Why Backup The Operating System Partition?

By now you should know that "Your recovery depends on your last back up."

That means if you have never done a back up then your recovery will be just that - zero.

However if you have setup a back up system and do your data backup on a scheduled basis your recovery will go smother.

But (he says) what if you get a virus that is destructive or a driver up date that causes a BSOD?

You have a couple of options when this happens:

• Wipe your drive and reload the OS
• Or reinstall the image you made.

When something trashes your OS drive you just put your image back on and do a little bit of updating things like the latest service packs (if it was a driver that caused your problem then skip that one!) and you are done in less than an hour! (Most of the time it is around 20-30 minutes).

What! You don't know what an Operating System image is?

I have been using Symantec Ghost32/64 for a very long time.

When I finish a build with all the security and optimization complete I make an image, I call this the base image. Then I install all the programs, optimize, and customize then once that is done I make another image.

Once in a while I will update a program or add another program to my computer or even [Gasp!] uninstall a program or two. Then I make another image. [Be careful you can fill up a very large drive with images in a short period of time.  :)  ].

Troubleshoot, repair, maintain, upgrade & secure...     With this!

(Remember that in a life time of a normal computer is three years, the processor increases by two times in speed every 18 months! And then there is memory it also increases in speed every 2 years or so. Don't forget hard drive capacity, those things are amazing!).

You should be able to get at least eight maybe ten years out of the motherboard with upgrades of the processor and memory, may be a new 10 TB drive once in a while :)

Thanks for reading my articles on how to build a computer, if you did the research and compared that sum with a Pre Manufactured computer I hope you realized that if you build vs. buying your computer you will get higher quality, at a cheaper price, and it will be upgradeable.

Resources:

My special book on how to Build a Custom PC.

Here is a page about creating a backup image of your OS drive.

Instead of using a separate boot device or bootable media you could do this: Dual Boot.