Windows Disk
As a Windows user, you will now and then come into a situation when something does not work right. All of a sudden the system does not boot, or there are strange errors. Too many people just panic in such situations and end up simply reinstalling the whole system, without even trying to repair the problem.
Indeed taking care of a Windows system that has stopped booting properly can be quite arduous, since Windows itself does not offer too many built-in recovery tools (although it does have some, see windows recovery console or Booting In Safe Mode for a few examples of using them). If you have an OEM Windows, like most people these days, it is likely that you don't even have an original Windows bootable CD which you could use to try and repair your installation.
As a precaution - or even after things go bad, if you have another PC with net access - it is a good idea to create yourself your own Windows boot disk. There are various ways to do that, but the one which is probably easiest and fastest for most people is to use the Spotmau PowerSuite universal Windows boot CD:
Spotmau PowerSuite 2009
If you can't afford that (or feel like you are up to the task) you can also try and create your own Windows boot disk. For older Windows versions like Windows 95-98 or Windows Me, it is possible to do it entirely manually, but you will not be able to boot in the graphic mode with that - all you will get is a basic MS-DOS prompt. This process is described in Creating A Bootdisk.
Newer Windows versions do not have that option anymore and rely entirely on bootable CDs, which are quite hard to create manually.
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