Hi Shane, on my laptop I have 2 CDs (Recovery # 1 and # 2) that I have created, as suggested by the manufacturer ACER, as soon as I started to use the PC (in 2009). In practice, these two CDs contain the image of the back-up of Win Vista PC as I was sold.
Not being very experienced I can not tell if the Windows Recovery partition is accessible from BIOS.
Thanks also to dvdbane for the suggestions.
Felix.