A computer recovery system provided on a removable high capacity disk. In the event that a user encounters an abnormal operating condition, the user inserts the removable high capacity disk into the computer and restarts the computer. The computer boots either directly from the removable high capacity disk or from a floppy disk which transfers control to the removable high capacity disk. The removable high capacity disk includes all of the files necessary to load the computer operating system and launch the graphical user interface of the operating system such that the user is provided with a familiar operating environment. The removable high capacity disk also includes a suite of software recovery software which attempt to ascertain and correct the cause of the abnormal operating condition to return the computer system to a normal operating condition. In the event the recovery system cannot correct the cause of the abnormal operating condition, the user may continue working with files located on the hard disk within the computer or perform a restore operation from an archive.