Maybe your PC won't' boot. Or it could be infected with some kind of persistent malware. Perhaps Wind9ws puts up a Blue Screen of Death every time you type the word aardvark.

No matter what kind of trouble your computer is having, someone will probably tell you to reformat your hard drive, reinstall Windows and your applications, and then restore 'your documents, photos,' and music from a backup.

Don't take that step until you've tried everything, however. If your PC refuses to boot, see "Diagnose and Repair an Unbootable XP or Vista PC" and "Six Downloadable Boot Discs That Could Save Your PC" for better options. If Windows boots and then horribly misbehaves, check for malware, remove unneeded autoloaders, and update your drivers. You might even consider cleaning the Registry-not something I advise lightly, however; see "How Best Do I Clean My Registry?'. If (after doing all that) you determine that you must wipe out and reinstall Windows, follow these eight steps to make the process as safe and painless as possible.

MOST NEW pes come with a restore disc, making it easy to return your system's software to the same condition it was in when you originally pulled the machine out of the box.

Step 1: Find and Know Your Restore TooL
Before anything else, you will need some sort of bootable environment that can restore or reinstall your Windows OS-and not to worry, you probably do have one. All PCs that ship with Windows come with one of the following options. A restore disc is a bootable CD or DVD that can restore your hard drive to the exact contents it had when the PC left the factory. This means that in most instances the recovery disc will destroy all of your data-documents, photos, and so on while "saving" your system. Alternatively, some manufacturers don't ship a separate restore disc with your PC, but instead install software on the hard drive that you can use to create your own restore discs. If your computer did come with a restore disc, but you can't locate it, see "How Do I Restore Windows If I've Lost My Restore CD?".

A restore partition should be lying hidden on the hard drive. You access it by pressing a particular key combination at boot time. Check your documentation to learn whether you have one and (if so) how to access it. This partition does the same thing a restore disc does. An actual Microsoft Windows CD or DVD is the best restoration tool of all, of course, but unless you happened to buy an upgrade to a newer version of Windows, you probably don't have one-hence the alternatives that I have identified above.

Step 2: Gather Everything ELse You Need
Make sure that you have all of the following items before you take any further action.
• A driver backup: See "How Do I Back Up My Drivers?" for the necessary instructions.
• Backup media and software: You'll want an external hard drive (or better yet, two ofthem), some blank DVDs, and backup software. I'll cover some additional de¬tails later, in steps 3 and 4.
• Your applications: For every program you use that didn't come installed on your PC, you need the CDs they came on, their serial numbers, their registration codes, and so on. If you downloaded an application, make a backup of the download file or check to be sure that you can easily download it again.
• Time: In reality, this project will probably take only a few hours, but you should leave yourself a day of wiggle room in the event that you can't locate an important driver or software disc. In any event, it is best to tackle this project at the start of a long holiday, or at least over a weekend, to avoid disrupting your work or business if something goes wrong.
• A good book or some other diversion: You're going to spend a chunk of time in front of a nonworking computer. If the machine is a laptop, plop it down on the coffee table so that you can watch a little TV while the installers are running.

Step 3: Create an Image Backup of Your Hard Drive
In the unlikely event that something goes wrong (for instance, you forget to save a copy of an important presentation you need for work on Monday), you'll be glad you made an image backup of your hard drive in its current state so that you can quickly and easily restore everything to that state. Resist the temptation to skip this step, as it really is your most reliable safety net.

Attachment 11010

What should you back up to? An external hard drive they're fast, cheap, and easy to work with. For best results, pick one that's at least twice the size of all the data you have. If your 160GB hard drive has 90GB of data on it, a 200GB external drive will make a good choice. With 500GB and ITB drives now readily available and reasonably priced, though, I suggest that you go as big as you can afford; that way you can save more than one copy of your files to the drive, or even use its roomy storage to back up multiple PCs. And what software should you use? Norton Ghost (find, pcworld.com/62353) and Acronis True Image are the two best known image-backup programs, but they aren't the only ones. Check your regular backup program (you do back up regularly, don't you?) for an image-backup feature, quite likely labeled Disaster Recovery. The backup software that came with your external drive might have something similar, too.

