Do people test their recovery discs to make sure they work?

The new TP is a few days old so I finally got around to creating my recovery dics (1 CD & 2 DVDs). Has anyone ever had them fail to work?

My head tells me I should use them to do a recovery on the machine just to make sure they work as I read once that almost noone ever tests the ability to restore from backups and when you find out they don't work, it's too late. Am I being too cautious?

 

dont sweat it. a clean install from scratch will never hurt anyone. you learn a lot by doing it too. like directions, recovery discs are overrated. (not really but i though it sounded good.)

 

I've never made a recovery disk, but it's not a "backup" of your data, just of the OS, to make sure we're on the same page.

Why would the copy fail? Again, not being familiar with the process, I assume whatever method you use to create the disc verifies the integrity of the disc against a checksum. So, if it burned correctly then it's a de facto valid copy.

I would say caution is always a good trait, but in this case you can be confident that the discs will work correctly. You're probably good.

 

yah it does a verification process after you do the recovery discs.. like ssnseawolf says.. its not a backup of your data.. its just a backup to bring your pc back to default specs.. so if you have important data.. get a usb flash drive or external HDD and backup your data or burn it to dvds to be safe.. you can never have TOO much backed up.. cause all it takes is 1 drive to fail and you will WISH you backed up.. i deal with it daily and people just dont understand until its too late.. so backup often

 

I made backup discs for one of my customers on a new sony. needed to restore after some rookie tinkering on his part. long story short he tried the disks and they did NOT work. found out you cant boot from a dual layer dvd on the sony at least.

luckily i use driveimage XML and create images of all my machines for retail and easily restored using that. so make sure you have a backup of critical data, above that you can get back on your feet in no time with a standard windows disk. so either way make a backup using whatever you need to do.