I recently had a near death experience where my system wouldn't boot after a Windows Update. I was finally able to fix it but it made me realize next time I might not be so lucky. So questions:
- There used to be (I'm thinking back to Windows XP) a way to create a recovery CD (maybe USB now) that could boot my system. And then from that boot up, copy files if Windows is truly screwed up but in most cases roll back update(s). Does that still exist? Is it worth doing? And if so, what/how?
- I presently use Carbonite to back up my system. If I lose my computer (problematic windows update, drive crash, theft), while I have all the files, I still need to go reinstall all the apps, etc. so the registry is all correct. Is there a way to back up an image of my drive so that I can, assuming I have the same type computer/hard drive, can then write that image to the new hard drive? (And then do a Carbonite restore to catch any changes since the last disk imaging.)
Update:
Here's my question - what should I be doing to backup my system to handle all issues from a problematic Windows update to theft of my computer? I think the answer breaks down to one of two basic approaches:
- Is it stick with Carbonite and recovery means start with a freshly formatted hard drive, install Windows, download all of Carbonite, then reinstall all my programs.
- Image the hard drive, create a bootable recovery disk, use one of them to get my existing hard drive back. The use Carbonite to download any files changed since the imaged copy of the disk (if have to use that).
Based on the initial comments, I'm leaning toward option #1. It's a very rare (hopefully never) event and so, if it happens, just rebuild. But if there's a better solution for some of these cases, please let me know.