Hi
Part of the solution to having your data safe and your computer easy to recover when things go wrong, is how you organize your computer to start with.
So, this is my opinion on how to do it, it works for me.
As Bear said, I totally discount Microsoft's solutions in this area.
One, if you can, have a separate drive just for Windows, if that's not possible then Put it on it's own partition.
I don't save any of my data, or install any of my non Microsoft programs on this drive or partition.
When I install a new software program I change the "C":\ in the install address to "D" and the installation goes to D:\Program Files, or D:\Program Files (x86) just as it would on the "C" drive.
The end result is that my C:\drive is only 40 Gigabytes, and my software it not effected by anything that happens to my C:\ drive.
Almost all security issues and problems that would cause your computer to not boot will happen on this drive.
All of my data goes on another hard drive, or partition, this includes my image backup files.
Now, you only have to worry about backing up the C:\ drive using some kind of software.
You should backup your important data files to an external hard drive, manually (just copy them) not using compression software.
You can use software to do this, (Todo backup will do this too) but I prefer to not have to rely on software to restore them from compressed files if I need to, (Bad experience in the past).
Use backup software to make a System Image file!!!
I use EaseUS Todo backup, but there are a lot of options.
Even it the worst happens and you completely lose the C:\ drive to a virus or corrupt system files, or the drive just dies, you can have your computer back up and running in no time.
Only a couple of days ago, I was playing Tomb Raider when the power went off in our house.
It only stayed off for a few seconds but it was enough to mess up my computer.
It wouldn't boot, it couldn't repair itself, and it wouldn't give me access to my Restore Points.
But 22 minutes later everything was back up and running, because all I had to do was restore my system image file.
It's easy and it makes me feel a lot more relaxed, especially since I like to mess around with my computer and get into trouble some times, by tweaking things better left alone.
I've even had my computer fried by lightning and didn't lose anything important.
Never have anything you can't afford to lose saved in only one location.
Mike