Both Vista Business and Vista Ultimate have built-in image backup. To use this feature, click Stan, type backup, select Backup Status and Corifiguration, and press <Enter>. Click Complete PC Backup, and then choose Create a backup now. For everybody else, free options are available. I recommend using Runtime Software's Drivelmage XML. Remember, though, that an image backup is use¬less if you can't boot from a CD or a DVD to restore it. Both Ghost and True Image come with tools for creating just such a disc. If you opt to use Vista's backup tool instead, make sure that you have either a true Windows Vista DVD or the Vista Recovery Disc available for recovery purposes. You can recover a Drivelmage XML backup via the Ultimate Boot CD for Windows .

Step 4: Make a Data Backup
Yes, in step 3 I just had you create a backup of everything on your hard drive, including your data, But the purpose of that first backup was to add an extra layer of security. This second, data only backup will make restoring your data, once you reinstall Windows, easier. See "What's the Best Way to Back Up What I Need to Back Up?" for two lists (for XP and Vista) of Windows' » data-holding folders. But don't worry about the software I recommend in that article-at the mo¬ment, you just need to drag (copy) those folders to a safe location.

That location can be, once again, an external hard drive. If you're as paranoid as I am, you'll ideally use an external drive different from the one employed for your image backup. That's safer than putting all of your backups onto one hard drive. If you have only a few gigabytes of data files, burning them to DVD is a good, cheap solution.

Step 5: Reformat, Restore, and Recover
Now comes the main event. I can't give you specific, accurate instructions for using your recovery tool; because I don't know what recovery tool you have. Just boot into it and follow the prom.pts. They are all designed to be as simple as possible.

Step 6: Make Windows Your Own Congratulations. You now have a new version of Windows, configured exactly the way Microsoft and/or your system vendor likes it (or the way they liked it at the time you bought your PC).

This is a starting-point version of Windows, so you have to configure it, remove any preinstalled junk, install your own software, and generally make it yours once again. This is, in my opinion, the longest and most annoying part of the job, and in step 7 I'll ten you how to avoid it in the future. But for now, do the following.
a. In Control Panel's Users applet, create log-ons for yourself and any other users. You'll need to have at least one administrator-level user.
b. Remove any bundled programs that you don't want to keep. I recommend using the free version of Revo Un installer for this job.
c. Restore your backed-up drivers. You probably can skip the drivers for anything that came with your PC, as your restore tool likely creates a version of Windows already set up with them.
d. Download and install any Windows updates.
e. Starting with your security software, install all of the programs you use that didn't come with the Pc. Update them, and then configure them to your liking.
f. Rearrange the Start menu to suit your preferences.
g. Select the wallpaper, screen saver, power settings, and so on, of your choice.


Step 7: Create Another Image Backup
No, I'm not kidding. This step isn't strictly necessary, but if you ever have to restore Windows to the same PC again, you can simply back up your personal data, restore this fresh and clean image backup, and put your data back in its place. Where the restore tool restores Microsoft's or your vendor's Windows configuration, not yours, this image will serve as your own, customized restore tool-so you can skip step 6 the next time around. Because you have not yet copied your data back to the hard drive, this image will be relatively small. You should put the image on a series of writable DVDs rather than on an external drive, label the discs clearly with today's date (and as being a series of restore discs for Windows, of course), and store them away in a safe place.

Step 8: The Final Touch
With Windows ready and recoverable, restore your data from the data backup with a few simple drags and drops. In the unlikely event of damage to the data backup, you can restore it from the image backup. Keep both backups around for a month or so, just in case you missed restoring an important file. And that's it. Now, finally, you can sigh, relax, treat yourself to something decadent, and get on with your life