One major risk while performing a recovery process is that the data on the primary partition of the Hard disk (Generally the C drive) may be deleted. In most cases the configuration settings and the user data (Documents & Settings) will be deleted. Hence the owner of the computer should be made aware of the possible consequences when using Recovery CD.
In case of Data loss after the recovery process, one option to recover the data is to search for any of the old files using Windows search. As in case of recovery process the Hard drive is not formatted. The data might still be on the drive but their original directory may be renamed during the process. If one file is found then it becomes easier to find the rest of them.
The Windows XP operating system CD can even be used as a recovery disk & it's a combination of a recovery disk and also an installation disk. But few OEM versions do not have the Recovery Console option on it. They would only have the repair option.
