I recently experienced a total crash :( and had to use my system recovery kit... Following 3 failed attempts at using the system restore feature and utilizing 3 different restore points. A Trojan virus had infiltrated my system. I had detected and removed the original in February with a virus scan. However the virus attached and corrupted the system restore file. I have a Sony Vaio, Windows XP and Norton Internet security. Though system recovery is a blessing the steps to retrieve data (i.e. Microsoft and windows updates) are very time consuming... Other than disabling system restore is there any way I can prevent this from recurring.

The System Restore feature does nothing for data and little for installed programs. System Restore basically takes a snapshot of your system configuration (primarily the Registry) at a point in time. No personal data files are preserved. Program entries in the Registry are copied, but not the program files themselves. System Restore is NOT a replacement for a good backup policy.

My backup policy works like this:

1) Partition drives. I partition my drives into at least 3 partitions. The C drive is only for the OS. The D drive stores all my data files. The E drive stores all my programs (executables).

2) Clone drives. The C and E drives are cloned using Norton Ghost whenever a significant change is made.

3) File backups. The D drive gets backed up daily with an incremental (changed files) with a full backup weekly.

In this way, if something goes bad, I can restore a clone of my C drive and be back in operation quickly. If I lose a data file, I can restore it easily.