Rescue/Recovery disks for older model Dells

You need a Windows XP Reinstallation CD. Likely Dell DataSafe didn't exist at the time your model was released.

Dell Optiplexes do not come with a CTRL F11 recovery partition.  Only Dell Dimensions do.

Aka a GX280 doesnt have one but a Dimension 8400 does have a GHOST image at the end of the drive.

Recovery is done with the Dell Green XPSP2 CD and the Resource CD that has the drivers for your model Optiplex.

A full set is often 4 or more seperate CD'S

Thanks for the response.  Unfortunately, I don't have these with me any more and I was hoping to create them (like you can do with the more recent machines).  I've had hard drives on two of my computers die recently. In both cases I had to buy the rescue disks (one from Toshiba and teh other from HP) and since the Optiplex is older than either of these, I was hoping to have something in case its hard drive decides to die next!  Any idea if Dell even stocks these any more in case I do need to buy from them?

For US customers there is an online request form for Reinstallation Media. Give it a try otherwise look for a Dell Windows XP Professional Reinstallation CD on eBay. You only really need that as you can get the drivers from the Dell Drivers and Downloads website.