A system, method and computer program product for providing “bare metal” computer hardware with full operating system capabilities, including: (a) executing software contained in computer hardware read-only memory; (b) transferring software control to a location of a start-up program; (c) performing initialization of devices of the computer hardware; (d) selecting an origin storage device for restoration of an operating system to a destination storage device of the computer hardware; (e) establishing a connection with an origin for restoration of an operating system to the computer hardware; (f) initiating a transfer of the operating system data from selected origin to the computer hardware; (g) performing optional substitution of the computer hardware drivers; (h) performing optional structural modifications to the restored operating system; and (i) restoring the operating system to the computer hardware from a data storage device located either locally or remotely, from full or incremental operating system backup.