[color=blue]Bilbo & I have an IBM and a Compaq....the IBM gave us no end of grief...and IBM service sucks bigtime!!! After 2 years & 2 replacement computers(cause it kept frying the motherboards)we finally got the damn thing running as it should.

The Compaq on the other hand has been an absolute dream

We checked out a lot of systems til we chose this one...and we did not want one with recovery disks (see Wombats comment for why)...But!

Recovery disks have come a long way....the Compaq has a partitioned drive which stores the recovery information...if you want to get rid of this partition...the computer burns you a set of recovery disks...
The newer recovery system does not wipe your entire system...how do we know...we tested it in store before we bought it....it replaces damaged files but leaves your personal files intact!!!

The Compaq came with XP....but then i'm a supporter of XP...i love it...we have not had any problems with it that couldn't be fixed with some minor tweaking or updating of Drivers and such...

Though ultimately it comes down to personal choice[color]

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