I've always thought it was a bit of a waste of time

I've never run into a problem which I couldn't sort out manually. If you can boot into it, it's fixable. If it's at the point where you can't boot into it, you'll either need to go in via someing like a Linux USB stick (Very handy - used this several times!) or if it's completely borked, start from scratch.

If you're asking what I think you're asking, you wouldn't be able take a fresh Windows install, hit "restore" and get all your programs, files, etc. etc. back. So as long as you back up and back up regularly, it's not much of an advantage - to me, anyway.

Another thing I disable is the indexing service. I have a pretty disciplined filing structure so I can always find things without it. It's just another waste of CPU usage.

But to re-iterate, for the love of God back up regularly! Put a reminder in your calendar! A chap at work had a system crash the other month; I managed to sort him out but you didn't want to see his face when he realised that he may lost all the photos of his son growing up, etc.!

Posted By: Iwan Husarmi, Jul 22, 16:32:00