Per Flasherly:
As one who re-images as soon as I even *think* the system might
be getting goofy, I've got to get this working for myself.
Is the bottom line that you have a really-fast USB stick set up
to boot the restore environment - plus a faster-than-usual DVD
drive?
When building, a bit of both -- what's needed for whatever the BIOS
supports, utilities of course on a DVD already set up for that that,
partitioning, file and boot manager -- added odds and ends later or
located elsewhere for polishing it off with a fast, quad-channel flash
drive.
Actual imaging is then limited to FAT32, although I haven't much need
for other than one smaller NTFS partition for tokens when running into
odd instances of greater than 4G files, exceeding FAT32 technological
capacity.
At least two, three images are good, consecutively dated back in
directories accompanied with a brief text file for each image to
explain to yourself changes, notably program installs and any OS
adjustments made since or between the prior imagine. Pretty much all
on a rotational scheme. I've a 6G partition for holding imagines, 4G
for the prime OS, and a subprime DOS, hardly nothing in size, to boot
to when rewriting the prime. I also defragment the imaging drive from
the inner- to outer-drive by placing images into the inner-track
portion (UltraDefrag is the only one I'm aware that will accomplish
that).
Indulgence, then, is a big benefit. Let those new programs sit
awhile, if there's in the least a question, to stew in good practice
before incorporating them into the backup structures. Though rare,
there have been a couple of instances of programs placed into the last
image I decided subsequently against, and removed by going back to
prior images of three available. As well, as you mention, a regular
regime to imaging upon a hint of instability upon internet-borne
compromises. Plenty of those where I've needed images to get my ass
out of a crack in the nick of time.
Laziness will add some toll over the long run -- the hardware support
drivers, other overlooked orphans that aren't properly removed as time
and equipment marches on and imaging overhead slowly increase their
size.
I suspect I got into this imagining stuff back around Windows 98, when
given a complimantary copy of Ghost for DOS with a 600Mhz slotted AMD
Athlon, included with Biostar MB purchase. Biostars break, but other
than watching for transfer rate issues over newer chipped MBs, the
Ghost revisions keep on ticking between. System cleaning and driver
removal utility tools have since advanced and are much more
sophisticated, but I haven't really learned them well enough to
compliment imagining or to comment and personally recommend
namesakes. I like Comodo as one, my regular firewall for constant
usage, although some do speak highly of its installation monitor and
removal tool, the same company since has released.
lugins"