Backing up your system!
c/p
Wouldn't it be great if every time something went wrong with your Windows set-up you could just click a few buttons and have everything restored to its original state in a matter of minutes? Well it can be done, very simply and all for free as usual.
What you need to do is get hold of some "imaging" software. What this will do is store an exact copy of your fully functioning Windows installation in a compressed format, which can at a later date be restored to its former glory when things start to go wrong. The best imaging program around at the moment is without a doubt Norton's Ghost. This is very quick and simple to use and runs from DOS so is capable of backing up all those system files which are inaccessible while you're actually within the Windows interface.
This backup process isn't as complicated as it sounds. All you have to do is store your Windows set-up on one partition of your hard drive and backup to a separate partition. The reason for this becomes clear after you have restored your backup to a partition that is already full of valuable data and find that it is all wiped out as a result! Unless you are using "Partition Magic" you will have to start with a formatted hard drive and use "fdisk", which is a DOS executable which comes as standard with Windows 95, 98 and Me. Make sure you are in DOS (not within the Windows environment, but in "real" DOS mode) now type fdisk and select create new partition. It is advisable to use somewhere between 1.5 and 2 gigabytes of your hard drive for your boot partition which will contain your Windows installation and any other essential applications. Now create an extended partition to be used for everything else you wish to store on your hard drive. Re-boot your computer and format both partitions using the command "format c:" followed by "format d:", re-install Windows to your c: drive and then backup the whole partition to your extended d: drive partition using Norton Ghost. Of course if you already have more than one hard drive installed you can skip all of this and simply back up to your second drive although this will involve wasting a hell of lot of space. The main reason for all this partitioning is to make more efficient use of the space you have available. When you backup a partition you can't select which bits you want to compress and which bits you don't, it's either all or nothing. For example if you have two 20 gigabyte drives and you store your Windows installation on one of them and everything else on the other, when you backup what's on your boot partition everything is compressed and stored in a single file not just your Windows and Program Files folders. The upshot of this is that when you decompress this image file back onto your drive you lose everything else which you may have stored on it after making your backup and this is why it is best to have a small-ish partition just for Windows.
Once you have installed Ghost within the Windows environment exit to real DOS using your boot disk and enter your Ghost installation directory. Now copy the main executable (ghost.exe) to your extended partition and run it from there. It is very important that you don't run the file from the drive you wish to backup. This is the only file you really need to perform a successful backup within DOS so if you know someone who already has this file you may want to see if they will e-mail it to you (it's only about 600 kb) rather than downloading the whole program yourself, which is about 14 mb. I'm sure the nice chaps at Norton spent a long time programming the extra Windows utilities which come as standard with Ghost, but in my opinion it's just unnecessary fluff. Now simply select the create image option from the menu, choose the drive you wish to back up, as well as the drive you want to store the image on, give it a name and press the OK button and voila, everything should be safely backed up to a single compressed archive, ready and waiting to save your PC from the dreaded blue screen of death in the future. It's worth remembering at this point that this system image is a file like any other so it can be moved around, deleted, backed up to a CD-R, chewed, sat on etc etc.
Now when Windows inevitably starts doing strange, unexplainable things or simply refuses to load (curse you Microsoft!) you can just format your primary partition and restore your original Windows set-up using Ghost. This process can seem a bit daunting at first so let me explain it in a bit more detail. Before doing anything as a drastic as wiping out your Windows partition make sure you have created a boot disk for yourself. This can be done via your Windows control panel in Windows 9? or Me, but is a bit more awkward in Windows 2000, especially if you're using a ripped version (which doesn't include the necessary boot disk creation files). The data for the standard Windows 2000 boot disk, well boot disks actually, occupies four floppies. God only knows what the justification for this is, but if you're one of the people without the option to create this boot disk you can use Norton's make boot disk command from within Windows (OK, I admit this is one of the less fluffy options!). When you've got your boot disk stick it in your floppy drive and reboot your computer. Providing your computer has been set up to first read from the floppy drive before looking for your Windows installation on your hard drive, your boot disk will take the reigns and boot your computer into real DOS mode. If on the other hand when you reboot your computer ignores the floppy completely and boots into Windows as usual will have to edit your BIOS settings. To do this press the reset button, wait for your computer's stats to appear in that familiar black and white table and press the delete key (if you're unsure of exactly when to do this just keep hammering your delete key until something happens or look out for the "press the del key now to enter your BIOS" message!). From the basic settings section of your BIOS menu you should be able to select your first, second, third and fourth boot device. Make sure your floppy drive is selected as the first boot device followed by your hard drive, save the settings and reboot once again.
Once you arrive at the DOS prompt, format your Windows partition using the command format c:/q - the q switch allows you to format a previously formatted drive in a matter of seconds rather than minutes. If you've never formatted before leave out the switch and twiddle your thumbs while you wait. Formatting isn't strictly necessary at this stage as Ghost will overwrite everything for you, but I like to be thorough to make sure everything runs smoothly. Now to restore your compressed image file enter your Ghost installation direction using the cd command and type "ghost". Browse through the menu until you come to the restore image option, select it, locate your image file and then press the OK button. Tell Ghost where you want to extract it to (i.e the c: drive) and click OK. When the decompression process is complete, reset your computer and let it boot into Windows as usual. And finally (take a deep breath!) step back from your screen in astonishment and admire your brand new, good as the day it was first installed Windows set up. Once you recover from the shock of how easy all this was you can proceed to fill up your computer with useless programs and games that you'll never use, safe in the knowledge that you can wipe the whole lot out and restore your set up whenever you like with a few simple steps.
Other program I like and have use that done me good in the past Acronis.
And Terabyte Unlimited make good programs also worth a try also.
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/
http://www.acronis.com/
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