions on a hard drive. But before you start formatting consider that you may want to get Windows back on there. So pay attention to the previous two posts.

[conlo]

Thank you for the good info. It was very helpful

[conlo]

are you telling me that a recovery disk is the same as having the installation disk??

[SUEOHIO]

A recovery /restore disk puts it back to the way it was to the factory settings when brand new.An installation disk usually but not always has just the operating system on it.