Can a recovery disk corrupt a HDD?

[iamkion132]

I was attempting to repair a computer at my workplace and I used a recovery disk that came with a laptop because it had SP 2 on it and I couldn't find the recovery disk for the computer that normally came with it. I was able to install and actiavte windows but I just got a call a couple of minutes ago from the person using the computer that it wasn't booting. This is the second time that something like this happened with the same computer. The thing is that I was able to join it to the domain, use the network etc for a short while that I was making sure that it worked.

 

[Demon10000]

It all depends on the recovery disk.

It shouldn't corrupt the disk, but it could cause problems with it, especially since it wasn't intended for the machine it was installed on.

Isn't booting... as in "insert system disk and press any key" or WinXP is hanging on startup? My guess is either a dying hard drive or a user who likes to install troublesome software!