About restoring the system, drivers etc.

chasthur

Yes - up to a point.

Consider what you do not have backed up .....

Critical Updates and Patches for the OS including quite possibly the last Service Pack - SP 2

Software updates, definition updates for your antivirus, firewall, antispyware, etc, etc.

Program settings, tweaks and I would put money on the fact that there is some data which is not backed up - address book, emails, favourites, etc

To restore your computer after a major crash would take you some considerable time and there is no doubt that you would be able to restore it to something close to what you had before the crash.

A disk image can be restored in a matter of minutes, not hours. Only rider here is that you must obviously have an up to date image so disk imaging should be a weekly task.

If your drive is partitioned it is really only necessary to image the OS partition if, as you say, you back up all your data - if this is on a separate partition - on the same regular basis, preferably more often. My data is backed up automatically every hour to one drive, weekly to another and the OS partition imaged weekly.

It's your call

 

I agree with what Pete wrote. Separating the system and programs from user data is the best one can do to increase reliability and "crash resistance ". If every computer was set up like that, aspirin would be saved due to less headaches.

A lot of the backing up can be automated, even the system can be imaged while up and running but I prefer to create the images of my system partition booted to DOS (good old trusted Ghost 2003). I don't do it on a weekly basis but when something has been changed. More often, it happens on a monthly basis after the batch of updates to Windows and Office.

I also do a "general cleanup" and defragment the system partition prior to creating the new image. That too keeps the computer in a good working order.

Christer

 

Chas

If you need any further advice/guidance you know where we are