wtf is the point of the system restore disk.......

Ok kids,

So, i was putting more ram into my PC, and i didn't close the case yet because i wanted to check to make sure that it found the ram before i closed my case, but then the phone rang, i had to go pick up my brother, blah, blah, blah, and I did not get back to my pc that day.

Then the next day i turn the pc on and start xp,
a couple minutes later the pc just quits, and i notice this awful smell.
I turn around and look at my case,
and theres my (male) cat!
Now, we had just got another cat in the house,
and you know what male cats do to mark their territory......
HE SPRAYED ALL OVER MY COMPUTER!!
Now, after hours and hours of scrubbing to get the smell out,
luckily, the only thing it hit is the case, power supply, my hard drive. Im a mac user so im not very emotional about the loss of my pc hard drive.
But anyway, i get a new hard drive and power supply so im back in business. But i go to grab my gateway operating system restore cd to reinstall windows 98 (yes i said 98......)
So i pop in the cd,
boot up, and i select format and reinstall windows, do all that, and it aks me to reboot, and i do, then it asks me to insert my windows cd,
ok, if i had a windows cd, why would i be using the system restore disk?!
Does the system restore disk no longer install windows or what??


Whats up with that?
Can i do anything?


Thanks,
Tanner.

No clue. Most computers ship without a windows cd and only a system restore disk that will reinstall windows.

But, considering that you are posting in this forum you must be familiar with 'other' methods of getting a copy of windows. I would recommend XP, system requirements are fairly low and it's highly superior.

System restored disk is only useful if u bought ur computer form some company. It basically gives a u a clean installation when u mess something up. i think its better of paying for windows xp cd rather than installing all the ad infested stuff these companies install.

The best thing to do would probably be to download an OEM copy of whichever OS you're using, and write zeros to the hard drive with a boot disk. Then properly format it without all the pre-installed garbage the give you. You will have to activate windows(by phone) so make sure that you have a key on hand.