I've had problems with previous computers, yet never ever been advised by the help line to use the recovery aspect of the hard drive (the most useful advice I received from one helpline guy was to switch off, remove the battery and wait 30 seconds before replacing the battery and powering-up the system). Whenever I've asked about the recovery partition I have been told 'forget it' and I've never found instructions anywhere as to actually how or when it might be useful.
What I have done (when my hard drive was warning of impending failure) was to remove the hard drive and get it cloned by PCW*rld onto a new (larger capacity) hard drive.