I do the same myself, with the exception of an SSD,
which I'd love to have, but cannot afford due to unemployment.

When I clone the drive, it also clones the MBR. So, when my rig acts up and I can't fix it easily, I just pop out the offending drive, pop in the clone, boots right up, even in a dual boot situation. Of course, this requires that you have a spare HDD lying around. I have 3, one for each OS.

I like cloning because it only takes minutes, rather than hours, to make and restore. The trick is cloning regularly, I didn't this time. My reason for posting this is that I haven't cloned in a while, so the clone I have is from October. I didn't really wanna go back that far if I could help it. But I did and I am now running October's drive. I backed up a few things first. Now, once I'm sure this install is right, I'll clone it, and then I try to clone at least every two weeks.

I may start an incremental backup on my 1 TB drive.

I wanna SSD!!!!!!   Got a spare lying around Fuzzy?   lol  

Yrag, it'll be over at about 9 tonight.

Clone once a week....less likely to 'lose' as much.

Use something like 'Syncback' to do a DAILY backup to an independent drive of such things considered 'important'...such as work files/docs, etc .... they can be incremental backups....handy or minor cock-ups like hard resets/brown-outs that trash your current work.

As things stay 'reliable' you dump the older clones so you're not wasting space.

Minimum requirements are gonna be 3 drives.... one for OS.... one for cloned images.... a third for file backups.  You can have other 'junk' on any of them...but the IMPORTANT stuff should be separated into the three.

If you get really anal.... secondary redundancy backups to a 4th drive.... that one can take both the clones and the files from Syncback.

All of it can be 'idiot proof' in that it's set and forget.  That way you don't put it off when you most discover you really needed it.

Of course...if you're networked to other machines you can have stuff 'off site' as well... so even the theft of the machine isn't a total disaster.

That's an awful lot to do. When I got my external it came with WD (Western Digital) Software. Does continuous backup as I work. No need to schedule anything. A 1TB drive is really big. So I guess you could say its a mirror image of my C Drive. Plus I can add to it if i want. One of those happy accidents. I didn't know about the software when i got the drive.

That's a bit fatalistic...I'm certain we can fix it in spite of your best efforts to the contrary.

.........let me know if you want your feelings hurt in public or private.

Yes...get Acronis True Image!

And....listen to gary!

yup.

You pick....I'm feeling lucky....

Oh man! Your a glutton for punishment aren't you! 

OK Lucky, let's review:

I think you're being charitable

I'd need hip boots to wade through that much bullshit.

Did you think of those all on your own, 'cause I never mentioned them. I told you to boot from the Win 7 DVD and restore. Did that somehow not fit into your computer savvy mentality because I see no reference anywhere that you gave that the old grade school try.

I'm not sure I can adequately express my feelings on that one.... it makes my fuckin' head hurt too much....

Did you miss school the day they taught to RTFM or don't hillbilly schools get to that grade?

Now, I want you to write this down;

Don't clone. Backup drive.

Don't leave it to your memory to do it. Set TI scheduler to do it on a daily basis (although on that tight ship you run, you might have to do it 3 or 4 times a day since your fuckups are instantaneous and numerous).

I do hope you had a fine Christmas.

Love

yrag

Boot into safe mode and system restore will work. I've done this dozens of times.

Words cannot express how much I'm choking from laughing so hard! Priceless!

Never have I seen anyone use that and it worked...but if it worked for you more power to you...seriously!

Of course, the easiest solution would be --->
and then

I would not want yrag on my case. He's a bully ... in a nice sort of way. But ya gotta admit yrag knows his stuff so maybe having him on your case is not such a bad thing after all. Now to go run and hide before he shoots me.

(Hands over eyes ... don't see me, I'm hiding)

hehehe

He shoots, he scores.

Whats a matter wirh you folks on here Christmas day. Should be time to play with the toys. Oh well, since i'm on here might as well say

Merry Christmas to all.